IN YOUR FACE: A Cartoonist at Work,...

IN YOUR FACE: A Cartoonist at Work, by Doug Marlette (Houghton Mifflin: $12.95, illustrated). Marlette, who draws for Newsday, is a member of the influential group of young, generally liberal political cartoonists that includes Mike Peters, Jeff MacNelly, Tony Auth and Tom Toles. In 1988, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his devastating portrait of an aged black man telling his grandson, “President? . . . No, child, but you can grow up to be front-runner.” Given his considerable talent, it’s surprising that this volume of career reflections isn’t more interesting. Marlette describes the problems of coming up with a daily idea on a deadline, recounts the difficulties he encountered drawing for smaller, more conservative Southern papers (including a selection of cartoons that editors refused to print) and offers examples of the reactions and overreactions his cartoons have provoked over the years, but much of the material seems reminiscent of similar books by Auth and Peters. Marlette also devotes a considerable amount of space to “Kudzu,” the rather uninspired comic strip he draws, based on his experiences of growing up in the Deep South.