What Am I Doing Here?
Oct 2016 · New York Review of Books
Ebook
168
Pages
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About this ebook
What Am I Doing Here? is a startling masterwork by one of the forgotten innovators of American comics.
In 1945, after more than a decade as a commercial illustrator—drawing advertisements and cartoons for Life, Time, Esquire, Newsweek, and many other publications—Abner Dean invented a genre all his own: One might call it the Existential Gag Cartoon. He used the elegant draftsmanship and single-panel format of the standard cartoons of the day, but turned them to a deeper, stranger purpose. With an inimitable mixture of wit, earnestness, and enigmatic surrealism, Dean uses this most ephemeral of forms to explore the deepest mysteries of human existence.
What Am I Doing Here?, Dean’s second book and perhaps his best, depicts a world at once alien and familiar, in which everyone is naked but acts like they’re clothed—a world of club-wielding commuters and byzantine inventions, secret fears and perverse satisfactions. Through it all strolls (or crawls, or floats, or stumbles) Dean’s unclad Everyman, searching for love, happiness, and the answers to life’s biggest questions.
This NYRC edition is a jacketed hardcover with extra-thick paper, and features brand-new, restored scans of the original artwork throughout.
In 1945, after more than a decade as a commercial illustrator—drawing advertisements and cartoons for Life, Time, Esquire, Newsweek, and many other publications—Abner Dean invented a genre all his own: One might call it the Existential Gag Cartoon. He used the elegant draftsmanship and single-panel format of the standard cartoons of the day, but turned them to a deeper, stranger purpose. With an inimitable mixture of wit, earnestness, and enigmatic surrealism, Dean uses this most ephemeral of forms to explore the deepest mysteries of human existence.
What Am I Doing Here?, Dean’s second book and perhaps his best, depicts a world at once alien and familiar, in which everyone is naked but acts like they’re clothed—a world of club-wielding commuters and byzantine inventions, secret fears and perverse satisfactions. Through it all strolls (or crawls, or floats, or stumbles) Dean’s unclad Everyman, searching for love, happiness, and the answers to life’s biggest questions.
This NYRC edition is a jacketed hardcover with extra-thick paper, and features brand-new, restored scans of the original artwork throughout.
About the author
Abner Dean (1910–1982) was born and lived in New York City. He spent his career working as a commercial illustrator and, starting with It’s a Long Way to Heaven in 1945, published seven collections of his cartooning work, including What Am I Doing Here?, Come As You Are, and Cave Drawings of the Future.
Clifton Fadiman (1904–1999) was a renowned essayist, critic, and anthologist, and was awarded the 1993 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Clifton Fadiman (1904–1999) was a renowned essayist, critic, and anthologist, and was awarded the 1993 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
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