Reviews
“Joe Dator makes me laugh. Everybody loves to look behind the scenes and his new book shows the secrets, inspirations, heartaches, and triumphs of a life in cartoons. Christopher Guest and I have a collection of original cartoons, and we love our Joe Dator!”
“If you peek under the sofa cushion or into the mind of a cartoonist, mostly you will find crumbs, a couple of cheap ballpoint pens, some candy wrappers, a remote you lost in 1998, and a few greasy pennies. But every once in a while, you will find something that is really, really funny, like an anteater or a pair of jodhpurs. Joe Dator’s wonderful book illuminates the idea-path to an actual cartoon. It’s hilarious, too.”
“I enjoyed this look at how Joe’s particular brand of sausage is made, but it didn’t do much to quell my deep-seated resentment at just how damn good he is. If I see a gag and hiss, “I wish I’d thought of that,” chances are pretty good it’s one of his. It’s enraging. Go to hell, Joe.”
“What a strange, brutal world Joe Dator inhabits! Who needs it? Why do he and other gag cartoonists put themselves through such pain and frustration, week after week, late-night-hour after late-night-hour? I guess because they have to. And thank goodness for that. Better them than me. I loved this book.”
“Joe Dator’s Inked is full of cartoons that make me laugh. What’s more, he tells you how you, too, can be a top cartoonist, sort of, but not really. Which also makes me laugh.”
“Joe Dator likens pitching New Yorker cartoons to getting fired every week and applying for the same job again the following week. We are thankful for his perpetual nightmare — one that includes squirrels with nut allergies, palindromic dinosaurs, and breakfast plates arranged as happy faces. This welcome collection of his cartoons and rough sketches had me laughing so hard I snorted Pepsi out my nostrils (and I was drinking milk at the time).”
“A successful cartoonist is astute, sarcastic, irreverent, and stupefyingly silly. Joe Dator is an observer, a postulator who pushes the envelope. I am honoured to be one of his colleagues in this creative, curious, and often complicated industry. I like his art, I like his humour, and I wonder where in the world he gets his ideas.”
“Joe Dator has written a cartoon book like no other. … full of quirks and quarks of racy, punny satirical and hilarious gags showing the common idiosyncrasies of everyday life.”
– New York Journal of Books
“Sardonic and clever. It’s the kind of humour that makes you snort before you laugh, and it’s compelling, too.”
– The Star
“Joe Dator has written a cartoon book like no other. … full of quirks and quarks of racy, punny satirical and hilarious gags showing the common idiosyncrasies of everyday life.”
– New York Journal of Books
“Witty, insightful commentary and delightful cartoons make Inked a joy to read.”
– Foreword Reviews
“Joe Dator put out a book this year that made me want to throw away my ink bottle and become a bus driver. He is easily one of the funniest, most inventive, industrious and prolific New Yorker cartoonists working today. Any time I see it out in the wild, I make sure to move it to the front of the shelf for maximum exposure.”
– Chatfield