CARTOON CAVALCADE

With the assistance of Florence and Sidney Weiss, Thomas Craven has produced the cartoon book to end all cartoon books -- or so it seems, though probably with next holiday season, another New Yorker Album will prove irresistible! This holds a different place, however, for it is not only a splendid collection of cartoons, but it has permanent value in the historical and biographical background introductions to each section:- American Humor and the New Century; Cartoons from 1883 to 1916; World War I and the Impudent Decade; 1916-32; The New Deal; 1933-43. The analysis of the difference between British and American humor; cultural and economic and political history surveyed, tongue in cheek, as springboards for contemporary cartoons; the beginnings of the comic strip -- and the phases through which the ""Cartoon Cavalcade"" marches paralleling American life.