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The Wall Street Journal's Pepper…and Salt Cartoons: CEOs and Other Kings
It’s up the organizational chart and off the wall when WSJ’s zaniest cartoonists take you to the boardrooms where funny business is always booming! Called on the carpet: a hilarious cartoon confab of the daffiest directors and most maniacal monarchs ever to impact upon your funnybone! So delegate stress and take the Journal’s fast track to corporate hijinks: These Pepper…and Salt Cartoons don’t just turn around management, they turn the entire business world funny-side up!
- GenresHumor
121 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 20, 2025
Found this at my parent’s house. A book of 121 one-panel, one-line cartoons originally published in The Wall Street Journal by various artists including Baloo, James Weaver, Jack Corbett, Harley Schwadron, Randy Glasbergen, Leo Garel, Mike Twohy, James Estes, Tom Cheney, George Dole, and more. (Unfortunately, the book does not list the contributing artists, so I went by signature and Google, so may be some errors there.)
The title baffled me until my artist google search. I don’t read the Wall Street Journal, but it looks like “Pepper and Salt” is the name of the section that features cartoons.
As with any book of cartoons by various artists, these were hit or miss for me. None were true standouts, but most were cute/funny. They’re all aimed at business people.
With the 1980s pub date, I wondered about the level of sexism. I’ve read other vintage cartoon books from earlier decades where this was an issue. But apart from maybe 90 percent of the characters being men with the few women generally appearing as secretaries or wives at home, it wasn’t an issue. And that’s a reflection of the period—most C-suite executives were men in 1981. The editor included a few that show women’s progress in business leadership. One by Bo Brown had a woman smirking as a fortune teller says, “You will meet a tall, dark, handsome man and you will beat him out for a promotion at the office.” Another, by Jack Corbett, has a mother ready to read her daughter a bedtime story captioned, “Read me the story about Jill and her associate going up the hill.” But it is notable that these few cartoons featuring female executives are not set at the office. Any woman in the office is a secretary.
Also of surprise was that despite being a 40-year-old book, many of the cartoons were still fairly relevant. In a cartoon by George Dole, an executive sits facing the corner of his office as a passing colleague tells another, “He had a visit from the parent company today.” One by Corbett shows a frustrated man tossing the papers on his desk in the air, “I wish some conglomerate would gobble up this mess!”
In the broad scheme of books I’ve read, I’d give this a 3. But in the context of what it is, and who it is for, I might bump it up to 3.5 stars.
The title baffled me until my artist google search. I don’t read the Wall Street Journal, but it looks like “Pepper and Salt” is the name of the section that features cartoons.
As with any book of cartoons by various artists, these were hit or miss for me. None were true standouts, but most were cute/funny. They’re all aimed at business people.
With the 1980s pub date, I wondered about the level of sexism. I’ve read other vintage cartoon books from earlier decades where this was an issue. But apart from maybe 90 percent of the characters being men with the few women generally appearing as secretaries or wives at home, it wasn’t an issue. And that’s a reflection of the period—most C-suite executives were men in 1981. The editor included a few that show women’s progress in business leadership. One by Bo Brown had a woman smirking as a fortune teller says, “You will meet a tall, dark, handsome man and you will beat him out for a promotion at the office.” Another, by Jack Corbett, has a mother ready to read her daughter a bedtime story captioned, “Read me the story about Jill and her associate going up the hill.” But it is notable that these few cartoons featuring female executives are not set at the office. Any woman in the office is a secretary.
Also of surprise was that despite being a 40-year-old book, many of the cartoons were still fairly relevant. In a cartoon by George Dole, an executive sits facing the corner of his office as a passing colleague tells another, “He had a visit from the parent company today.” One by Corbett shows a frustrated man tossing the papers on his desk in the air, “I wish some conglomerate would gobble up this mess!”
In the broad scheme of books I’ve read, I’d give this a 3. But in the context of what it is, and who it is for, I might bump it up to 3.5 stars.
Displaying 1 of 1 review