World Out of Order by Joe Serrano
Cartoon Book by Joe Serrano
World Out of Order: Available in Paperback and Ebook from Amazon .
Nina Serrano Remembers. . .
My father, Joe Serrano, was born in Columbia in 1912 and emigrated to the United States at age 9. He quit school in the eighth grade to go to work to help support his widowed mother and little sister. Even as a very young school boy, he drew cartoons, letting his classmates see them for a penny a peak. Always thinking about metaphysics, the meaning of life, and the nature of God, he drew the humors of everyday living into cartoons. Now over a hundred years since his birth, his cartoons resonate with the new realities of the 21st Century as if they were created just yesterday.
A Long Journey to the Publication of World Out of Order.
It was a long journey to the publication of the cartoon book World Out of Order. As a child, I was always aware of my father’s cartoons, even before I could read. He sat with pen and ink in hand drawing on a board.
In 1945, when my brother, Philip Serrano, was born after WWII, my father left his wartime draftsman job and declared himself a full time free lance cartoonist. The drawing board became a drawing table in a dedicated corner of my parents’ bedroom. It was equipped with drawing pens, pencils, brushes, a big stack of white paper, India ink and a stash of erasers. A guillotine paper trimmer (still in use in my home today) and a large powerful magnifying glass completed his drawing studio space.
Over the years he expanded to a whole room for his work where he conceived and drew 22 rough drafts a week to send out to magazines and trade journals. He would check his mailbox daily for acceptances and rejections then draw up the final drafts.
He did this in New York, Massachusetts, and California for 47 years. When he died in 1987, the following day, in the mail came an acceptance of one of his rough drafts from a magazine he’d submitted to earlier. My life long friend, the artist Beryl Landau, kindly drew the finished version for him. He was able to end his career on a triumphant note with its publication. My brother and I and our spouses, Elizabeth Hickey Serrano and Paul Richards, gathered up all his files and stored them in Phil and Liz’s garage.
“World Out of Order” by Joe Serrano is a cartoon book now available in eBook and paperback published by Estuary Press. See a short sample slideshow of his cartoons below.
Sixty cartoons because we need a good laugh.
The book includes my “Poem for My Father with Love from Your Daughter” and a short biography of Joe Serrano.
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