CAVE DRAWINGS FOR THE FUTURE.

ByAbner Dean '31. New York: Dial Press, 1954.115 pp. $3.50.

Cave Drawings for the Future is Abner Dean's latest picture book (his fifth) in a series that began back in 1945 with It's ALong Way To Heaven. Here again are the tart and witty visions that raise the eyebrow, twist the smile, and usually ring the bell.

As Abner himself says, "When the first caveman put the first cartoon on the wall of his cave, he was not alone. A second caveman was looking over his shoulder and asking, 'What is It?' " Now most of us are the descendants of that second caveman (or was it a cavewoman?), and we're still asking the cartoonists, the artists, the poets the same old accusing question. Furthermore, we're getting the same old inevitable answer, "It's us!"

To quote Abner again, "These are cartoons for the courageous who each day perform the brave act of waking up - and looking at themselves in a mirror. Here's another mirror." And thus we look at our unadorned selves, so comic and so tragic, so capable of glory and so slightly risen from barbarism. The experience is excruciating and yet our destiny does have a very funny face.