Cartoonists are finally getting their due. Compiled and edited by Lee Lorenz, former art editor of The New Yorker and an acclaimed cartoonist in his own right, The Essential Cartoonists library is a celebration of this unique visual art form. Each volume focuses on one truly outstanding artist and features approximately 150 of the artist's best cartoons, as well as insight into background, influences, inspirations, working habits, and more. Launching the series: The Essential George Booth and The Essential Charles Barsotti. Charles Barsotti is also a 30-year veteran of The New Yorker, and in Barsotti Lorenz presents an overview of this signature cartoonist whose rounded, elegant, sparsely detailed style evokes both the traditional world of a Thurber and the contemporary sensibility of a Roz Chast. With his simple repertory--including a nameless but lovable pooch and a monarch whose kingdom consists of a guard and a telephone--Barsotti manages to miraculously dissipate the clouds in people's minds with his unexpected humor.