Once again John Bailey has put together an outstanding collection of the world’s funniest cartoons, by the world’s most perceptive prac-titioners of pen-and-inkmanship, some culled from the world’s best magazines, some never before published. Here they are: sly, subtle, tersely drawn pantomimes; blatantly ridiculous scenes drawn with enormous nervous energy; people you've never seen before and people who live next door; slices of life whose drab appearance is made uproariously absurd by a simple punch line. In this exceptional volume the impossible becomes possible, the normal is turned inside out. Here are the teasers, the rib-ticklers, the table-pounders, the floor-rollers, and more hilarious than that!

The American team puts in a strong showing here with Charles Addams, Whitney Darrow, Jr., Boris Drucker, George Price, William Steig, and Edward Koren — with drawings either original or from sources such as the prestigious The New Yorker. Among the British are Michael ffolkes, John Glashan, Terence Parkes, Norman Thelwell, and Leslie Starke, Punching their way into the limelight. And of course Europe's best are here, too: Bartak, Holy, Mordillo, Sempé, Stauber, and Zabransky.

Great Cartoons of the World, Ninth Series, is an absolute must for every joke-hoarder, laugh-monger, fun-poker, and all other enemies of the stiff upper lip.