Charles David Saxon (November 13, 1920 – December 6, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for his work for The New Yorker.
Saxon was born Charles David Isaacson in Brooklyn; both his parents were musicians, and his great-uncle had been court violinist to the British Queen Victoria.
He played drums and worked in jazz bands while at Columbia University, which he entered at 15; he became editor of its humor magazine, Jester.After earning his B.A.
he worked at Dell Publishing as editor of the satire magazine Ballyhoo before serving as a bomber pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II, flying 40 missions over Germany.
After the war he rejoined Dell, left to edit This Week for a year, and returned to edit Modern Screen.
He also began drawing cartoons on weekends, selling them to The Saturday Evening Post.
His first appearance in The New Yorker was a spot illustration in 1943; after becoming a full-time cartoonist in 1955, he joined their staff in 1956 and over more than 30 years drew 92 covers and more than 700 cartoons for the magazine.
He published three collections of his cartoons for the magazine: Oh, Happy, Happy, Happy! (1960), One Man's Fancy (1970), and Honesty Is One of the "Better" Policies: Saxon's World of Business (1984).
Saxon also drew numerous ads, including for Chivas Regal, American Airlines, Bankers Trust, I.B.M., and Xerox.
As his obituary in The New York Times noted, "So ubiquitous was his advertising work in the late 1970s that one edition of The Wall Street Journal featured ads by Mr.
Saxon for three different companies."Saxon had one-man shows at the Nicholls Gallery.
He was awarded a gold medal by the Art Directors Club of New York in 1963 and an honorary doctorate by Hamilton College in 1972.
He received the National Cartoonist Society Advertising Award for 1977, and their Gag Cartoon Award for 1980, 1986, and 1987.