The World of Chas Addams

This large-format book collects three hundred of Charles Addams' magazine cartoons, along with a couple dozen color cover illustrations, mostly from The New Yorker, and from his entire long career. Although Addams is best known for the eponymous Family (Gomez, Morticia, Wednesday, Pugsley, Uncle Fester, etc.), they appear in only a minority of these cartoons. If those are set to the side, what remains reminds me of nothing so much as the Gary Larson "Far Side" oeuvre. There are the same sort of surreal juxtapositions, agency given to animals, incongruous cultural encounters, and borderline misanthropy.

A repeated note here (which does not appear in Larson's work) is that of uxoricide and mariticide, whether just accomplished, in show more progress, or merely fantasized. High culture is used to comic effect with visual allusions to Munch's "The Scream" (261) and to the Laocoön Group (215), among others.

Perhaps my favorite in the book (158) shows a man in a barber's chair viewing the receding cascade of opposing mirror images of his head, where the one five reflections deep has the face of a monster. Another choice cartoon shows men reclining around an opium den, with a sign on the wall that reads, "Occupancy by more than 31 persons is dangerous and unlawful" (51).

Although the earliest of these cartoons is almost ninety years old, they have aged quite well, and the whole book is a treat. show less

This is simply a collection of many of Charles Addams's best known, and most cherished drawings. His skewed, macabre world seduces us into enjoying that which we probably shouldn't. His dark but humerous point of view is irresitable.

Dark. Twisted. Insane. I love it.

It felt so good to laugh again

I am obsessed with the Addam's Family. Charles Addams was AMAZING!

I don't even know how many times I've read and enjoyed this book - a true classic!

"As usual for comics, I resort to simple bullet points

* This title includes 300 comics and 24 New Yorker covers in very large format.

* Print quality and reproduction is good; the 24 covers are color and sprinkled periodically through the book

* All these comics demonstrate Addams' grim and delightful wit

* It is important to note, however, that while the Addams family is pictured on the cover, they only comprise about 10% of the total comics. So do not be fooled into thinking this is at all focused on this one particular family unit. This is a broad survey of Addams' work not one centered on that family we all know so well."