What's So Funny?: A Cartoonist's Memoir

by David Sipress

Overview

“David Sipress’s engaging, illuminating, and hilarious memoir will perhaps clarify what dark forces are at work when it comes to becoming a cartoonist rather than a podiatrist, a billionaire tech mogul, or someone who is deeply into collecting owl figurines. And if it doesn’t, you will love it anyway.”— Roz Chast

From a longtime New Yorker staff cartoonist, an evocative family memoir, a love letter to New York City, and a delightful exploration of the origins of creativity—richly interleaved with the author’s witty, beloved cartoons.

David Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer living with his Upper West Side family in the age of JFK and Sputnik, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his meticulous father and the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother.  With wry and brilliantly observed prose, Sipress paints his hapless place in the family, from the time he is tricked by his unreliable older sister into rocketing his pet turtle out his twelfth-floor bedroom window to the moment he walks away from a Harvard PhD program in Russian history to begin his life as a professional cartoonist. Sipress’s cartoons appear in the story with spot-on precision, inducing delightful Aha! moments in answer to the perennial question aimed at cartoonists: Where do you get your ideas? 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358659099
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/08/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	597,931
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

DAVID SIPRESS has been staff cartoonist since 1998 for The New Yorker, where he has published nearly 700 cartoons. He lectures widely on cartooning, and his autobiographical writing has appeared frequently on newyorker.com.    
 

Editorial Reviews

11/29/2021

New Yorker cartoonist Sipress (It’s a Cat’s Life) draws on his gift for evoking the predicaments of human nature to tell beguiling stories about his life and career. Born in 1947 to Russian Jewish immigrants, he relates how he took to drawing as a precocious boy in New York City, cutting out and pasting his own cartoons into his parents’ copies of the New Yorker by the time he was in fourth grade. Steered by the high expectations of his hardworking father and doting mother, he graduated from Williams College and spent two years as a grad student at Harvard before dropping out to pursue his dream of being a cartoonist for the New Yorker—eventually making his first sale to the magazine in October 1997. While Sipress hoped this would satisfy his “lifelong quest” to convince his father that he was “a success,” his father died two months later (“truly bad timing on part”). Weaving in his impeccable wit and wry cartoons, Sipress illustrates his relentless pursuit to produce work that “express what everyone is thinking and feeling,” all while offering amusing insights into his creative process: “I draw and write about what makes me mad... and above all, what makes me anxious.” The result is a delightful jaunt through an inspiring artist’s mind. Agent: Sarah Burnes, the Gernert Co. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

[H]is cartoons act more as punctuation marks to the narrative, written in prose that is also economical and amiable (and occasionally devastating)…It’s an endearingly vulnerable tale of being molded by one’s family of origin, then crawling out from under its suffocating weight.”
— New York Times

"David Sipress, one of the most brilliant cartoonists in the history of The New Yorker, has written a beautiful memoir, equally moving and hilarious. It’s like spending time with the funniest and kindest person you’ve ever met.”
— Andy Borowitz, New York Times bestselling author of The Borowitz Report 

“Cartooning is a serious business, as David Sipress reminds in this engaging and frequently moving memoir. Sipress has not only crafted a winning self-portrait of the artist, he also writes about his complicated family life with deep affection and unsparing honesty. What’s So Funny? will make you laugh, and it will break your heart, and it comes with lots of Sipress’s cartoons too, which are worth the price of admission in and of themselves.”
— Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Little Children 

"An affectionate, introspective memoir from the acclaimed cartoonist...In crisp, clean, anecdotal prose, [Sipress] chronicles his life story, his mischievous cartooning, and the germination of his ideas, with many included for readers to appreciate...This addictive, witty, David Sedaris–esque story is a hoot." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Sipress draws on his gift for evoking the predicaments of human nature to tell beguiling stories about his life and career…a delightful jaunt through an inspiring artist’s mind.” — Publishers Weekly

"David Sipress's engaging, illuminating, and hilarious memoir will perhaps clarify what dark forces are at work when it comes to becoming a cartoonist rather than a podiatrist, a billionaire tech mogul, or someone who is deeply into collecting owl figurines. And if it doesn't, you will love it anyway.”

— Roz Chast, author of Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?   

“This droll, emotionally bare memoir by the longtime New Yorker cartoonist is a master class in how artists can use their personal lives to fortify their work.” — Shelf Awareness

"[Sipress' cartoons] make you cringe and chuckle all at once." — Boston.com

From the Publisher

This droll, emotionally bare memoir by the longtime New Yorker cartoonist is a master class in how artists can use their personal lives to fortify their work.

Shelf Awareness

"David Sipress, one of the most brilliant cartoonists in the history of The New Yorker, has written a beautiful memoir, equally moving and hilarious. It’s like spending time with the funniest and kindest person you’ve ever met.”

Andy Borowitz

[H]is cartoons act more as punctuation marks to the narrative, written in prose that is also economical and amiable (and occasionally devastating)…It’s an endearingly vulnerable tale of being molded by one’s family of origin, then crawling out from under its suffocating weight.”

New York Times

"[Sipress' cartoons] make you cringe and chuckle all at once."

Boston.com

Cartooning is a serious business, as David Sipress reminds in this engaging and frequently moving memoir. Sipress has not only crafted a winning self-portrait of the artist, he also writes about his complicated family life with deep affection and unsparing honesty. What’s So Funny? will make you laugh, and it will break your heart, and it comes with lots of Sipress’s cartoons too, which are worth the price of admission in and of themselves.”

Tom Perrotta

"David Sipress's engaging, illuminating, and hilarious memoir will perhaps clarify what dark forces are at work when it comes to becoming a cartoonist rather than a podiatrist, a billionaire tech mogul, or someone who is deeply into collecting owl figurines. And if it doesn't, you will love it anyway.”

Roz Chast

02/01/2022

Sipress, who has been making cartoons for the New Yorker since 1998, chronicles his life growing up in Manhattan with his father Nat, his mother Estelle, and his older sister Linda. From his very first comic, drawn at the age of five, to some of his later well-known New Yorker cartoons, it is clear that Sipress's work has been informed by his inability to escape what he thought of as his family's clutches. Sipress offers a variety of vivid memories throughout his book. Some are comical (such as the time he decided to throw his toys out his 12th-floor bedroom window), some tender (he recalls riding the subway with his mother when he was small), and some painful (such as the loss of loved ones). But through it all, Sipress maintains his strong sense of humor, even when facing down sadness and anxiety. He has made a career out of laughing at himself, as he says, and readers will be drawn to the mix of humor and vulnerability here. VERDICT An intimate and engaging memoir by an artist who understands that personal thoughts and feelings often lead to remarkable ideas. Recommended.—Megan Duffy

Library Journal

★ 2021-11-16
An affectionate, introspective memoir from the acclaimed cartoonist.

Early on in this engaging, pleasure-filled autobiography, Sipress points out that it took decades of pitching the New Yorker before they bought one of his cartoons in 1997. He’s been a regular ever since. In crisp, clean, anecdotal prose, he chronicles his life story, his mischievous cartooning, and the germination of his ideas, with many included for readers to appreciate. “Like most cartoonists I know,” he writes, “the border between my life and my work is flimsy at best.” There’s just enough to sate cartoon fans, but most of the book covers the author’s happy years growing up Jewish in New York City with a loving family, his marriage, and his struggles to make it financially as a cartoonist. “As a kid I loved cartoons,” he writes, especially those in the New Yorker. Jumping ahead, Sipress discusses his conversations with his therapist about his “cartoon brain, which I never shut off, even in the most inappropriate situations, like in yoga class.” Comic timing is crucial in a cartoon; “it lives in the space between the caption and the drawing.” What comes first, image or caption? Either way. When the former, it unfolds just as it will for the reader. The author’s come from his “personal reservoir of thoughts and feelings.” At Williams College, he studied history, which figures prominently in his cartoons, and later Soviet studies at Harvard, but when “funny drawings were spilling over his [notebook] margins, he quit. Sipress secured a job cartooning for the Boston Phoenix but moved back to New York to pursue a brief career as a sculptor, which gave him skills he deploys in his cartoons. Throughout, he traverses the complex dilemma of cartooning amid family deaths and tragedies. When an idea for a cartoon clicks, he gets an “intense physical pleasure that feels like pure joy” and “makes me love what I do.”

This addictive, witty, David Sedaris–esque story is a hoot.

Kirkus Reviews

In wry tones, T. Ryder Smith deftly narrates David Sipress's bittersweet and charming memoir about growing up in New York City in the 1960s and his rocky road to being a successful cartoonist for the NEW YORKER. Smith gives Sipress’s father a brusque tone and Brooklyn accent that is in direct contrast to the relaxed tenor of the rest of the narration, artfully conveying Sipress’s tenuous relationship with him. Smith’s meticulous enunciation ensures that the listener doesn’t miss a moment of this tongue-in-cheek, sometimes heartbreaking story, which reminds us that the greatest inspiration for humor is everyday life. The accompanying pdf, filled with family photos, textually appropriate visuals, and the author’s cartoons—including his very first one, done as a child—is icing on the cake. E.E. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile

In wry tones, T. Ryder Smith deftly narrates David Sipress's bittersweet and charming memoir about growing up in New York City in the 1960s and his rocky road to being a successful cartoonist for the NEW YORKER. Smith gives Sipress’s father a brusque tone and Brooklyn accent that is in direct contrast to the relaxed tenor of the rest of the narration, artfully conveying Sipress’s tenuous relationship with him. Smith’s meticulous enunciation ensures that the listener doesn’t miss a moment of this tongue-in-cheek, sometimes heartbreaking story, which reminds us that the greatest inspiration for humor is everyday life. The accompanying pdf, filled with family photos, textually appropriate visuals, and the author’s cartoons—including his very first one, done as a child—is icing on the cake. E.E. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2022 - AudioFile