I Love You, I Hate You, I'm Hungry: A Collection of Cartoons - Hardcover

Bruce Eric Kaplan, known for his distinctive, off-beat single-panel cartoons, has been a New Yorker cartoonist for more than fifteen years. He is also a television writer and was an executive producer for the acclaimed HBO series Six Feet Under, as well as a writer on Seinfeld (funnily enough, one of his most well-known episodes is one where Elaine becomes increasingly frustrated over what she takes to be an utterly nonsensical New Yorker cartoon). He has authored and illustrated seven adult titles including the cult classic The Cat That Changed My Life; the collections I Love You, I Hate You, I’m Hungry; No One You Know; and This Is a Bad Time; and three titles featuring the wonderfully neurotic Brooklyn couple Edmund and Rosemary: Every Person on the Planet, Edmund and Rosemary Go to Hell, and Everything Is Going to Be Okay. Bruce is also the author and illustrator of four picture books: Monsters Eat Whiny Children, Cousin Irv from Mars, Meaniehead, and Someone Farted. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

In spite of the title, there isn't much love to be found in New Yorker cartoonist Kaplan's collection of single-panel cartoons. Whether the protagonists are couples, parents and children, cocktail party attendees, or woodland animals, all share a fundamental hatred of themselves and one another. Kaplan spoofs various aspects of our modern angst, including psychobabble—one elf in Santa's workshop says to the other, Obviously, behind all the jolliness there's a lot of rage; the Web way of life—a wife walks up to her husband with the words, There you are—I've been looking all over the Internet for you!; and our hidden but ever-present insecurities—one sheep tells another, Sometimes I worry I'm a wolf dressed as me. Kaplan's simple, chunky line drawings are the perfect accompaniment to his depressive jokes, simultaneously conveying heaviness of spirit and a vision of others as blank vehicles of urbane truisms. Anyone with a cynical bone in his or her body is bound to enjoy these dark gags. (Jan.)
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