Living the Playboy lifestyle usually doesn’t include thinking about aging, retirement or the great beyond, but viewing the cartoons in Last Laughs, just released by Scribner, will certainly make you laugh about these subjects and perhaps cause you to think about them in an entirely new way; as a cartoon by Frank Modell points out, “I don’t think of it as prison. I think of it as long-term care.”
Mort Gerberg gathered the funniest cartoons from 26 of the brightest and talented cartoonists working today, including Playboy regulars Gahan Wilson, Sidney Harris, Leo Cullum, P.C. Vey, Jack Ziegler, Frank Modell, Glen Le Lievre, Lee Lorenz and the late great J.B. Handelsman, and compiled them in this book. An accomplished cartoonist himself, Mort has contributed to the pages of Playboy for more than 40 years. He’s also illustrated numerous books and wrote an essential guide that’s helped many aspiring cartoonists since its publication called Cartooning: The Art and Business.
Last week The New York Historical Society and Scribner celebrated the release of Last Laughs with a party that included a presentation by Mort, who was joined by cartoonists Marisa Acocella Marchetto and Jack Ziegler. Mort was a fantastic showman, rhinestone tie and all, as he highlighted some of the cartoons from the book to the delight of the audience as indicated by their howling laughter. A drawing session followed where the three cartoonists created a cartoon on the spot from subject matter elicited from the audience (think Mad Libs, cartoon-style).
I caught up with Mort after the presentation and asked him a couple of questions:
PLAYBOY: What were you thinking when you came up with the idea for this book?
GERBERG: The inspiration came after a ski trip in Salt Lake City. I saw an older man who announced that he had just skied for free because it was his eightieth birthday. I’m cheap and I want to ski for free, so I thought that was a great goal. People are continuing to be very active well into their older years. I play tennis with people in their 70s. People are living longer, but instead of being in denial about aging and death we should embrace and laugh about it.
PLAYBOY: You were born in Brooklyn and live in Manhattan. Has being a born-and-bred New Yorker affected your humor?
GERBERG: My humor usually arises from being annoyed at something. You don’t do cartoons about something easy, fun or pleasant and there are many more things to be annoyed at living in New York City like noise, dirt, slow people and traffic. There’s always something to get pissed off at here. How can you make fun of things while lying on the beach in the sun, staring at an azure sky?
PLAYBOY: Sometimes is difficult to find people that live life with humor. Why do you think that is?
GERBERG: I don’t meet people like that. Maybe it’s the people I choose to associate with. Everything is funny to me and I don’t take too many things seriously - except cartoon rejections.
PLAYBOY: During your presentation you said that cartoonists are like oysters: Introduce a little irritant and out comes a pearl. How do you feel about the current state of things in America and has it affected your cartooning?
GERBERG: That saying stems from living in New York and being exposed to more irritants. There are two ways to deal with irritation: get angry or make fun of it. Making fun of it is much healthier. This is the worst president America has ever had and he’s really damaged things in the world. My opinion of him often pops up in my cartoons. Jeff MacNelly, the political cartoonist best known for his comic strip Shoe, put it best when he once said, “If I didn’t have the job as an editorial cartoonist I think I’d be a political assassin.”
Mort Gerberg, flanked by cartoonists Marisa Acocella Marchetto and Jack Ziegler.
