Addams, Charles Samuel, 1912–88, American cartoonist, b. Westfield, N.J. Beginning in 1932, Addams's work appeared regularly in the New Yorker, to which he eventually contributed more than 1,300 cartoons. Members of a ghoulish family were recurring figures in his subject matter. Famed for their wit, fantasy, and sense of the macabre, his cartoons are collected in Drawn and Quartered (1942), Addams and Evil (1947), Monster Rally (1950), Home Bodies (1954), Black Maria (1960), Charles Addams' Mother Goose (1967), My Crowd (1970), and The World of Charles Addams (1991). Addams's characters also have been the basis for television series and motion pictures.
See biography by L. H. Davis (2006).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.