Arnold Roth is a popular American cartoonist and illustrator. He was born into a Jewish family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art in 1951. His cartoons have appeared in nearly every major magazine in the US since 1951. He began working for Playboy in the late 1950s, and stayed throughout the following decades, with his late 1970s feature 'An Illustrated History of Sex' being one of the highlights. Roth has made covers for The New Yorker, and illustrations for TV Guide, Sports Illustrated and Esquire. He worked regularly for Harvey Kurtzman's satirical magazines Trump, Humbug and Help, and his art appeared in the early issues of National Lampoon (1970-1972).
He also had a syndicated comic strip called 'Poor Arnold's Almanac', in which the cartoonist delved into a different subject every week. It originally ran as a Sunday feature through the New York Herald Tribune Syndicate from 1959 to 1961, and reappeared as a daily through Creators Syndicate in 1989-1990. Roth's work has been exhibited throughout the US and Europe, and he has made illustrations for advertisements, books and jazz and folk album covers (a.o. Dave Brubeck).
From: A Comick Book of Pets
A highly praised artist, Roth has received many awards, including the National Cartoonists Society Advertising and Illustration Award, the Magazine and Book Illustration Award (both three times), the Illustration Award (twice) and the Reuben Award (in 1983). Classic English artists like James Gillray, Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank, as well as cartoonists from his own lifetime like Otto Soglow and Ronald Searle can be ranked among his influences, while his passion for jazz shows in his preference for improvisations with the pen. Novelist John Updike ('Run, Rabbit, Run') once described him as: "All cartoonists are geniuses, but Arnold Roth is especially so." Roth later illustrated the book covers of Updike's short stories about bachelor Henry Bech, namely 'Bech: A Book' (1970), 'Bech Is Back' (1982) and 'Bech at Bay' (1998). He also illustrated Clifton Fadiman's books 'Wally the Woodworm' (1964), Brock Brower's 'The Inchworm War and the Butterfly Peace' (1970), George Plimpton's 'A Sports Bestiary' (1982) and William F. Buckley, Jr.'s 'The Lexicon' (1996). Roth's work had a strong influence on Al Jaffee.
