Charles Barsotti, Cartoonist With Humor Both Simple and Absurd

Charles Barsotti, a cartoonist for The New Yorker whose jaded canines, outlaw snails and obtuse monarchs made readers laugh for more than 40 years, died on Monday at his home in Kansas City, Mo. He was 80.

The cause was brain cancer, his son, Michael, said.

Mr. Barsotti made pasta talk. He drew hot dogs planning cookouts. His lines were spare and clean, whether drawn or written:

•An anxious-looking man emerges through clouds at heaven’s gate, greeted by an amused St. Peter. “No, no, that’s not a sin, either,” St. Peter says. “My goodness, you must have worried yourself to death.”

• A small dog, seated in a psychiatrist’s chair, talks to a human patient: “Well, I think you’re wonderful.”

• An older man with a walking stick plods in the direction a sign is pointing. The sign says “Truth.” The man is on a treadmill.

• A gregarious piece of rigatoni talks into a telephone: “Fusilli, you crazy bastard! How are you?”

Mr. Barsotti filled his frames with seekers and worriers, the witty and the ruthless, out of context but perfectly placed. He made the universal absurd, the absurd universal. His cartoons did not always have punch lines. You laughed without necessarily knowing why.

 


One of my favorites:

Took out the book They moved my bowl, and someone had left his obit inside. Another admirer, surely.