Like so many of his fans, I knew Edward Koren as a
cartoonist for The New Yorker. But I also got to
know him a bit better when he illustrated two small books for a new specialty-publishing
imprint I had been put in charge of.
It was 1999; the 20th century was about to become the
21st. But the books were from the 19th-century, a reprise of two little-known
works by Lewis Carroll.
This was back when, if geography prevented you from
doing business face to face, you did it voice to voice. When Ed picked up the
phone at his home in Vermont, he had a voice befitting someone who could create
curious little creatures that poked gentle and astute fun at human foibles. It
was warm, engaging, instantly at ease in the conversation. And quick to laugh.
He would be delighted to illustrate the little books,
he said. Then he startled me. He told me how conscious he was that he would be
illustrating works by an author whose Alice in Wonderland featured the
drawings of the great John Tenniel.
I couldn’t imagine why someone as accomplished as Ed
would even give that a thought. What I came to realize was that describing Ed
as a cartoonist was only half the story: he was an artist who was a master
cartoonist.
Then he startled me again.
I told him what the modest budget was and asked if xx
number of illustrations would be acceptable. Yes, but with a caveat. If he felt
the book required a few more illustrations, then he would do them.
An artist who was a master cartoonist and a generous
professional.
He never heard it
In some ways, Lewis Carroll’s century was made for Ed.
He did not create on a computer—he drew his illustrations by hand. He would
mail them to me in batches, which I would circulate around the office. It was
easy to track them: all you had to do was follow the laughter.
I would then call him with any feedback, which was
mainly to tell him how much everyone loved them and thanked him for the laughs.
That was good to hear, he told me. But surely, I said, he must be used to that.
No.
Working alone at home, creating those New Yorker
cartoons, he said, “I never hear the laughter.”
Only the truly cross would do
One of the works Ed was illustrating was Lewis
Carroll’s Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing. It was filled
with Carrollesque counsel, and Ed was illustrating each piece of advice. Among
them was “Cross-Writing Makes Cross Reading.” Neither Ed nor I realized at
first that cross-writing was a thing. In fact, the term still isn’t in the
online version of Merriam-Webster.
Ed sent the drawing but wasn’t completely satisfied
that he had captured Carroll’s meaning. After more research (Google was a new
kid on the block then), we discovered that cross-writing was a way to save
paper while testing the reader’s patience and eyesight. Correspondents would
fill the page with their pen, then turn the paper at a 90-degree angle and
write some more in cramped, small letters.
The drawing that Ed had sent would probably have
worked, given the book’s small size. But it didn’t work for Ed. I would need to
send the drawing back to him so he could change it.
Had he created the illustration on the computer, this
would have been a fairly easy fix. Instead, Ed excised the portion he wanted to
redo with an X-ACTO knife, replacing it with his new, spot-on illustration of cross-writing.
Maybe it was easy for him to do, but I couldn’t
imagine the kind of surgical forbearance it required to replace it so smoothly
that even on the original, you couldn’t tell.
I know that for a fact, because after the books were
published—to great success—Ed gifted me with the original. Every time I look at
it, I chuckle. I hope that in the next world that Ed passed on to on April 14,
he hears the laughter.
