The Ruling Clawss The Socialist Cartoons of Syd Hoff

Published under the pseudonym A. Redfield by prominent New Yorker contributor Syd Hoff in the 1930s, these mordant and marvellously drawn gag comics skewer the rich and powerful with a pointed pen.

During his career as a New Yorker cartoonist, and before he wrote Danny and the Dinosaur, Syd Hoff wrote under a different name. He was A. Redfield, a cartoonist for the communist newspaper the Daily Worker, and a scourge of the rich and powerful.

Scorning what he saw as the complicity and stale jokes of cartooning peers, Hoff set his sights on the ruling class and revealed them for what they were: hilariously inept, deeply selfish, and incredibly dangerous. Hoff spared nothing from his pen, lampooning police brutality, thin-skinned industrialists, racists, and the looming threat of fascism at home and abroad.

This new edition of The Ruling Clawss includes a new introduction by the historian Philip Nel, who reveals
 the story behind the rise and disappearance of Hoffʼs Redfield. The Ruling Clawss cements Hoff as a master of the gag comic, whose work remains powerfully funny and troublingly resonant.

Born in the Bronx, New York, Syd Hoff (1912–2004) sold his first cartoon to The New Yorker at age 18 and went on to publish more than 500 cartoons in the magazine, becoming known for his depictions of lower-middle-class life in New York City. Beginning in 1933 and ending in the 1940s, Hoff contributed cartoons to leftist magazines such as New Masses and The Daily Worker under the pen name “A. Redfield” in order to conceal his political sympathies.

Philip Nel is a scholar of children’s literature and comics. He has authored or co-edited thirteen books, most recently the second edition of Keywords for Children’s Literature and the fourth volume of Crockett Johnson’s comic strip Barnaby.