From the publication of his first cartoon exactly one hundred years ago to his death in 1949, Robert Storm Petersen was not just the most popular cartoonist in Denmark, but one of the country's most beloved artists and public figures, period: the original "Unmelancholy Dane." The hugely prolific Petersen, who signed his work Storm P., created tens of thousands of cartoons, comic strips, illustrations, advertisements, paintings, and short stories-all sharing a sunny but sometimes rueful outlook, with a persistently sharp eye for life's absurdities. But Storm P. was best known for his hilarious single cartoons, which often returned to a small circle of themes: Philosophical but work-shy hoboes with extravagant names, jovial or sinister but always absent-minded professors, impossible Rube Goldberg-esque inventions, henpecked or delinquent husbands and their irritated wives... as well as amused commentaries on the news stories or trends of the day. Storm P.'s work is utterly unknown in the U.S., but the release of this spectacular coffee-table book, on the 100th anniversary of his earliest published cartoons, will soon rectify this. With hundreds upon hundreds of Storm P.'s most hilarious and visually dazzling cartoons and comic strips shot directly from original art courtesy of Copenhagen's Storm P. Museum, as well as an extensive, generously illustrated biographical introduction highlighting this artist's rich creative life (including his involvement in vaudeville and film, and his career as a painter), Storm P.: A Century of Laughter will introduce American readers to one of the great unknown cartooning geniuses of the 20th century.