CHAST, ROZ

CHAST, ROZ (1955– ), U.S. cartoonist. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she also grew up, the daughter of teachers, Chast graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with the intention of becoming an illustrator. In 1978, the year after she graduated, she dropped off a stack of cartoons at the New Yorker magazine. One was accepted immediately. At first her cartoons shocked regular readers of the magazine, who were accustomed to its refined, gag-line-caption tradition. Chast developed a following for her queasy, wry commentary on middle-class American life. Soon she became the first woman to sign a long-term contract with the magazine. For more than 25 years, she submitted eight cartoons a week; of that number, one was normally published. In addition to the cartoons, Chast illustrated more than a dozen books, for children and adults, and did work for advertising agencies. Her largest cartoon, a marquee advertisement for charles busch 's Broadway play The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, in 2000, showed a doodle of a woman trapped in a shopping bag. (Stewart Kampel (2nd ed.)