Bruce McCall (born May 10, 1935) is a

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author and illustrator, best known for his frequent contributions to ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

''.

Life and career

Born and raised in

Simcoe Simcoe may refer to: Geography Canada * Simcoe, Ontario, a town in southwestern Ontario, near Lake Erie, Canada * Simcoe County, a county in central Ontario, Canada * Lake Simcoe, a lake in central Ontario, Canada * Simcoe North, a federal and pr ...

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, Canada, he was fascinated by comic books and showed an early aptitude for drawing fantastical flying machines, blimps, bulbous-nosed muscle cars and futuristic dioramas. In his memoir, ''Thin Ice'' (1997), McCall admitted that he was never good at physical activity as a boy, but could count on his mother to encourage his creativity. Bruce's father T.C. was imperious and unemotional, and left his alcoholic wife Peg without the attention she needed. Peg and the children tried to establish an attachment to him, but his stormy moods frequently pushed them aside. Without any serious technical training, McCall began his illustration career drawing cars for

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

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in the 1950s. After several decades in advertising, he sought opportunities elsewhere in the publishing industry. He went to

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, and was hired by '' National Lampoon'', where he made a name for himself as an artist with intelligent and whimsical humor. McCall also spent a brief period writing sketches for ''

Saturday Night Live ''Saturday Night Live'' (often abbreviated to ''SNL'') is an American late-night live television sketch comedy and variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC and Peacock. Michaels currently serves ...

''. A large proportion of McCall's work has a

retrofuturistic Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipati ...

theme. McCall has illustrated magazine covers, regularly appearing in ''The New Yorker'', ''Car and Driver'', and other magazines. He has been a contributor to the magazine since 1979. McCall is also a humourist, and has written essays on some of the social ironies of modern life. He writes frequently for the "Shouts & Murmurs" section of ''The New Yorker''. McCall lives on the Upper West Side of New York near

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Bibliography

Books

* (1982) '' Zany Afternoons'' * (1993) ''Sit!: The Dog Portraits of Thierry Poncelet,'' text by Bruce McCall * (1997) '' Thin Ice'' (memoir) * (1998) ''Viagra Nation: The Definitive Guide to Life in the New Sexual Utopia'' * (2001) ''Sit!: Ancestral Dog Portraits'' * (2001) ''The Last Dream-o-Rama'' * (2003) New York to the World Mural 8th Ave and 34th street * (2003) ''All Meat Looks Like South America'' * (2008) ''Marveltown'' * (2009) ''50 Things to Do with a Book'' * (2013) ''This Land Was Made for You and Me (But Mostly Me): Billionaires in the Wild'' * (2020) ''How Did I Get Here?''

Articles

* * *

Notes

External links

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The New Yorker Q&A

Bruce McCall
in ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper t ...

''
''New York Times'' profile

at '' National Lampoon''
Robert Fulford on Bruce McCall

Humor article by McCall titled ''Getting Started''

Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work

TED Talks: Bruce McCall's faux nostalgia
at TED in 2008 {{DEFAULTSORT:McCall, Bruce 1935 births Canadian cartoonists Canadian male essayists Canadian humorists Canadian people of Scottish descent Living people The New Yorker cartoonists Writers from Ontario People from Norfolk County, Ontario Canadian expatriate journalists in the United States National Lampoon people 20th-century Canadian essayists 20th-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian essayists 21st-century Canadian male writers