Addams and Evil

by Charles Addams

A collection of Addams' cartoons.

Genres: Comics, Humor, Cartoon, Graphic Novels, Art, Horror, Fiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

The macabre humor and Gothic settings characterized many cartoons, first apparent in the New Yorker, of known American cartoonist Charles Samuel Addams.

Chas Addams best created "The Addams Family" comic characters, adapted for a variety of media. His signature style involved single panels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...

Reviews

[Calista · Rating 4 out of 5]

This are one picture captions you would see in a news paper by Charles Addams - the man who created the Addams family. There are some great panes in here of scenes that were put directly into the Addams family movie and TV show.

Charles Addams reminds me a lot of Edward Gorey. They both have a very wicked and dark sense of humor. I laughed many time reading this. He’s great at taking a normal situation and twisting it somehow slightly to make you think or get a laugh. I enjoyed this and might need to look for more work by Charles.

[Benjamin Chandler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Third Addams collection I've read in one day and there were some repeats from other books. Don't know how they collected them.

Anyway, a decent collection, especially if you like jokes about suicide.

The witchdoctor and cannibal jokes seemed uncomfortably dated, though.

[William Francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much fun

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to tell if they are actually repeating comics in these collections or if they are just starting to feel very familiar because I'm reading so many in a short span.

[Canavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

✭✭✭½

[Eden · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 bk 383: An earlier Addams, from 1947. My copy seems to be a Canadian edition. Most of the cartoons were not new to me as they have been reprinted in other sources, but what were new were the cartoons that placed New York City in a particular time and place. I had to do some looking up of NYC culture in the 1940's to figure a few of the cartoons points of view, and had fun doing that. A fun look into Addams own life and times.

[Kerri F · Rating 3 out of 5]

.
QUOTES

Beware of the Thing

Are you unhappy darling?
Oh, yes, yes! Completely.

Oh, I couldn't make it Friday-I've so many things to do. It's the thirteenth, you know.

[Heider Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, how I always wanted to read a collection of the original Charles Addams cartoons, and how hard it was to find! At least it was worth it. These are some normal looking situations - until you start to notice the details. There's a dark humor here, under the simplicity. There's also a lot of racism. Not something unexpected from some disturbing cartoons from the 40s. But the good cartoons are worth a lot.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

dark, bizarre humor; a few strips were completely over my head

[Sara Dallmayr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A childhood favorite.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

All killer, no filler.

[*Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I normally love anything related to the Addams Family, but this collection of New Yorker cartoons featuring this mysterious and spooky family is rather humorless. The good ones are few. There are racist ones (yes, this was first published in the 1940s) and some about suicide. Dark humor that is forgivable but not very funny. Overall, I guess I think this bunch is all together ooky.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a weird imagination! Many cartoons featuring the characters that would be known as the Addams family, as well as seemingly normal situations with a twist--a eye doctor prescribing glasses for a man with an eye in the center of his forehead, a man raking leaves--but with his wife tied to a tree, and young boys keeping busy--making coffins, discovering the formula to turn one into Mr Hyde, etc. There are a disturbing number of witch doctor-like cartoons that verge on the stereotypical.

[Judah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greatly amusing, however it looses a star due to the incredibly dated cannibal jokes. There seems to be two, 1) cannibalism and 2) witchdoctors (Addams finds this one particularly funny). Neither feel like they would have been particularly clever in 1947 and neither feel particularly clever now.

Still at least I get to see both my favorite movie related gages in good quality.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The cartoons in this collection were created in the 1940's and, although there are some classic Addams Family pieces, there are also dated racist drawings depicting Africans, and one making reference to First Nations and scalping. I took into consideration the time these were written and appreciated the dark and funny perspective of the work while seeing how casual the racism was at the time.

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely funny, absolutely beautiful and graceful art, but unfortunately pretty racist.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still don't understand some of these cartoons.

[Delta Gowen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was way more of a picture book that I thought but I enjoyed it still.

[Sheldon Wiebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes all you need is an uplifting laugh...

[Roger Burk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Signature Addams from 1947, including this prescient gem: A scientist in a lab coat walks down an assembly line of robots making more robots and wonders, "When will this ever end?"

[Michael Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collection of classic cartoons with the dark comedic whimsy of Charles Addams at his peak. The only downside to the the paperback edition is that a few of the comics are printed in low quality so the intricate details, and in some cases the humor, is obscured.

[G. Salter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Addams is always good if you're looking for something darkly comedic, and this book is no exception. There's a fine collection of cartoons of various kinds (including a few of his famous Addams family), plus an interesting introduction by Wolcott Gibbs which considers what makes Addams' contributions to the New Yorker so unique.

[SusanLors]

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