Sam Gross (August 7, 1933 – May 6, 2023) was an American

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

, specializing in single-panel cartoons. He contributed to an array of publications, including ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''.

History

Born in

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

, New York City, Gross was the son of Max and Sophie, who were Jewish immigrants to America. His mother was born in

Iași Iași ( , , ; also known by other #Etymology and names, alternative names), also referred to mostly historically as Jassy ( , ), is the Cities in Romania, third largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical ...

, Romania and his father was born in Lithuania. His parents came to the United States as children around 1905. Gross said his mother's side of the family is artistic. His father was a CPA. Gross attended DeWitt Clinton High School, which at the time was an all-boys school. After he graduated, Gross went to City College. He started as a business major, then he wanted to be an accounting major, and finally an advertising major. Gross ended up taking a lot of art and history courses. Sam Gross began cartooning in 1962 and has continued ever since. His cartoons have appeared in numerous magazines, including '' Cosmopolitan'', ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...

'', '' Good Housekeeping'', ''

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a not-for-profit, independent corporation that is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. ''HBR'' is published six times a year ...

'' and ''

''. Gross was cartoon editor for '' National Lampoon'' and '' Parents Magazine''. Gross also became involved in electronic publishing ventures with cartoons playing an important role. Gross died on May 6, 2023, at the age of 89.

Work habits

Every Wednesday Gross sat down to draw and, what he called, "trip". He claimed that he did not draw for magazines or newspapers, he just drew. Gross averaged 16–17 drawings a week, and numbered and dated every one. Once finished, he photocopied the drawings on forty-four-pound stock paper, then punched three holes and put them into loose-leaf books; Gross was afraid of losing his original copy and idea. In 2012, Sam Gross had a total of about 27,592 cartoons.

Comic strips

Gross created the

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

'' Cigarman''.

Collections

Published collections of cartoons by Sam Gross include: *''How Gross! : The Collected Craziness of S. Gross'' (1973) *''I Am Blind and My Dog Is Dead'' (1978) *''An Elephant Is Soft and Mushy'' (1982) *''More Gross'' (1982) *''Totally Gross'' (1984) *''Love Me, Love My Teddy Bear'' (1986) *''No More Mr. Nice Guy'' (1987) *''Your Mother Is a Remarkable Woman'' (1992) *''Catss by Gross'' (1995) *''We Have Ways of Making You Laugh: 120 Funny Swastika Cartoons'' (2008)

References

External links

''The Comics Journal'': Sam Gross interview
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CartoonBank: Sam Gross
1933 births 2023 deaths American editorial cartoonists The New Yorker cartoonists American comics artists Jewish American comics artists Jewish humorists Jewish American editorial cartoonists American people of Romanian-Jewish descent American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Inkpot Award winners National Lampoon people DeWitt Clinton High School alumni City College of New York alumni 21st-century American Jews Artists from the Bronx {{US-cartoonist-stub