cover image How About Never—Is Never Good Enough for You? My Life in Cartoons

How About Never—Is Never Good Enough for You? My Life in Cartoons

Bob Mankoff. Holt, $32.50 (304p) ISBN 978-0-8050-9590-6

Mankoff’s (The Naked Cartoonist) memoir of life as the cartoon editor of the New Yorker, how he got there, and what he has seen and learned along the way, is a must-read for devotees of the magazine and is as funny as the best of his own work. The title is taken from what Mankoff calls “by far the most popular cartoon” he’s ever done, one that has become part of the American vernacular: a businessman talking into a telephone while looking at his appointment book, who says, “No, Thursday’s out. How about never—is never good for you?” Mankoff traces his career from his youth in New York City, when the fluent Yiddish spoken by his mother—a language “combining aggression, friendliness, and ambiguity, a basic recipe for humor”—heavily influenced him. The book generously displays New Yorker cartoons by Mankoff and others from earlier (Peter Arno, Charles Addams) and contemporary (Roz Chast and Bruce Eric Kaplan) generations of artists. In this way, How About Never serves up not only a mini-collection of great cartoons but also as a look at the shift in styles through the editorships of legendary William Shawn, Tina Brown, and current editor David Remnick. Mankoff also provides a very funny and insightful look at how to win the New Yorker cartoon caption contest. (Mar.)