Famous Cartoonists

“98% of the people who get the magazine say they read the cartoons first - and the other 2% are lying.” Cartoons very rarely fail to put a smile across a face. This doubles the job satisfaction experienced by the cartoonists adding their magical touch to every prevailing form of media. Television or print media, cartoons aid in dramatically increasing viewership and readership. Cartoonists that have mastered the art of producing Anime, Manga, Editorial cartoons or 3D can make a tremendous impact on the mass audiences, as long as they infuse talent with soul. This is the formula employed by the famous cartoonists that have changed the lives of millions of cartoon fans. Imagine a world without Homer Simpson or Disney! Laughter would probably be extinct under such horrifying circumstances. A few elegant strokes of many a cartoonist’s hands coupled with a dazzling imagination has opened a brand new dimension to cinema, television and life in general. Amazing isn’t it? Let’s walk through the profiles of a few famous cartoonists. 

List Of Famous Cartoonists

Berkeley Breathed
A budding  American cartoonist, Breathed created beautiful comic strips like "Bloom County" and "Outland," wherein he skilfully blended slapstick humor with social commentary. How can anybody skip the brilliance of "Bloom County" and the adorable animated penguin named “Opus”? In 1987, he bagged the Pulitzer Prize for cartooning.  Born in Encino, California, he pursued journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis was raised in a farm with his parents, his brother and 25 cats. Due to his severe asthma, he spent a lot of time in bed and hence concentrated more on his pencil, paper and imagination! He created pictures and eventually discovered how much funnier the outcome was when accompanied with words. In 1969, he joined "Tumbleweeds" creator Tom Ryan as his cartoon assistant. His very first comic strip was based on a character named Gnorm Gnat. One fine day, he realized that in the world of animation, more attention was given to dogs and less to cats.  On commemorating the existence of the 25 farm cats he grew up with, he conjured the fictional character Garfield, a fat, lazy, lasagna-loving, cynical cat. His faithful fans have grown into millions, and the tubby tabby now appears in more than 2600 newspapers worldwide! For Davis, life with Garfield is very simple: "If we take care of the cat, the cat will take care of us".

Matt Groening
The mastermind behind the eternal masterpiece that is ‘The Simpsons’ was born in Portland, Oregon, Groening in 1954 . He moved to Los Angeles in 1977, where he recorded his reactions to the city hilariously portrayed in the popular comic strip - "Life in Hell."The Simpsons” is one of the most loved animated family shows on TV that has been successfully running since 1990. Every TV show comes with an expiry date, but TV buffs have their fingers crossed in the hopes that “The Simpsons” will live on.

Bill Watterson
A kid who hasn’t stolen a few notorious ploys from “Calvin and Hobbes” has definitely missed out on something. Bill Watterson's outrageous comic strip, "Calvin and Hobbes," revolves around the escapades of a six-year-old brat Calvin and his imaginary tiger friend Hobbes. The strip, first syndicated in 1985, was carried in more than 2,400 newspapers when it ceased publication January 1, 1996. More than 23 million "Calvin and Hobbes" books are in print! In 1986, Bill became the youngest person to win the prestigious Reuben Award for "Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year" from the “National Cartoonists Society” and won the award again in 1988!

Gary Larson
Famous for his offbeat humour, Larson was born in Tacoma, Washington and is proud to have been an avid reader of comics’ right from childhood. His amazing work was first exhibited in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper back in 1979. His syndication contract for a regular cartoon feature called "The Far Side" kick-started soon after. He played jazz guitar and banjo in local nightclubs and then worked in a music store for several years before focussing on his drawing career.

Bill Amend
Born in 1962 in Northampton, Mass, Bill’s passion for drawing cartoons was ignited when he joined junior high school at the age of 12 in San Francisco. He began to contribute cartoons to various school publications. Bill majored in physics at Amherst College. His physics background inspired him to write those occasional math-oriented strips which barely three people in the universe think are funny. He worked as an assistant animator and in the movie production but decided to fly solo and to send comic strip submissions to the syndicates every now and then. Finally, "FoxTrot" caught the attention of the editors at ‘Universal Press Syndicate’ and made a grand debut on April 10, 1988, now appearing in over 1,000 newspapers worldwide.

Walt Disney
Walt Disney was born on 5th December, 1901 in Chicago. His career gained momentum from the time he started sketching horses, cows & bags of feed for farm equipment catalogs. Later he excelled in the art of animation from the Kansas City Film Ad Co., and moved to Hollywood, California to setup his own studio. Walt Disney became worldwide famous for the Mickey Mouse character which he created in 1928. He is a proud owner of 26 Oscar awards 7 Emmys.

RK Laxman
RK Laxman is widely recognized as India's greatest-ever cartoonist. He is best known for his creation “The Common Man”. As a child, he was obsessed with magazines such as ‘Strand Magazine’, ‘Punch, Bystander’ and ‘Tit-Bits’, before he could even read! By drawing caricatures of his school teachers on benches, he discovered his passion for drawing. Laxman was the captain of his local "Rough and Tough and Jolly" cricket team and his antics inspired the stories "Dodu the money maker" and "The Regal Cricket Club" written by his famous brother, Narayan. When he was still at the Maharaja's College of Mysore, he had started illustrating the stories of R K Narayan's stories in ‘The Hindu’. He also drew political and satirical cartoons for the local newspapers and for the ‘Swatantra’. Laxman later joined The Times of India, beginning a career that has spanned for over fifty years.