Saddies: A Cartoon Trilogy

Saddies, a collection of single-panel cartoons, was the first book by writer, translator, and essayist David Stromberg. Funded by a public arts grant from the UCLA Student Union, while still an undergraduate in applied math, Saddies was published in October 2000 as an art book designed by fellow UCLA student Jancy Liu. Inspired by the cartoons of James Thurber and the art pocketbooks of Ed Ruscha, Saddies brought together the literary tone of the 1920s and 1930s with the conceptualism of the 1960s and 1970s, placing added focus on the poetics of image and text. It was sold at independent book shops, museum stores, art fairs, and on the streets of Los Angeles and New York.

Armed with cash from the sales of his first book, David Stromberg again teamed up with Jancy Liu to design Confusies, published in October 2002. As a follow-up to the first collection, Confusies placed greater emphasis on the thematic layers of the cartoons. It also introduced increasingly intricate drawings inspired by the literary cartoonist Edward Gorey. Whereas Saddies was printed with a laser-based printing machine, Confusies was produced using standard offset printing, creating a richer image on the page. Building on the success of the first book, Confusies quickly found its audience.

In 2003, David Stromberg produced a third volume, Desperaddies, this time taking on the design of the book. Appropriating elements from the Paris-based Olympia Press, Stromberg created a cartoon book that would pass for a pocketbook novel, structuring the table of contents as a literary narrative. While each drawing worked independently, the collection as a whole laid out a thematic story of young love, alienation, childhood trauma, and the need for comic relief. It was the last art book Stromberg created using a pocketbook format.

About the Author:

David Stromberg is a writer, translator, and scholar whose work has appeared in The American Scholar, Smart Set, and Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. His recent books include Old Truths and New Clichés, an edited collection of Isaac Bashevis Singer's essays, and a speculative nonfiction novella, A Short Inquiry into the End of the World. His new essay, "The Eternal Hope of the Wandering Jew," appears in The Hedgehog Review. See more at www.davidstromberg.com.