The Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker

What could be better than a gigantic 656-page collection of 2,004 (get it?) of the best cartoons published in the New Yorker over th e last 80 years? Perhaps a double CD set with all 68,647 cartoons ever published in the magazine-complete with a nifty search functi on that allows readers to search for cartoons by year of publication or by cartoonist`s name. This improbably large offering is a bo nanza of wry Manhattan-centric comic commentary on urban life and much else in American culture over the years. There`s Peter Arno`s 1948 ink-and-wash cartoon of a mildly concerned matron, book in hand, asking her newspaper-reading husband, 'Is there a Mrs. Kinsey ?' Or Peter Steiner`s now famous cartoon drawing of two dogs chatting in front of a computer. 'On the Internet,' says one canine to the other, 'nobody knows you`re a dog.' The book offers an introduction by New Yorker editor David Remnick and short essays introduc ing each decade-which readers may want to read after perusing the cartoons first-by such New Yorker luminaries as Roger Angell, Lill ian Ross and John Updike.

• author: Robert Mankoff