Bruce McCall

Bruce McCall (May 10, 1935 – May 5, 2023) was a Canadian author and illustrator, best known for his frequent contributions to The New Yorker and The National Lampoon. He published several collections of work, two memoirs and children's book, which he wrote and illustrated.^[1]

Bruce McCall
Born	(1935-05-10)May 10, 1935 Simcoe, Ontario, Canada
Died	May 5, 2023(2023-05-05) (aged 87) New York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Author Illustrator

Life and career

McCall was born on May 10, 1935, in Simcoe, Ontario.^[2] He was fascinated by comic books and showed an early aptitude for drawing fantastical flying machines, blimps, bulbous-nosed muscle cars and futuristic dioramas. In his memoir, Thin Ice (1997), McCall recounted that he was never good at physical activity as a boy,^[3] but could count on his mother to encourage his creativity.

Without any serious technical training, McCall began his illustration career drawing cars for Ford Motor Company in Toronto in the late 1950s before moving into advertising. At the ad agency Campbell-Ewald, McCall met and worked with David E. Davis Jr., who later rise to prominence as the Editor in Chief of Car and Driver and founder of the Automobile magazine. Later, in New York, he wrote ad copy for Ford and Mercedes-Benz. He temporarily relocated to Germany after he was put in charge of Mercedes-Benz advertising. After several decades in advertising, he sought opportunities elsewhere in the publishing industry.^[4]

During his time in New York City, McCall was hired by National Lampoon, where he made a name for himself as an artist with intelligent and whimsical humor. McCall also spent a brief period writing sketches for Saturday Night Live. A large proportion of McCall's work has a retrofuturistic theme.^[5] McCall illustrated magazine covers, regularly appearing in The New Yorker,^[6] Car and Driver,^[7] and other magazines. He has been a contributor to the magazine since 1979. McCall was also a humourist, and has written essays on some of the social ironies of modern life. He wrote frequently for the "Shouts & Murmurs" section of The New Yorker. He contributed more than 80 covers to the magazine over the course of his career.^[8]

McCall lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City near Central Park with his wife, Polly, and daughter, Amanda. He died of complications from Parkinson's disease on May 5, 2023, at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. He was 87.^[9]

Selected bibliography

Books

• (1982) Zany Afternoons ISBN 0-394-42683-5
• (1993) Sit!: The Dog Portraits of Thierry Poncelet, text by Bruce McCall ISBN 1-56305-380-2
• (1997) Thin Ice (memoir) ISBN 0-679-76959-5
• (1998) Viagra Nation: The Definitive Guide to Life in the New Sexual Utopia ISBN 0-06-019311-5
• (2001) Sit!: Ancestral Dog Portraits ISBN 0-7611-2544-2
• (2001) The Last Dream-o-Rama ISBN 0-609-60801-0
• (2003) New York to the World Mural 8th Ave and 34th street
• (2003) All Meat Looks Like South America ISBN 0-609-60802-9
• (2008) Marveltown ISBN 0-374-39925-5
• (2009) 50 Things to Do with a Book ISBN 0-06-170366-4
• (2013) This Land Was Made for You and Me (But Mostly Me): Billionaires in the Wild (with David Letterman) ISBN 0-399-16368-9
• (2020) How Did I Get Here? ISBN 9780399172281

Articles

• "Looking Forward to Your Check". Shouts & Murmurs. The New Yorker. 84 (44): 29. January 12, 2009.
• "Pet Books Proliferate". Shouts & Murmurs. The New Yorker. 87 (36): 43. November 14, 2011.
• "Know Your Coconuts". Sketchbook. The New Yorker. 93 (10): 60. April 24, 2017.