Comedian Steve Martin seems to have no impulse to rest on his laurels: not just a household name in movies, he's written fiction, essays, plays and music. In A Wealth of Pigeons, collaborating with artist and writer Harry Bliss, now he's a cartoonist as well. Bliss draws for the New Yorker, so it's no surprise that this book feels much like a collection from that magazine. However, it's distinguished by regular breaks from the one-panel gag format in favor of strips of various lengths, starring the authors themselves, starting with their first meeting (where they're a bit wary of one another, but quickly come to terms).
Martin relates in the introduction that his first cartoon idea arose from a comment his wife made about their dog's lack of opposable thumbs (now come to fruition in this book). It's a good start, as dog gags are a venerable tradition in this format, and the cartoons also make use of other old-school one-panel tropes like the guy stuck on a desert island.
As Martin also reports, he learned from tweeting out some of the cartoons that there will always be someone who doesn't get it, so readers should probably expect that not every comic will hit their personal funny bone. This collection also might be best suited for a cartoon fan of a certain age--there is more than one Woodstock joke. But for fans of this kind of humor, these two eminences in their professions have done a bang-up job. --Linda Lombardi, writer and editor