This is a Bad Time: A Collection of Cartoons - Tapa dura

Whenever you hear someone talking about a riotous cartoon in the latest New Yorker, they are almost sure to be talking about one drawn by Bruce Eric Kaplan. Kaplan - or BEK, as he signs his strips - has drawn cartoons for the New Yorker since 1991. Now, the collection THIS IS A BAD TIME captures some of the best work from his 350-plus contributions to the magazine. Kaplan's cartoons cover a variety of topics including God, death, sex, books, movies and relationships, all in the most memorable manner. Whether he is poking fun at high society (two women drinking martinis, and one comments: 'I like his earlier work better, paticularly the ones I said I didn't like at the time') or commenting on our modern anxieties (a young girl asking her mother, 'So did the fair princess ever develop melanoma?') BEK's cartoons end up revealing much about the way we live and talk, while also making us laugh. THIS IS A BAD TIME is a marvellous collection of some of the last decade's most humorous, intelligent and socially conscious entertainment.

Bruce Eric Kaplan has contributed more than four hundred cartoons to The New Yorker, many of which were collected in his first book, NO ONE YOU KNOW. He lives in Los Angeles, where he has written for such television shows as SEINFELD and SIX FEET UNDER.