Arts: Classic Cartoon

Martin Plimmer on Gilbert Bundy

`We'll wait five minutes - then if

we don't get a date we'll open

the sardines

All I know about Gilbert Bundy is that he contributed to Esquire between 1933 and 1956. Also, that he had a quality of wit and authority of line that transcended Esquire's requirement for sauciness. The only Bundys in American biographical dictionaries are politicians or serial killers, the information superhighway hasn't heard of him and the International Museum of Cartoon Art hasn't heard of him. There are cave painters with higher profiles. This is the tragedy of the cartoon artist, the most disposable of published professionals, whose only biographical detail is the squiggle at the foot of his picture, often unreadable. Yet he may have created a couple of sardine-desiring glamour pusses who curl up in the imagination like a warm treat.