The following pages should not be regarded as a United Nations comic strip. The characters you will meet in them have not the steadfastness to cling to their original roles. They are diplomats. On one page you may find a delegate in the guise of Superman, and on the next, confronted with an important decision, looking more like The Timid Soul. Here he may spread terror as The Batman, and there, promise you a world full of Shmoos. This is a book about diplomacy.

These drawings have been made from portraits sketched in the native haunts of diplomats, jotted down on match- folders, official reports, visiting cards, invitations, and on the blank pages of our passports.

In a way, we are headhunters. We collect heads, and by our special process shrink them to the right proportions.

from Undiplomatic Notes p. 5.