Madness in Crowds: The Teeming Mind of Harrison Cady - by Denis Kitchen & Violet Kitchen (Hardcover)

About the Book

An oversized hardcover monograph on the cartoonist and graphic artist Harrison Cady, the master of creatures, contraptions and crowd scenes.

Book Synopsis

Madness in Crowds is an overflowing art book monograph collecting the charming, virtuosic and staggeringly detailed work of the cartoonist and graphic artist Harrison Cady. A master of creatures, contraptions and crowd scenes, Cady is best known today for illustrating the works of children's book author Thornton Burgess, but this tome - the first ever collection of Cady's works - explores in detail the rest of his staggeringly prolific six-decade career, in particular his stunning, overcrowded, and obsessively rendered illustrations for the original Life magazine. Features over 300 images, a detailed biography by Denis and Violet Kitchen, and an introduction by Gary Panter. 10x14", 192 pages.

From the Back Cover

A crowded multiverse teeming with critters, chaos, contraptions and calamities - the many creations of a fine artist, magazine & book illustrator, cartoonist and painter whose work spanned nearly seven decades. Cady specialized in constructing vivid, imaginative realms, over-populated with animals, people, and anthropomorphic bugs. This landmark monograph - the first-ever art book devoted to the work of this master - includes a career-spanning biography with over four hundred images. Step inside this bustling world and you'll find beetle ballerinas and fiddle-playing spiders, small towns alive with community and music, heartbreaking depictions of the devastations wrought by the Great War, and so much more. With a special focus on the abundant, hyperdetailed, microcosmic megalopoli which characterized Cady's early work, this overflowing tome lays out an astonishing visual feast, and tells the unforgettable story of one of the mad geniuses of American art.

Review Quotes

"This is what bookmaking is all about, where design enriches substance. You just want to hug it."--Steve Smith "Folio"

"Underground cartoonist Denis Kitchen and his daughter, visual artist Violet Kitchen, have pulled the early twentieth-century artist out of obscurity with Madness in Crowds, a large-format hardcover art book that illuminates his inspired work with beautiful presentation and thoughtful prose."--Amanda McCorquodale "Communication Arts"

About the Author

Denis Kitchen was an original member of the "Underground Comix" movement in the late '60s and '70s, perhaps equally well known as the founder and publisher of the pioneering publishing house Kitchen Sink Press (1969-99). He also founded the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (1986-), is the author or co-author of several books, a literary and art agent, a longtime editor, and a curator of comic art exhibitions in America and overseas. A monograph of Kitchen's artistic career, The Oddly Compelling Art of Denis Kitchen, was published by Dark Horse in 2010. With partner John Lind he created the Kitchen Sink Books imprint in partnership with Dark Horse Comics in 2013. He was elected to the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in San Diego in 2015.

Violet Kitchen is an Eisner-nominated cartoonist, illustrator and writer based in Western Massachusetts. In addition to Madness In Crowds, she has multiple other books in print and in progress, and her work has been profiled in the New York Times, the London Telegraph, and the Boston Globe.