To a true dog lover, canine companionship is unrivaled – a dog is always there for you. It's obvious that cartoonist George Booth understands this well. In About Dogs, a new collection of 40 years of Booth's New Yorker cartoons, every peek at mundane human life has a dog (or several) in the frame. Sometimes the dog is being addressed as if he's another human, sometimes he's expressing his take on the conversation with a fierce look or disinterested scratch.
There's often a sweet sadness to Booth's dogs, even when they're engaging in a silly dog-ism like waiting stealthily for the opportunity to creep into a human's bed. But more often they're a mix of faux-aggressive and goofy – they want to be taken seriously as they bark the cat off the chair, only to end up losing the hard-won perch to the even louder human. But that doesn't mean the dog is going anywhere – even in a derelict apartment or a yard littered with cars, a dog will remain as a comforting presence and a foil for much greater human absurdity. So even when the bald and lonely cartoon man gazes worriedly at a TV announcing tips on how to hold onto "your lover, your hair, your money, your dog...," you know that his canine companion will always be there for him.
About Dogs by George Booth, with an introduction by Bill Cosby, is available at Amazon.com for $10.17.
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