Posted in: Comics | Tagged: harry bliss, steve martin

Steve Martin (Yes That Steve Martin), Cartoonist (With Harry Bliss)

Published Mon, 22 Jun 2020 15:00:41 -0500

A Wealth of Pigeons: A Cartoon Collection is a new collection of cartoons written by comedian and actor Steve Martin and drawn by New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss and to be published from November 17th from Celadon.

Bliss is a long published cartoonist and illustrator, with over twenty children's picture books with another on the way with Joanna Cotler, Sorry, Not Sorry. He has also seen his "diary" series with Doreen Cronin, Diary of a Worm, Diary of a Spider and Diary of a Fly get picked up for the animation series Bug Diaries, from Amazon Prime. All while creating cartoons for the New Yorker, including over twenty covers.

Of course, all that fame pales in association with that of Steve Martin, best known for Saturday Night Live, and then movies such as The Jerk, Bowfinger, Roxanne, Father of the Bride, L.A. Story, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and more.

Who chose Bliss to collaborate with for his own cartoon ideas, which he e-mails over and Bliss draws. The New Yorker has picked up a handful, not drawing any more attention to the Bliss/Martin credit on each. That might change with the larger number that will now be published together.

"I've always looked upon cartooning as comedy's last frontier" says Martin in the introduction to the book. "I have done stand-up, sketches, movies, monologues, awards show introductions, sound bites, blurbs, talk show appearances, and tweets, but the idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me. I felt like, yeah, sometimes I'm funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny. You can understand that I was deeply suspicious of these people who are actually funny."

He does seem to have got over it though, and the collaboration will see publication just in time for the Christmas rush. This has to be a stocking filler favourite, yes?