Nazi cartoons from the New Yorker's Sam Gross

As unlikely as it sounds, the idea for a book of swastika cartoons came to legendary 74-year-old New Yorker cartoonist Sam Gross when he was watching TV in his Upper West Side apartment back in 1997. "Some guy had drawn a swastika on a garage in Mamaroneck, New York, and it was the lead story on Channel 7 Eyewitness News," Gross tells Radar. "And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, 'This is really the lead story on the news? There have got to be more important stories than this.' It was so knee-jerk and exploitative. So I decided to see if I couldn't have some fun with the symbol."

Former New York Times art director Steven Heller suggested that a more apt title for Gross's book would have been "We Have Ways of Making You Wince."Ten years and 500 sketches later, Gross, who has been drawing for the New Yorker since the 1970s (you may recognize this as his most famous work), has finally made good on his promise with We Have Ways of Making You Laugh: 120 Funny Swastika Cartoons, in stores this week.

The book is exactly what the title says it is—each cartoon features a swastika, either fashioned out of an inanimate object or affixed to an article of clothing—though whether you agree with the "funny" modifier likely depends on your sense of humor. The Anti-Defamation League has already accused Gross of "trivializing" the Holocaust. (The fact that its national director, Abraham Foxman, is a survivor doesn't help matters. Gross, for his part, is just a regular Jew.) Jewish novelist Thane Rosenbaum called Gross a "putz." Former New York Times art director Steven Heller suggested that a more apt title would have been "We Have Ways of Making You Wince."

Not that any of this bothers Gross. "The New Yorker thought at least one was funny," he says, referring to the cartoon in which a kid remarks to a friend after seeing a clown with a swastika on his armband, "Now I have another reason to hate clowns." (See? Funny!) "They bought it, but ended up not running it after that whole noose scandal at Columbia. Again, the goddamn media."

FOR A GALLERY OF GROSS' SWASTIKA CARTOONS, CLICK HERE.

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