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Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley books
[1867-1936]
Mr. Dooley was a fictional Irish bartender in turn-of-the-century Chicago.
His tongue-in-cheek monologues, addressed in thick Irish brogue to his clueless
customer Hennessy, wryly commented on the Dreyfus Case, the Spanish-American
war, women’s suffrage, urban corruption, and other issues of the day. The
underlying drift was progressive, but Mr. Dooley was so funny and so
unpredictable that even those criticized could hardly complain. Before long the
Dooley columns were syndicated in newspapers all over the country, and Teddy
Roosevelt felt obliged to send Dunne long letters of anticipatory self-defense
if he felt that Dunne might disapprove of any of his policies.
Mister Dooley on Ivrything and Ivrybody is an excellent selection.
There are many others in and out of print.
[Rexroth essay on Mr. Dooley and
other classic American
humor]
P.G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and Bertie books
[1881-1975]
The adventures of addle-brained Bertram Wooster and his omnicompetent and
imperturbable butler Jeeves would be mildly amusing (like Wodehouse’s other
books) if they were told in third person. What makes them so hilarious is that
they are narrated by Bertie himself. This was a stroke of genius on Wodehouse’s
part, and it took real genius to pull it off. A real idiot would have produced a
muddled and unreadable narration; Wodehouse manages to make Bertie relate his
stories with lucidity while seeming to be an idiot.
My favorite non-Jeeves Wodehouse book is Leave
It to Psmith.
Stephen Potter, Gamesmanship series
[1900-1969]
Wry British humor on how to win games through psychological ploys, gain
prestige through elaborate role-playing, or otherwise succeed in appearing
one-up on other people. I find Potter hilarious, but he is
not to everyone’s taste.
The first four books of the series — Gamesmanship, One-Upmanship,
Lifemanship, Supermanship — are collected in The Complete Upmanship.
The other two, Golfmanship and Anti-Woo, are
only available separately.
There is also a very funny British film loosely based on Potter’s books entitled
School for Scoundrels (1960, with Ian Carmichael and Alastair Sims).
Isaac Asimov, Isaac
Asimov’s Treasury of Humor
[1971]
This collection contains lots of pretty good jokes, but its greatest interest
lies in Asimov’s comments on what makes different kinds of jokes funny and how
to tell them most effectively.
Steve Allen [1921-2000]
Steve Allen was just about the only mainstream television entertainer for
whom I had some respect. Within that dubious context he was constantly pushing
the envelope. Back in the 1950s he had Lenny Bruce and even Jack Kerouac on his
popular variety show, and he played piano accompaniment to Kerouac’s reading on
a now-classic jazz-poetry LP, Poetry for the Beat Generation. He was also
a prolific songwriter and a tireless advocate of liberal and humanitarian
causes. But he is most fondly remembered for his zany yet always good-natured
sense of humor.
Some of his funniest experiences are recounted in Hi-Ho, Steverino! My
Adventures in the Wonderful Wacky World of TV. He wrote several other
entertaining books about comedians and the art of comedy: The Funny Men,
Funny People, How To Be Funny, and Make ’Em Laugh.
David Morgan, Monty Python Speaks
[1999]
A collective
autobiography of the great comedy team.
Ashleigh Brilliant, Brilliant Thoughts
[b. 1933]
“Brilliant Thoughts” are postcard-size works of seventeen words or less,
accompanied with droll illustrations (sometimes original, sometimes cribbed from
Victorian-era ads, etc.). Some are merely cute, but a significant portion are
quite funny, occasionally verging on the profound. These titles of some of
the
book collections are typical examples: I Have Abandoned My Search for Truth, and Am Now
Looking for a Good Fantasy. Appreciate Me Now and Avoid the Rush. I Feel Much
Better Now That I’ve Given Up Hope. I Try To Take One Day at a Time, But
Sometimes Several Days Attack Me at Once. We’ve Been Through So Much Together,
and Most of It Was Your Fault. I Want To Reach Your Mind . . . Where Is It
Currently Located?
You can browse among them and order copies
of the books here.
* * *
George Herriman, Krazy Kat
[1880-1944]
Many people consider this the greatest comic strip of them all. It’s
difficult to explain its appeal to those who aren’t already familiar with it.
The characters talk in a wry, lyrical manner halfway between Shakespeare and
W.C. Fields, employing a whimsical logic reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.
The plot involves a sort of love triangle with some odd differences. Krazy Kat,
a sympathetic character with a proto-New Agey innocence and sense of
wonder about everything, loves Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz despises Krazy and his supreme
joy in life is to bean her with a brick. Krazy takes these assaults as a
positive sign — proof that Ignatz is thinking of her. Officer Pupp, tireless
upholder of law and order, is fond of Krazy and constantly on the alert to
arrest Ignatz whenever he can catch him red-handed. But Ignatz is always out of
jail by the next episode, seeking another brick and the opportunity to wield it
behind the back of the canine cop. Every day for nearly thirty years this
strange little drama was played out in endless variations against a
surrealistic desert background that is as constantly changing as a dream — in
one frame you see a cactus, in the next it’s become a fire hydrant or a bathtub
and the sun has been replaced by the moon. . . .
There are two good collections, George Herriman’s Krazy Kat
(republished under various titles, with an introduction by e.e. cummings) and
Krazy Kat: The Comic Art of George Herriman (ed. Patrick McDonnell et al.).
Fantagraphics Books has published all the Sunday full-page comics from 1916-1944
(Krazy and Ignatz, 13 volumes; the last ten years are in delightful color).
Walt Kelly, Pogo
[1913-1973]
The timeless world of Pogo is slightly reminiscent of Krazy
Kat, but it’s more folksy and much more populous. While there are few
characters in Krazy Kat besides the eternal trio, the characters in
Pogo number
dozens of regulars and hundreds of others who pop in from time to time, each
with their own distinctive personality. Living within the cozy confines of the Okeefenokee Swamp
they concoct all sorts of extravagant
projects, but it’s just idle talk, nothing serious ever comes of it, and when the droll misadventures of the day are over everyone can
adjourn to Pogo’s place for a fish fry.
Most of the Pogo books are out of print, but
they can all be found
at online used book sites. A good introductory selection is Ten Ever-Lovin’
Blue-Eyed Years with Pogo.
John Stanley and Irving Tripp,
Little Lulu
Little Lulu was a favorite comic of little girls back in the fifties and
sixties, but it was one of mine, too, and still is. Like Tom Sawyer
or Tarkington’s Penrod books, it takes me back to those childhood days
when so many little things seemed to promise so much fun and adventure, yet
within circumstances that were safe and secure.
Dark Horse Books has been reissuing the complete Lulu comics in
very reasonably priced book
form.
Bill Mauldin, Up Front
[1945]
While a soldier in Europe during World War II, Mauldin created these cartoons
about Joe and Willy, two toughened but basically decent enlisted men,
presenting the realities of war and army life from the
ordinary soldier’s point of view. A postwar sequel, Back Home, continued Joe and Willy’s adventures
after their return to the States. Mauldin went on to become a noted liberal
political cartoonist, but these two books are his enduring claim to fame.
Jules Feiffer [b. 1929]
In his cartoons Feiffer managed to put his finger on a lot of the foibles and
follies of American society, including the more or less urbane, progressive and
bohemian sectors that pride themselves on being different.
Jules Feiffer’s America: From Eisenhower to Reagan is a good general
anthology.
Robert Crumb [b. 1943]
I’ve been reading the Complete Crumb Comics that is being
published by Fantagraphic Books. So far 17 or 18 volumes have appeared, bringing
it up to the late 1980s. Such a large quantity of material, much of it
previously unpublished, is inevitably uneven, but at his best Crumb
has some superb satires of both the mainstream society and
the hip counterculture, and even the minor stuff is usually
pretty funny.
Gilbert Shelton, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
The hilarious misadventures of three drug-tripping sixties hippies.
Twelve comic books were individually issued by Rip Off Press. A
two-volume “Complete” edition (1968-1997) has recently been published by
Knockabout Press.
Quino, Mafalda
The characters in this Argentinean comic strip are children but their
conversations touch on grown-up themes. Mafalda in particular
is constantly asking her parents awkward questions and worrying about the state
of the world. I’ve been reading the
whole series as a pleasant way to improve my very rudimentary Spanish.
The original comics (1964-1973) have all been reprinted in various editions.
For a long time there was nothing in English, although Mafalda had been
translated into over twenty other languages, but two English-language volumes have just appeared, entitled
Mafalda and Friends.
Gary Larson, The Far Side
[b. 1950]
These internationally popular cartoons should need no introduction.
Most of them are collected in The Far Side Gallery (5 vols.). The
PreHistory of The Far Side presents some amusing background information,
including some of the cartoons that were rejected for one reason or another.
Tom Tomorrow, This Modern World
[b. 1961]
Excellent contemporary political satire.
The weekly cartoons are periodically reissued in book form.
The latest ones are online at
www.dailykos.com/blog/Tom%20Tomorrow/. Those from earlier years are
archived at the author’s website:
www.thismodernworld.com/cartoon-archive.
Section from Gateway to the Vast Realms: Recommended
Readings from Literature to Revolution, by Ken Knabb (2004).
No copyright.
Bureau of Public Secrets, PO Box 1044, Berkeley CA 94701, USA
www.bopsecrets.org knabb@bopsecrets.org