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Sit!: Ancestral Dog Portraits
Originally published in 1993, Sit! was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times and was excerpted in Harper's magazine and The New York Times Book Review. George Booth, writing in the NYTBR, called it "the best of humor....Delightful!" while Cosmopolitan pronounced it "irresistible."
Renamed Remembrance of Dogs Past, this fetching collection of 70 disarmingly funny portraits is as fresh and funny as ever. Beginning with an 18th- or 19th-century ancestral portrait, Thierry Poncelet seamlessly paints in a dog's head over the original human subject's. The resulting tour de force is a fantasy that looks uncannily real, the dogs appearing all too human in their military regalia or elaborate gowns. And for a glorious twist, New Yorker humorist Bruce McCall names each dog and offers a brilliant tongue-in-cheek biographical sketch. Thus there's Lord Gristle (black Labrador), proprietor of a vast tabloid chain, with dark memories of rolled-up newspapers; Marie-Claire DuBossy (white poodle), who shocked France's poetry circles by refusing to beg; and Percival Horace Denbeigh (Jack Russell terrier), Britain's foremost military correspondent, with an infallible nose for news.
It's a howl.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 11, 1993
13 people want to read
About the author
Bruce McCall
32 books5 followersBruce McCall was a Canadian author and illustrator, best known for his frequent contributions to The New Yorker.
Born and raised in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada, he was fascinated by comic books and showed an early aptitude for drawing fantastical flying machines, blimps, bulbous-nosed muscle cars and futuristic dioramas.
In his memoir, Thin Ice Coming of Age in Canada, McCall admitted that he was never good at physical activity as a boy, but could count on his mother to encourage his creativity. Bruce's father T.C. was imperious and unemotional, and left his alcoholic wife Peg without the attention she needed. Peg and the children tried to strike an attachment to him, but his stormy moods frequently pushed them aside.
Without any serious technical training, McCall began his illustration career drawing cars for Ford Motor Company in Toronto in the 1950s. After several decades in advertising, he sought opportunities elsewhere in the publishing industry.
He went to New York City, and was hired by National Lampoon and made a name for himself as an artist with intelligent and whimsical humor. McCall also spent a brief period writing sketches for Saturday Night Live.
McCall illustrated magazine covers, regularly appearing in The New Yorker and other magazines. He has been a contributor to the magazine since 1979.
McCall was also a humourist, and had written essays on some of the social ironies of modern life. He writes frequently for the "Shouts & Murmurs" section of The New Yorker.
McCall lived on the Upper West Side of New York near Central Park.
Born and raised in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada, he was fascinated by comic books and showed an early aptitude for drawing fantastical flying machines, blimps, bulbous-nosed muscle cars and futuristic dioramas.
In his memoir, Thin Ice Coming of Age in Canada, McCall admitted that he was never good at physical activity as a boy, but could count on his mother to encourage his creativity. Bruce's father T.C. was imperious and unemotional, and left his alcoholic wife Peg without the attention she needed. Peg and the children tried to strike an attachment to him, but his stormy moods frequently pushed them aside.
Without any serious technical training, McCall began his illustration career drawing cars for Ford Motor Company in Toronto in the 1950s. After several decades in advertising, he sought opportunities elsewhere in the publishing industry.
He went to New York City, and was hired by National Lampoon and made a name for himself as an artist with intelligent and whimsical humor. McCall also spent a brief period writing sketches for Saturday Night Live.
McCall illustrated magazine covers, regularly appearing in The New Yorker and other magazines. He has been a contributor to the magazine since 1979.
McCall was also a humourist, and had written essays on some of the social ironies of modern life. He writes frequently for the "Shouts & Murmurs" section of The New Yorker.
McCall lived on the Upper West Side of New York near Central Park.
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