It's no secret that most New Yorker readers flip through the magazine to
look at the cartoons before they ever lay eyes on a word of the text.
But what isn't generally known is that over the decades a growing cadre
of women artists have contributed to the witty, memorable cartoons that
readers look forward to each week. Now Liza Donnelly, herself a renowned
cartoonist with the New Yorker for more than twenty years, has written
this wonderful, in-depth celebration of women cartoonists who have
graced the pages of the famous magazine from the Roaring Twenties to the
present day. An anthology of funny, poignant, and entertaining cartoons,
biographical sketches, and social history all in one, VeryFunny Ladies
offers a unique slant on 20th-century and early 21st-century America
through the humorous perspectives of the talented women who have
captured in pictures and captions many of the key social issues of their
time. As someone who understands firsthand the cartoonist's art,
Donnelly is in a position to offer distinctive insights on the creative
process, the relationships between artists and editors, what it means to
be a female cartoonist, and the personalities of the other New Yorker
women cartoonists, whom she has known over the years. Very Funny Ladies
reveals never-before-published material from The New Yorker archives,
including correspondence from Harold Ross, Katharine White, and many
others. This book is history of the women of the past who drew cartoons
and a celebration of the recent explosion of new talent from cartoonists
who are women. Donnelly interviewed many of the living female
cartoonists and some of their male counterparts: Roz Chast, Liana Finck,
Amy Hwang, Victoria Roberts, Sam Gross, Lee Lorenz, Michael Maslin,
Frank Modell, Bob Weber, as well as editors and writers such as David
Remnick, Roger Angell, Lee Lorenz, Harriet Walden (legendary editor
Harold Ross's secretary). The New Yorker Senior Editor David Remnick and
Cartoon Editor Emma Allen contributed an insightful foreword. Combining
a wealth of information with an engaging and charming narrative, plus
more than seventy cartoons, along with photographs and self-portraits of
the cartoonists, Very Funny Ladies beautifully portrays the art and
contributions of the brilliant female cartoonists in America's greatest
magazine.
