My career with Playboy has involved not only working for the magazine and website, but also on some really great books. I made this cover collage of all the books I've helped produce, so if you are a fan of cartoon art, check out these wonderful titles: Playboy's Little Annie Fanny by the extraordinary artists Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder. All of the multi-panel stories ever published in the magazine from 1962-1988 appear in these two volumes. One of my favorite fantasy artists Frank Frazetta, whose pivotal and influential work has inspired the look and feel of many sci-fi and fantasy movies, was friends with the now deceased artists and his work was parodied in a classic story from 1985.
Playboy: 50 Years The Cartoons. This is a collection of Hugh Hefner's favorite cartoons from 1953-2003. The cartoons are Hef's second favorite part of the magazine. No need to say what the first is.
Playboy's Eldon Dedini. A beautiful hardcover collection of Eldon's best cartoons that appeared in Playboy magazine from the past six decades. Eldon was a wonderful watercolor artist from Monterey, California. This was a very emotional book to work on; the artist was ill during the production stages but worked diligently on the project. When his work was finished and he knew the material was being shipped to printer, he passed away shortly after.
Author Bruce Jay Friedman's musings were illustrated by the French artist Andre Barbe in Sexual Pensees. Bruce is perhaps most well-known for being one of the writers of the movie Splash.
Gahan Wilson: The Complete Playboy Collection. If you are a fan of Charles Addams' cartoons (which inspired The Addams Family show and movies), you will love the macabre art of Gahan Wilson. He's one of my favorite cartoon artists and I've written about him and his work many times. His environmental and political cartoons from the 70s are just as poignant and relevant today. This deluxe collection comprises every single cartoon ever published of Gahan's in the magazine! It will be released at the end of 2009.
