George Booth (June 28, 1926 – November 1, 2022) was an American cartoonist who worked for ''

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 ...

'' magazine. His cartoons usually featured an older everyman, everywoman, or everycouple beset by modern complexity, perplexing each other, or interacting with cats and dogs.

Life and career

Born in Cainsville, Missouri, on June 28, 1926, Booth was the son of schoolteachers; his mother, Irma (née Swindle) Booth (1903–1989), was also a musician and fine artist and cartoonist, and his father, William Earl "Billy" Booth (1898–1982), became a school administrator in

Fairfax, Missouri Fairfax is a city in Clark Township, Atchison County, Missouri, United States. The population was 648 at the 2020 census. History Fairfax was laid out in 1881. A post office has been in operation at Fairfax since 1881. Geography According to ...

, where Booth grew up on a farm. Drafted into the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through c ...

in 1944, Booth was invited to re-enlist and join the Corps' ''

Leatherneck Leatherneck is a military slang term in the USA for a member of the United States Marine Corps. It is generally believed to originate in the wearing of a "leather stock" that went around the neck. Its original purpose was to protect the neck fro ...

'' magazine as a staff cartoonist; when re-drafted for the

Korean War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Korean War , partof = the Cold War and the Korean conflict , image = Korean War Montage 2.png , image_size = 300px , caption = Clockwise from top:{ ...

, he was ordered back to ''Leatherneck''. As a civilian, Booth moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

where he struggled as an artist, married, then worked as an art director in the magazine world. He also worked on the comic strip ''Spot'' in 1956–1957. Fed up, Booth quit and pursued cartooning full-time, beginning successfully in 1969, with the sale of his first ''New Yorker'' cartoon. One signature element of Booth's generally messy or run-down interiors is a ceiling light bulb on a cord pulled by another cord attached to an electrical appliance such as a toaster. Most of the household features in his cartoons were drawn from his own home. He described one of his cats, adopted later in his career, as being "more like my drawing than the drawings ... when he lies down, his back feet go out in backstraight out." Booth also created the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

''Local Item'' in 1986–1987.

Personal life

Booth lived for many years in

Stony Brook, New York Stony Brook is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County, New York, United States, on the North Shore of Long Island. Begun in the colonial era as an agricultural enclave, the hamlet experienced gr ...

, with his wife Dione (d. 2022), whom he married in 1958. They later lived in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, where he continued to draw cartoons and collect artwork from local artists. Booth died from complications of

dementia Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

at home in Brooklyn, on November 1, 2022, at age 96, six days after Dione died of

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a mass. These cancerous cells have the ability to invade other parts of the body. A number of types of pancr ...

on October 26 at age 85. His daughter, Sarah, said, "All his life, he'd sit in his studio and come up with captions and laugh at his own work.". ''The New Yorker'' honored Booth one month after his death, reprinting a sketch entitled "Believe" as the cover of the December 19th edition of the magazine.

Awards

The

National Cartoonists Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

recognized his work with the Gag Cartoon Award in 1993 and the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.

Publications

Booth's cartoons have been collected in the following books: *''Think Good Thoughts About a Pussycat'' (1975) *''Rehearsal's Off!'' (1976) *''Pussycats Need Love, Too'' (1981) *''A Friend Is Friendly'' (1981) *''Omnibooth: The Best of George Booth'' (1984) *''Booth Again!'' (1989) *''The Essential George Booth'' (1998) *''About Dogs'' (2009)

References

External links