SADLY, I RECOGNIZE SOME OF MY NEIGHBORS IN HIS WORK...

Today marks the 100th birthday of Chas. Addams, the creator of many mordid cartoons in The New Yorker.  Charles -- well, Charles was not like the other children.  His macabre sense of humor may have been honed when he did a stint in the layout department of True Detective; his job included retouching photographs of murder victims to eliminate the blood.  He became a regular contributor to The New Yorker in 1935.  Two years later, he began series of cartoons featuring a very strange family, which later became thought of as The Addams Family.  They were transferred to television as Gomez and Morticia, their children Wednesday and Pugsley, Uncle Fester, Granny, and man(?)servant Lurch, among others.  Television success brought about a rival series, The Munsters, as well as feature films, animated series, and a Broadway play.  Addams received a number of awards in his lifetime, including a special award from the Mystery Writers of America.  Both he and his characters have become engrained in the American culture.  Not bad for a kid from Westfield, New Jersey.  He died in 1988 from a heart attack, was cremated, and his ashes were buried in a pet cemetery on his estate.