Written By: Bob Eckstein, Award-Winning Author & Illustrator
There is probably no more popular subject for cartoons than the desert island and talking cats. I did some research and surprisingly none has combined the two troupes.
This is kind of amazing when one considers tens of millions of cartoons have been created. But none of them published in a major publication? I only found one, the following cartoon here, drawn by me, published in Reader’s Digest.
I started drawing gag cartoons on a dare. I had finished my first book which was about the history of snowmen, and was invited to the infamous weekly New Yorker lunch for my birthday by a friend who was a well-known cartoonist there.
My friend challenged me to come back the following week with ten sketches to pitch the Cartoon Editor there. When I returned, I was introduced to Bob Mankoff, and by sheer luck, he purchased the first cartoon I pitched to him.
That was a long time ago––about 3,000 cartoons ago for me––and much has changed. What hasn’t changed is how popular cat cartoons are and how they are the perfect foil in a gag cartoon.
Cats have inspired me to create over 60 cat gag cartoons and I was so happy with that output that I decided to put together a whole humor book on cats.
I hope you enjoy this excerpt from my book which also contains cat fun facts, cat advice, and thousands of names to help you name your cat. The following below are some samples if you wanted the best nine.
Desert Kittens
Office Interview Cat
Shrink Cat
Air Support Cat
Window Sill Cat
Missing Yarn
Cat Mirror
Writer’s Block Cat
Catlas
Bob is an internationally-known, award-winning illustrator, New Yorker cartoonist and NY Times bestseller. He is also an adjunct professor and host of The Cartoon Pad. His new book is The Complete Book of Cat Names (That Your Cat Won’t Answer to, Anyway).
