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The Slings and Arrows of Mundane Fortune

Cartoons about self-esteem, meaningful relationships, and the daily assaults on both.  

Cartoons about self-esteem, meaningful relationships, and the daily assaults on both.  

MUNDANE FORTUNE Books

Our Autumn Years Not Golden But Interesting

Cartoons From the Front Lines of the Battle Against Aging

The elderly are often seen as physical and mental “basket cases” –– pathetic and ridiculous. They face a medical profession that lacks patience, young people who lack tolerance and families who patronize them.
Not funny, right? But what if the elderly “do not go gentle into that good night” and instead come out swinging? That’s what the feisty elderly people do in the droll new book of cartoons and aphorisms,
Drawing on his medical background and the skills of top cartoonists, Dr. Hartz shows the elderly have the same variation, complexity and novelty as everyone else –– except in larger doses. Anyone with interest in aging should enjoy this insightful, spirited and compassionate humor book.

Winners and Losers

Heretical Cartoons about the American Religion of Winning
“Winning is not the most important thing, it’s the only thing.”  If Americans have a national creed, that’s it. We care only about the winners: the most successful, beautiful, brilliant, talented, or charming among us. They matter, their faults are tolerated, their kindness exaggerated, and their companionship sought. Losers live in a different world. This book of witty cartoons and aphorisms fleshes out the details of these two worlds and shows  how deeply the culture of winning and losing determines our self-esteem and relationships.                                             Great gift for all those  in your life who face daily the pressures to achieve the thrill of victory and cushion the agony of defeat.  

Love And Marriage

Cartoons About Imperfect People Managing Their Most Important Relationship

This book shows the poignant and hilarious struggles to make love and marriage work despite genetic drives and culture that are poorly designed for intimate relationships. What brings us together in a romantic relationship is sexual attractiveness.  The traits needed for the relationship to survive —respect, commitment, empathy and tolerance — are given low priority for choosing partners.       

Our lack of ability to get past the exteriors of the person we are dating continues after marriage. For example, in one cartoon, a man who finds the athletic ability of basketball players inspirational sees nothing special about his wife heroically juggling children, home and bills.  On the other hand, there is a a woman in a happy marriage who says: “His tolerances perfectly match my deficiencies.”

Friendship

How Hard Could That Be
We are wired to need friends.   They help us, we help them; they like us, we like them.  When we don’t like them, we painlessly move on to someone we do like.  If anything is set up for success, this is it.  The only sand in the gears is that our ego needs and inability to consider the ego needs of others continually creates dissatisfaction and distance in relationships. This book examines relationship friction with insight and humor. It is a sympathetic portrayal of creatures who know what should do and are able to do but can’t quite pull off. Clearly when it comes to relationships, we need to have a better understanding of our values, communication and tolerance.  This book of wry humor can help.

What's Special About
MUNDANE FORTUNE Books

They Know Their Limitations

Cartoons have addressed great issues: war, governance, social destruction, the fate of nations. Not the Mundane Fortune Cartoons. They sweat the small stuff, the struggles for self-esteem and meaningful relationships.

They Solve The Problem​

They reveal that society will function as it should when human inclinations are rewired. While we're waiting, the cartoons will ridicule the hell out of these inclinations until they’re afraid to show their face

They Channel Hemingway​

Our boring lives are turned into a war zone, where we struggle heroically against the implacable enemy's relentless attack against our egos.

They Are Your
Shakespeare Companion

These cartoons describe the constant heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, the pangs of despised love, the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes.

They Expose Bad Guys

Spoiler alert: it's not the women, the men, the old white men, the spoiled rotten kids in this generation, or the politicians. (Oops, sorry, I got carried away on that one. Of course it’s the politicians, but it's more than the politicians.) To know who the bad guys are, we have to go all the way back to the great sage, Pogo, who said “We have met the enemy, and he is us”. These cartoons are the commentary to the simple truth of Pogo.

Preview "Friendship: How Hard Could That Be"

Professional Book Reviews

In this cartoon collection by the author of The Slings and Arrows of Mundane Fortune (2019), the concepts of winning and losing are unpacked, tongue firmly in cheek. …A mixed bag of gags and witticisms revealing the hollowness of both victory and defeat.

explores the meanings people attach to success and failure, identifying who the winners/losers are and how they are treated. … I rate Winners and Losers 4 out of 4 stars. It’s not perfect, but the few errors I found are negligible.

This sly book of well drawn cartoons will bring hope and chuckles to readers who weary of the rat race.

This slim volume looks at the joys, frustrations, and puckish humor of growing old. … this is a wonderfully hopeful book—empathetic and warmhearted.

is a book that consists of single-pane comics and short-phrase banners. In a very creative way, it brings attention to some of the thought-provoking events that occur through getting older. For some reason, this is a topic that is avoided by many people, but Arthur Hartz, the author, has hit the nail on the head with his ironic and sometimes dark comics. In seven chapters covering the majority of what it means to get old, Hartz embraces the intricacies of the aged in a truly unique and appealing way.

In this cartoon collection by the author of The Slings and Arrows of Mundane Fortune (2019), the concepts of winning and losing are unpacked, tongue firmly in cheek. …A mixed bag of gags and witticisms revealing the hollowness of both victory and defeat.

explores the meanings people attach to success and failure, identifying who the winners/losers are and how they are treated. … I rate Winners and Losers 4 out of 4 stars. It’s not perfect, but the few errors I found are negligible.

This sly book of well drawn cartoons will bring hope and chuckles to readers who weary of the rat race.

This slim volume looks at the joys, frustrations, and puckish humor of growing old. … this is a wonderfully hopeful book—empathetic and warmhearted.

is a book that consists of single-pane comics and short-phrase banners. In a very creative way, it brings attention to some of the thought-provoking events that occur through getting older. For some reason, this is a topic that is avoided by many people, but Arthur Hartz, the author, has hit the nail on the head with his ironic and sometimes dark comics. In seven chapters covering the majority of what it means to get old, Hartz embraces the intricacies of the aged in a truly unique and appealing way.

Love

Marriage

Success

Aging

About The Team

author1

Arthur Hartz

Arthur Hartz had one career earning his PhD and an MD and a second career using this training to conduct medical research. His third is as a hobby anthropologist, observing quaint customs in primitive cultures–such as the one you live in–and reporting his observations with the help of talented professional cartoonists. Dr. Hartz was raised in Farmington, New Mexico and spent most of his adult life in the Midwest trying to learn politeness. Currently he lives with his wife in St Louis, Missouri. He enjoys vacationing in Latin America, speaking with anyone who can tolerate his Spanish. ​
author2

Aleksandar Jovik

Aleksandar Jovik is a professional cartoonist living with his wife and two children in the small town of Novi Knezevac in Serbia. I found him by advertising on the Internet for a cartoonist. More than 20 applied, and he was chosen as the best by a well-known professional cartoonist because of his sense of humor and ability to simply capture emotions in the face and body posture. He has mastered idiomatic English entirely by wide and intense reading. I only learned that he was not an American when I asked him.
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Mike Wolfe

Mike Wolfe is a professional comic artist in Salt Lake City Utah who has created several cartoon books. He was the first of the three major artists for the Slings and Arrows Book and did many of the cartoons prior to devoting all of this time to his own work. The author discovered him drawing cartoons while manning the night shift desk at his mother’s retirement home. His art can be viewed on his website.
author4

Heroud Ramos

Heroud Ramos is a designer and cartoonist from Lima, Peru. He likes to read comics, watch movies and know about geopolitics…plus he has an anarchic sense of humor.

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