This is the first, and long-overdue, book of Charles Barsotti's dog cartoons. Barsotti's distinctive round pups, rendered in just a few simple lines, have been delighting The New Yorker readers for three decades and are instantly recognizable for their depiction of canines in human roles. The juxtaposition of their simple world, consisting only of food, play, and the goings-on of their owners, with the utterly human tasks of going to therapy, talking business, or seeing a lawyer, is both adorable and hilarious. A dog standing at a podium announces, "If elected, I promise to beg, fetch, and roll over." An older dog frowns down at a young pup and says, "Don't be smug, all puppies are cute." An angry dog with brush in hand paints a "BEWARE OF DOG" sign. With an irresistible blend of biting humor and affectionate observation, this is a perfect gift book for dog lovers everywhere.
Thanks to an ILL (interlibrary loan), this book came to my local library all the way from Ohio! Whoa. That's a long way to ship a book for one patron. It shows how dedicated libraries are.
Anyway, I was expecting the majority of the cartoons to be funny, but only about five were. Most of them didn't make sense to me.
I don’t find the majority of these funny. I laughed at just a handful of them. But that’s kind of typical for New Yorker cartoons - I just don’t find them funny. However, there were some that were ironic, or pointed, or sweet, to various levels of effectiveness, so on the whole it was an enjoyable read.
Really funny, fantastically drawn collection of cartoons that explore the incisive similarities between dog and man. Many punch-moments of recognition in here.
Love these cartoons! Best in hard back in my opinion. I keep it along with a few favorites on my coffee table. A chuckle every now and then when I walk by and pick it up for a few minutes or more!
A fine collection of Barsotti's dog cartoons from the New Yorker. Like many of the New Yorker's comics they are often clever while slightly melancholic though occasionally indecipherable. The drawing is consistently simple in a brilliant way.