Book Two of the Funny Papers Trilogy, De Haven’s dazzling tour of twentieth-century America. New York City, circa 1936: a legendary cartoonist is taken ill with a mysterious ailment. Though Walter Geebus is stricken, possibly forever, his popular comic strip about an orphan boy and his smart-aleck talking dog must go on. But who can "ghost" the Great Geebus and satisfy millions of avid "Derby Dugan" fans? At once a rollicking and bittersweet tale of ambition, temptation, and jealousy, De Haven's novel is a tribute to the redemptive powers of love, imagination, and the well-chosen wisecrack.

The 1930s world of strip cartoons through the eyes of Al Beady, a lightning-fast pulp fiction writer. He writes text for "Derby Dugan, " a cartoon on an orphan boy and his smart-aleck talking dog, serving as comic relief for hard times.

Book One of the Funny Papers Trilogy, De Haven’s dazzling tour of twentieth-century America, FUNNY PAPERS chronicles cartoon icon Derby Dugan's beginnings in the rough-and-tumble world of yellow journalism in turn-of-the-century New York, when Hearst and Pulitzer owned tabloid America. The aptly named Georgie Wreckage, a sketch artist for Pulitzer's daily World, rockets to fame as the creator of what becomes a hugely successful cartoon franchise.

A guide to series fiction lists popular series, identifies novels by character, and offers guidance on the order in which to read unnumbered series.

Book Three of the Funny Papers Trilogy, De Haven’s dazzling tour of twentieth-century America. In 1967, the Summer of Love, Roy Looby, a gifted young cartoonist, deserts his mentor and joins the drop-outs of San Francisco's Haight Ashbury. There Looby creates "The Imp Eugene," a libidinous comic book character who is a far cry from his mentor's signature figure, Derby Dugan—the cheerful icon of a more optimistic generation. Celebrated and vilified for his creation, Looby soon disappears, rumored to have lost his mind during the drug-fueled creation of a cartoon masterpiece, and it's to his long-suffering brother, Nick, to find him. A long, strange trip across a wildly changing America, DUGAN UNDER GROUND is a rich, inventive tale celebrating the mythic qualities of American popular culture.

This engaging book answers such intriguing questions as how author Peter Benchley got the idea for "Jaws; " where Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton; and why the "Hindenberg" exploded over Lakehurst in 1937.