WILLIAM STEIG.(Obituary)(The Talk of the Town)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 20-OCT-03

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COPYRIGHT 2003 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

William Steig, a contributor to this magazine since 1930, died the other day at the age of ninety-five, but contrived to leave a lasting impression of himself as a boy bursting with ideas and promise. His first cartoons here called upon his beginnings in the Bronx--he was the son of socialist immigrants; his father was a housepainter--and found comedy in families living in cramped apartments with kids underfoot and a trickle of air or springtime coming in over the fire escape. "Come home early or I'll kick you in the pants," a large mom warns her small departing Boy Scout. The scenes were gentle, but adults often emerged as the heavies--"How's your fat little boyfriend?" a smirking grandpa asks an eight-year-old girl. Steig's first great successes in the magazine were the running series "Small Fry" and "Dreams of Glory," which presented stubby, snub-nosed...

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