Jack Ziegler
Thursday, December 16, 2004Patricia talks about her favourite New Yorker cartoonist, Bruce Eric Kaplan, this week. BEK is great, but my favourite remains Jack Ziegler.
I discovered Jack Ziegler when I was about 11 years old. On one of my regular visits to the library, when I would scour the 741.5’s of the Dewey decimal system for pearls, I found Hamburger Madness, Jack’s first collection of cartoons, now long out of print.
In it I found a new world of bizarre and surreal cartoons. I laughed a lot, most times not even knowing why. But after all, what was an 11-year old doing falling in love with a New Yorker cartoonist? Shouldn’t I have been reading Garfield or something?
What immediately appealed to me were the cartoons that were beautiful, surreal Klibanesque moments:
Having grown up a little, I now recognize the true gems of Jack Ziegler’s work—the over-emotional dramatization of the banal:
Even back then a lover of type, I stole a typesetting joke of his in grade 6 and placed it on the last page of a school project:
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
This book was set on the linotype
in Parbleau, a recutting made directly
from type cast from matrices made
bjy the Fjenjjmjn, Rjjj Parjjjj.
Thj jjjj jj jj jjceljjjj jjjjle
jjjj vort vort vort votvort.
Eunice, if you are reading this, I
love you. Hugs and kisses from
Lance at the Book Bindery,
Woonsocket, R.I.
I wonder what my teacher thought…
michelle says:
How romantic! Lucky Eunice.
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Eunice says:
That was you...?
Matt says:
Ziegler is great. I still have his “Filthy Little Things” book from—20 years ago?
Fave Ziegler panel - a man, speaking to another man at a BBQ grill wearing a “#1 Chef” apron: “Not THE #1 Chef?”
Robot Johnny says:
Matt, I have that book, too!
And it’s “Mr. BBQ!”
patricia says:
Yup, Ziegler is good, but I guess I never really ‘connected’ to his cartoons. I still think Kliban is waaaay better. And there are lots of other New Yorker cartoonists from the ‘golden days’ that I prefer: Charles Addams, George Booth, Lee Lorenz, Peter Arno....to name a few.
Andertoons says:
Ziegler is one of my biggest influences. Did you get his new book yet?
Robot Johnny says:
I love Addams and Booth, too, Patricia, bt neither make me chuckle like Ziegler. And no, I haven’t purchased his new book yet…
sarah says:
i know you know what i mean when i say that i love moose from y.c.d.t.o.t.v.
i downloaded the edison twins soundtrack when napster was around, but lost it and having trouble retrieving it. good work. this is probably out of your juristiction, but some work on worzel gummidge would be nice.