The Smythes

<b>A CLASSIC 1930s COMIC STRIP: <i>The New Yorker</i>’s first art editor satirizes the petit bourgeoisie in these stylishly eccentric cartoons with echoes of Cheever and Wodehouse.</b><br><br>Rea Irvin was <i>The New Yorker</i>’s first art editor and creator of the magazine’s iconic mascot, the butterfly enthusiast Eustace Tilly. In 1930, he ventured into new territory with the comic strip <i>The Smythes</i>. The Smythes—comprised of John, Margie, and their two forgettable children, Willie and Maudie—are a niceish suburban family, restless in their social stature, and eager to climb a sometimes wobbly social ladder (a ladder made even wobblier by the Great Depression). Irvin’s distinct, graceful line renders the Smythes in all their glory and hilarity as they navigate ill-fated dinner parties with pompous socialites, fend off robbers dressed as Santa, and get chased out of restaurants by cleaver-wielding chefs. <br><br>With flavors of the upper-crust humor of Wodehouse and the suburban surrealism of Cheever, <i>The Smythes</i> drolly captures the joys, heartbreaks, and humiliations of being in a family. Handpicked by acclaimed cartoonists R. Kikuo Johnson and Dash Shaw—who also penned the introduction together—this new selection of <i>Smythes </i>strips also includes an afterword by comics historian Caitlin McGurk that sheds new light on Irvin’s work and life. An unsung masterpiece of cartooning, <i>The Smythes</i> is finally available to a new generation of readers ready to marvel at the full reach of Irvin’s artistic abilities.