Bernard "Hap" Kliban (January 1, 1935–August 12, 1990) was an influential cartoonist born in New York. He studied at the Pratt Institute and spent time painting and travelling in Europe before moving to California and settling in San Anselmo, Marin County. In 1962, Kliban became a Playboy cartoonist, contributing cartoons until his death. He is best-known for the book Cat, a collection of cartoons about cats drawn in Kliban's distinctive style. The cat cartoons were discovered by a Playboy editor and the 1975 book Cat was born. This led to several other books of cartoons ending with Advanced Cartooning in 1993. Since Cat, his cartoons have adorned many products including stickers, calendars, mugs, and t-shirts. The books that followed Cat consisted mostly of extremely bizarre cartoons that find their humor in their utter strangeness and unlikeliness. Many of these are cartoons that Kliban drew for Playboy. They often contained dysmorphic drawings of nude figures in extremely unlikely environments, as if to spoof Playboy's own subject matter. Kliban also had a recurring series of drawings called "Sheer Poetry", in which the page would be split into six panels, containing random images of objects whose names, when spoken in the order presented, would form a rhyming, nonsensical verse. According to Art Spiegelman, Kliban invented the form of cartoon, popularized by Gary Larson and others, of a single panel with a third-person caption describing the action. Kliban is survived by his wife, Judith Kamman Kliban, who later married actor Bill Bixby shortly before Bixby's death in 1993, as well as two daughters from other marriages, Kalia and Sarah Kliban.
Books
- Cat, 1975 (ISBN 1-56305-284-9)
- Never Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head And Other Drawings, 1976 (ISBN 0-911104-67-4)
- Whack Your Porcupine, And Other Drawings, 1977 (ISBN 0-911104-92-5)
- Tiny Footprints, 1978 (ISBN 0-89480-031-0)
- Two Guys Fooling Around With The Moon, 1982 (ISBN 0-89480-198-8)
- Luminous Animals And Other Drawings, 1983 (ISBN 0-14-006861-9)
- The Biggest Tongue In Tunisia And Other Drawings, 1986 (ISBN 0-14-007220-9)
- Advanced Cartooning, 1993 (ISBN 0-8362-1710-1)
