B. Kliban

Bernard "Hap" Kliban (January 1, 1935 – August 12, 1990) was an influential cartoonist born in New York.

Early life and education

He studied at the Pratt Institute and spent time painting and traveling in Europe before moving to California, where he lived in the North Beach section of San Francisco with his wife, Mary Kay and his daughter Kalia (Mary Kay was his first wife and a talented artist who later also became a noted cartoonist in her own right as M.K. Brown ). It was while living in North Beach that "Hap" Kliban began to do cartoons for Playboy magazine. The income from Playboy finally gave him and his family the financial security that allowed him to move to a lovely old house in the town of Fairfax in Marin County.

Career

In 1962, Kliban became a "Playboy" cartoonist, contributing cartoons until his death. He is best-known for the book "Cat", a collection of cartoons about cats drawn in Kliban's distinctive style. The cat cartoons were discovered by a "Playboy" editor and the 1975 book "Cat" was born. This led to several other books of cartoons ending with "Advanced Cartooning" in 1993. Since "Cat", his cartoons have adorned many products including stickers, calendars, mugs, and t-shirts.

The books that followed "Cat" consisted mostly of extremely bizarre cartoons that find their humor in their utter strangeness and unlikeliness. Many of these are cartoons that Kliban drew for "Playboy". They often contained dysmorphic drawings of nude figures in extremely unlikely environments, as if to spoof "Playboy"'s own subject matter. Kliban also had a recurring series of drawings called "Sheer Poetry", in which the page would be split into six panels, containing random images of objects whose names, when spoken in the order presented, would form a rhyming, nonsensical verse.

Death

Bernard "Hap" Kliban died at the young age of 55, two weeks after undergoing heart surgery at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. He is survived by his wife, Judith Kamman Kliban (who later married actor Bill Bixby shortly before Bixby's death in 1993), as well as two daughters from other marriages, Kalia and Sarah Kliban.

Legacy

According to Art Spiegelman, Kliban invented the form of cartoon, popularized by Gary Larson and others, of a single panel with a third-person caption describing the action.Fact|date=March 2008

Books

*"Cat", 1975 (ISBN 1-56305-284-9)
*"Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head and Other Drawings", 1976 (ISBN 0-911104-67-4)
*"Whack Your Porcupine and Other Drawings", 1977 (ISBN 0-911104-92-5)
*"Tiny Footprints", 1978 (ISBN 0-89480-031-0)
*"Two Guys Fooling Around with the Moon", 1982 (ISBN 0-89480-198-8)
*"Luminous Animals and Other Drawings", 1983 (ISBN 0-14-006861-9)
*"The Biggest Tongue in Tunisia and Other Drawings", 1986 (ISBN 0-14-007220-9)
*"Advanced Cartooning", 1993 (ISBN 0-8362-1710-1)

External links

* [http://www.eatmousies.com/ Kliban Cats official site]
* [http://www.coldbacon.com/kliban2.html B. Kliban Gallery]
* [http://gallery.pixel.tc/cartoons B. Kliban Gallery]