$49.99 (Different in Canada)
A BIG BOOK FOR A LITTLE KING! This compendium includes more than 400 cartoons—THE LITTLE KING from each of its five decades, plus the complete run of THE AMBASSADOR and a wide array of book illustrations, advertisements, and early works. Plus, Soglow’s life and career is examined in a thoroughly original and enlightening introduction by Jared Gardner.
Otto Soglow began his career as a radical artist publishing in The New Masses and The Liberator; a decade later he was working for William Randolph Hearst and creating advertisements for Pepsi-Cola and Standard Oil. The Little King, Soglow's most famous creation, was born out of the tension between his political idealism and his professional ambitions. CARTOON MONARCH: OTTO SOGLOW AND THE LITTLE KING is a long-overdue examination of the unique pantomime cartoons of Otto Soglow, who entertained millions for more than fifty years and whose influence remains current in the works of Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Ivan Brunetti, and others.
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otto soglow &
Much of the humor in The Little King is aimed at puncturing pomposity and, as Ivan Brunetti points out in his Foreword, Otto Soglow accomplishes it with drawings that are tightly composed, exquisitely timed, carefully structured pieces of machinery. Soglow's process of streamlining is at the root of why his drawings have a timeless sophistication and elegance, and continue to entice new readers and cartoonists, and helps explain why his work is still published every week, more than three decades after his death. It's high time for a fitting tribute to this cartoon monarch.
the little king edited by
Dean Mullaney
cartoon monarch otto soglow &
the little king edited by Dean Mullaney Jared Gardner foreword by Ivan Brunetti
Introduction by
LibraryofAmericanComics.com • idwpublishing.com
Otto Soglow didn't invent the pantomime comic strip, but he certainly became its most famous and honored proponent. It didn't matter what language you spoke or in what country you read his cartoons—the humor and deceptively simple artwork were universal. Soglow was born in the Yorkville section of New York City in 1900, studied with John Sloane at the Art Student's League, and by the late 1920s, his social-realist drawings were appearing in such radical publications as The New Masses and The Liberator, as well as the mainstream Life and Collier's. Soglow began experimenting with eliminating unnecessary lines while at The New Yorker, where he created the Little King in 1931. He helped define the magazine’s modern, streamlined style of cartooning, and in the 21st Century, his work is still used in the magazine’s headers. Lured by Hearst’s King Features Syndicate, Soglow moved to the Sunday comics section by creating The Ambassador until his contract with The New Yorker for the rotund monarch ended in 1934. The Little King then recalled his ambassador and launched his more than forty-year career as a Sunday funnies mainstay. continued on back flap