EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 29 © 2019 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

4 “Don’t bother to wrap it; I’ll eat it right here.” So well-known was the legend around this ‘ghoulish’ cartoonist that the editors of the New Yorker (where many of his cartoons were published) were continually asked, “What’s Addams really like?” Some people claimed that Addams looked like the ghoulish Uncle Fester from his Addams Family cartoons. Known primarily for his dark and sinister, yet hilarious cartoons, Addams has been called the ‘Van Gogh of Ghouls’, the ‘Bela Lugosi of Cartoonists’, the ‘Graveyard Guru’ and the purveyor of ‘American Gothic’. Although, Addams was also a bon vivant and lover of women, it was his dark streak that so fascinated the public. He saw bats where there had been swallows, and ABOVE: Movie Scream , pen and ink and watercolour on paper. Cartoon for The New Yorker , January 1947. FACING PAGE: “Don’t Mention the Birds. He’s Very Sensitive About It” , pen and ink and wash on paper. Single gag panel, ca. 1938. This was done many years before the Hitchcock film Birds . Hitchcock was a huge fan of Addams’ cartoons.