BOOTH AGAIN! <i> by George Booth (Andrews & McMeel: $7.95) </i>

If Suskind finds pathos and humanity in contemporary urban existence, George Booth sees folly and humor. One of the premier New Yorker cartoonists, he creates a hysterically skewed world of dumpy, rumpsprung cats, bull terriers and little old ladies. The quirky people who inhabit his drawing seem befuddled by life, rather than alienated. An indignant diner in a posh restaurant announces to the waiter, “Mrs. Youttsey’s floating island is not floating. It capsized and sank,” while a terminally frowzy housewife nervously asks her disgruntled husband if he thinks “the center is going to hold.” Absurdity in excelsis.