Tom Spurgeon is reporting that New Yorker cartoonist J.B. Handelsman passed away on June 20 after a lengthy battle with lung cancer. He’s got a full obit up that I’ll just link to instead of copying from. There’s also a memorial piece up on the magazine’s Web site.
Handelsman was always one of my favorite New Yorker cartoonists, showing a real literary, cynical wit that unlike some of his contemporaries, didn’t come off as overly dry or too knowing. Plus, I loved the way he drew noses. He shall be missed.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
A sad loss. I particularly enjoyed his “Freaky Fables” comic strips from Punch in the 1970s. When drunk, I will still sometimes break out into his jazz version of the Song of Songs.