Liza Donnelly and Michael Maslin have been married for twenty years and work together for The New Yorker magazine as cartoonists. Somewhat semi-biographical, if a book of cartoons truly can be, their comics tell how they met while attending a party for The New Yorker to how they have kept their marriage going through hilarious cartoons about relationships.
“Here’s the Story about Us,” a new four-page story of cartoons, was drawn to show what meeting and falling in love was like from both Donnelly and Maslin’s viewpoints. It sets the scene for how the rest of the book is put together, with varying perspectives from both sides. Cartoon Marriage shouldn’t be mistaken as just a book about married people; more so it is about interaction between the male and female species in all kinds of situations.
Two hundred of Donnelly and Maslin’s cartoons from The New Yorker are brilliantly divided into twelve sections about everything from kids to sex, pets to possessions, matrimony to happiness. A new cartoon created by the pair to introduce each section, and both cartoonists combined their talents to create the cover – which, they say, is in honor of George Herriman, the creator the strip “Krazy Kat.”
Some of the funniest parts fall under the pet section from the female viewpoint – a woman walks in from work and says to her husband and dog, “It would be nice if at least one of you wagged your tail when I came home” - and when two wives are talking as they watch the husband and cat sitting on the chair, and the friends says to the wife, “So which one had the fur ball?”
Everyone who reads Cartoon Marriage will find favorite bits as it ranges from naughty to fanciful and weird to snide. The comedy contained in these cartoons allows us all to laugh at ourselves and acknowledge the craziness we come across each and every day of our lives.