Like jazz and baseball, cartoons are an indelible, indigenous part of American culture.Cartoon Americacelebrates 250 years of American cartooning with an unprecedented selection of original art by the best, most accomplished creators in the history of comics illustration, including Thomas Nast, Charles Schulz, Winsor McCay, Jules Feiffer, and many, many others. With accompanying essays written exclusively for this volume by such luminaries as John Updike, Art Spiegelman, and Chris Ware, the book includes many firsts, earliests, and one-of-a-kinds, including cells from classic animated films, vintage editorial cartoons, newspaper strips, comic books, and much more. Published in conjunction with the Library of Congress’s landmark exhibition of original art from the collection of cartoonist J. Arthur Wood, Jr., this is a treasure trove for the comics and cartoon enthusiast and an authoritative survey of this distinctly American art form.