This slick, oversize, and quite reasonably priced hardcover edited by Shane Glines and Alex Chun -- and with a fine biographical essay by Armando Mendez -- accomplishes the wonderful service of introducing all us lame, Johnny-come-latelies to some of the finest work of one of the foremost -- and influential -- cartoonist-illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century.  Patterson was an absolute master of both the clean line and the spot placement of blacks; and he was no slouch in the composition department either.  And his color work, of which there are ample examples on display here, demonstrates an innate understanding of integrating color and form as well.  Clearly, Patterson had a thing for the lithe and leggy amongst the female gender, and this is work that that will doubtless do little to advance a rapprochement between the sexes in this day and age, but it nevertheless presents a singularly striking, if not definitive, portrait of the jazz age, the echoes of which continue to resound to this day.