Article: Appreciation; A Walk on the Dark Side; The Haunting Humor of Cartoonist Charles Addams

"This is where I say good night," said the anorexic witch, standing at the street manhole.

That cartoon seems a fitting adieu to Chas Addams (as he signed his name), the man who painted humor black and made us laugh at death.

Addams died suddenly Thursday of a heart attack suffered in his car outside his Manhattan apartment. But he left behind the ghostly figures and figments of his imagination with whom he had haunted a strange world, the flip side of everyday.

The Addams family, his longest running characters, first saw the dark of night at The New Yorker, where he sold his first cartoon when he was 21. "The Addams Family"-the television show in the 1960s-added fame to his ...

Related newspaper, magazine, and journal articles:

 
 
Newsweek Harper's Magazine The Washington Post Chicago Tribune Crain's Chicago Business PRNewswire Pediatric News The Nation Advertising Age The Economist (US) A FREE trial gives you access to over 80 million articles! Access over 6,500 publications with a FREE trial!