Old Jewish Comedians

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Drew Friedman is a supremely talented caricaturist whose work is reminiscent of Mad's Will Elder. His black and white portaits of celebrities -- most often B-listers well past their prime -- are always funny and dead-on. Like all great caricaturists, Friedman's portraits look more like the people he's drawing than the people themselves do.

Old Jewish Comedians, published by Fantagraphics under Monte Beauchamps Blab! imprint, is a large hardbound book with portraits of a couple of dozen -- what else? -- old Jewish comedians, such as Milton Berle, Groucho Marx, Jerry Lewis, and Larry Fine. I only know about half of the comedians depicted in the book, but I even enjoyed (perhaps moreso) the ones I'd never heard of (like Menasha Skulnik), because Friedman's portraits of liver-spotted old guys performing schtick mugs they've been perfecting in the Catskills for 50 years are stories in themselves. $10.17 on Amazon