What's So Funny?

November 29, 2021
New Yorker cartoonist Sipress (It’s a Cat’s Life) draws on his gift for evoking the predicaments of human nature to tell beguiling stories about his life and career. Born in 1947 to Russian Jewish immigrants, he relates how he took to drawing as a precocious boy in New York City, cutting out and pasting his own cartoons into his parents’ copies of the New Yorker by the time he was in fourth grade. Steered by the high expectations of his hardworking father and doting mother, he graduated from Williams College and spent two years as a grad student at Harvard before dropping out to pursue his dream of being a cartoonist for the New Yorker—eventually making his first sale to the magazine in October 1997. While Sipress hoped this would satisfy his “lifelong quest” to convince his father that he was “a success,” his father died two months later (“truly bad timing on part”). Weaving in his impeccable wit and wry cartoons, Sipress illustrates his relentless pursuit to produce work that “express what everyone is thinking and feeling,” all while offering amusing insights into his creative process: “I draw and write about what makes me mad... and above all, what makes me anxious.” The result is a delightful jaunt through an inspiring artist’s mind. Agent: Sarah Burnes, the Gernert Co.

February 1, 2022

Sipress, who has been making cartoons for the New Yorker since 1998, chronicles his life growing up in Manhattan with his father Nat, his mother Estelle, and his older sister Linda. From his very first comic, drawn at the age of five, to some of his later well-known New Yorker cartoons, it is clear that Sipress's work has been informed by his inability to escape what he thought of as his family's clutches. Sipress offers a variety of vivid memories throughout his book. Some are comical (such as the time he decided to throw his toys out his 12th-floor bedroom window), some tender (he recalls riding the subway with his mother when he was small), and some painful (such as the loss of loved ones). But through it all, Sipress maintains his strong sense of humor, even when facing down sadness and anxiety. He has made a career out of laughing at himself, as he says, and readers will be drawn to the mix of humor and vulnerability here. VERDICT An intimate and engaging memoir by an artist who understands that personal thoughts and feelings often lead to remarkable ideas. Recommended.--Megan Duffy

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2021
An affectionate, introspective memoir from the acclaimed cartoonist. Early on in this engaging, pleasure-filled autobiography, Sipress points out that it took decades of pitching the New Yorker before they bought one of his cartoons in 1997. He's been a regular ever since. In crisp, clean, anecdotal prose, he chronicles his life story, his mischievous cartooning, and the germination of his ideas, with many included for readers to appreciate. "Like most cartoonists I know," he writes, "the border between my life and my work is flimsy at best." There's just enough to sate cartoon fans, but most of the book covers the author's happy years growing up Jewish in New York City with a loving family, his marriage, and his struggles to make it financially as a cartoonist. "As a kid I loved cartoons," he writes, especially those in the New Yorker. Jumping ahead, Sipress discusses his conversations with his therapist about his "cartoon brain, which I never shut off, even in the most inappropriate situations, like in yoga class." Comic timing is crucial in a cartoon; "it lives in the space between the caption and the drawing." What comes first, image or caption? Either way. When the former, it unfolds just as it will for the reader. The author's come from his "personal reservoir of thoughts and feelings." At Williams College, he studied history, which figures prominently in his cartoons, and later Soviet studies at Harvard, but when "funny drawings were spilling over his [notebook] margins, he quit. Sipress secured a job cartooning for the Boston Phoenix but moved back to New York to pursue a brief career as a sculptor, which gave him skills he deploys in his cartoons. Throughout, he traverses the complex dilemma of cartooning amid family deaths and tragedies. When an idea for a cartoon clicks, he gets an "intense physical pleasure that feels like pure joy" and "makes me love what I do." This addictive, witty, David Sedaris-esque story is a hoot.

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