04-19-2026, 09:37 AM
You can never die by Harry Bliss
Harry Bliss is a cartoonist and illustration most frequently seen in the New Yorker where he also does a lot of covers. This book is in response to the death of his dog Penny, who made frequent appearances in his cartoons. He takes this opportunity to look back on his life. The book is full of stories of his abusive childhood at the hand's of his father and neglect by his mother. He talks about his love for art and the fact that there are at least 10 members of his family pursuing art for a living. He doesn't talk a lot about his brothers and sisters or even his wife, most of the book his dedicated to his own struggles. He talks about his drug use, his alcoholism, the tremendous grief of losing his dog and the fact he is withdrawing from society. There are a lot of moments of levity. The book includes plenty of his cartoons and excerpts from a journal that he has kept for most of his adult life. The pictures from the journal pages are quite informative and show his drawings. But they are a pain in the ass. His handwriting can get kind of sloppy and I struggled to interpret some of the passages.
The book was also down in I'm guessing a prestige format with a thick covers and heavyweight pages, making it kind of unwieldy to ready comfortably. The pages were so thick I could never tell if I was turning one or two pages.
I'm glad I read it. But I'm glad I don't have to read it anymore.
Harry Bliss is a cartoonist and illustration most frequently seen in the New Yorker where he also does a lot of covers. This book is in response to the death of his dog Penny, who made frequent appearances in his cartoons. He takes this opportunity to look back on his life. The book is full of stories of his abusive childhood at the hand's of his father and neglect by his mother. He talks about his love for art and the fact that there are at least 10 members of his family pursuing art for a living. He doesn't talk a lot about his brothers and sisters or even his wife, most of the book his dedicated to his own struggles. He talks about his drug use, his alcoholism, the tremendous grief of losing his dog and the fact he is withdrawing from society. There are a lot of moments of levity. The book includes plenty of his cartoons and excerpts from a journal that he has kept for most of his adult life. The pictures from the journal pages are quite informative and show his drawings. But they are a pain in the ass. His handwriting can get kind of sloppy and I struggled to interpret some of the passages.
The book was also down in I'm guessing a prestige format with a thick covers and heavyweight pages, making it kind of unwieldy to ready comfortably. The pages were so thick I could never tell if I was turning one or two pages.
I'm glad I read it. But I'm glad I don't have to read it anymore.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm