Winners and Losers by Arthur Hartz

"Winning is not the most important thing, it's the only thing." If Americans have a national creed, that's it. We care only about the winners: the most successful, beautiful, brilliant, talented, or charming among us. They matter, their faults are tolerated, their kindness exaggerated, and their companionship sought. Losers live in a different world. This book of witty cartoons and aphorisms by Dr. Art Hartz, a former medical researcher fleshes out the details of these two worlds and shows just how deeply the culture of winning and losing determines our self-esteem and relationships with our co-workers, friends and family.

In one cartoon, a caveman in a desolate area says to the assembly of cave men who have been choosing their leadership, "Now that that we have our upper class, we can work on food and shelter." In another, a cellophane woman " says to her friend: "Inside I’m fascinating. I just need to find my Terry Gross to bring it out."

All among us who've struggled to be a winner will have a laugh of recognition at the cartoon of a crawling, thirst-stricken man in a desert who bypasses a drink of water and even a beautiful woman to grab a trophy declaring him Number 1. And the cartoon of St. Peter greeting a hapless selection to the higher reaches of heaven with the commendation, "What you did better than everyone else was inspire feelings of superiority?"

Although the pure luck of our genes and economic circumstances of our parents largely decide who wins, we love to take credit for it as in a cartoon of a man winning at a dice game who blusters, "Damn, I'm good." And many will relate to the "super hero" of losers who says after his travails that his super power has become "to transcend rejection."

These funny, thought-provoking cartoons show just how deeply the culture of winning and losing determines our self-esteem and relationships with our co-workers, friends and family. Great gift for all those in your life who face daily the pressures to achieve the thrill of victory and cushion the agony of defeat.