
Booth The Magnificent!

The other day I came across this George Booth New Yorker drawing (published in the issue of November 13, 1989). I immediately took a screenshot of it and put it aside for a rainy day Spill. Well today’s that rainy day.
The drawing is a reminder of why I fell so heavily under Booth’s graphic spell back in the 1970s when I began contributing to The New Yorker. I can’t say that I had a favorite New Yorker cartoonist then — with so many to choose from, picking just one would’ve been near impossible. But I will say that Booth was most certainly in the top of my top ten favorites. His influence was a huge energy boost; energy felt and acted on (in my own drawings) as I looked through each new issue of The New Yorker. His cartoon art was high bar — something so wonderful it was truly inspirational.
The drawing above hit me (in the best way) because of the drawing itself. Booth’s creative viewpoint was outstanding. He gives us a drone-like view here, and pulls it off because Booth could draw like nobody’s business (never been exactly sure what that means, but I like the sound of it) — he was a cartoonist Michelin chef. Look at the way he handled the house, the car, the characters and the horizon (well, that ‘s just about the entire drawing isn’t it?). Perfect balance, perfect shading, perfect body language for all. And the capper: the mother floating above. (The New Yorker‘s database description of the drawing reads: “Wife to husband about his bloated mother floating upside down above the house.”
This is exactly the kind of drawing that caused me to break out of linear cartooning, and let go (on paper that is). Let go and try anything. Coupled with Booth’s try anything approach was his ability — as my late colleague Henry Martin would’ve put it — to draw funny. Every character he set down on paper was stand-alone funny. Look at that little kid in the drawing (to me, he looks a little like Bruce Eric Kaplan’s characters, but in miniature). The kid is perhaps the simplest element on the scene, and yet…we don’t need more than Booth has drawn. The dot for an eye, and a super short tightly blotted line for the mouth is all that’s needed — more would’ve ruined the moment (this is a foundational understanding to all those practicing in the school of Thurber).
Looking again at this Booth drawing only reaffirms what didn’t need reaffirming, but is nevertheless necessary to talk about. The drawing is a reminder of what’s possible in cartoonland.
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George Booth’s A-Z Entry



George Booth (photo above taken in NYC 2016, courtesy of Liza Donnelly) Born June 28, 1926, Cainesville, MO. Died November 2022, NYC. New Yorker work: June 14, 1969 – 2022. Key collections: Think Good Thoughts About A Pussycat (Dodd, Mead, 1975), Rehearsal’s Off! (Dodd, Mead, 1976), Omnibooth: The Best of George Booth (Congdon & Weed, 1984), The Essential George Booth, Compiled and Edited by Lee Lorenz (Workman, 1998).
More reading:
Ink Spill’s George Booth Appreciation (2016).
Ink Spill’s George Booth Obit (2022)
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Sunday Spill: Booth The Magnificent! first appeared on
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