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Five For Friday #18—Home State Pride
posted February 25, 2005
 

Name Five Cartoonists Born in Your Home State

Tom Spurgeon
Indiana

1. Jim Davis (Fairmount)
2. Dan Wright (Muncie)
3. John T. McCutcheon (South Raub)
4. Jerry Scott (Elkhart)
5. T.K. Ryan (Anderson)

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Sean Collins
New York

Jack Kirby
Will Eisner
Stan Lee
Art Spiegelman
John Romita

Unbeatable.

Editor's Note: It's only for that very New York "unbeatable" I'm noting here rather than e-mail that Mr. Spiegelman was born in Stockholm. Ha ha.

Editor's Other Note: Someone wrote in that I should point out that Stan Lee isn't a cartoonist, either, which is funny, but I'll allow writers.

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Bryan Munn
Ontario

Well, Ontario is not a State yet -- it is a Province of the glorious Dominion of Canada and home to most of the greatest cartoonists the world has ever known. A tiny sample:

Jay Stephens
Lynn Johnston
JW Bengough
Adrian Dingle
Seth

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T. Hodler
Missouri

From the great state of Missouri:

1. Al Hirschfeld
2. Ub Iwerks
3. Fred Lasswell (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith)
4. George McManus (Bringing Up Father)
5. Mike Peters (Mother Goose & Grimm)

Bonus: Missouri-born Thomas Hart Benton was briefly a newspaper cartoonist before making it as a painter.

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Cole Odell
Vermont

Ed Koren, Alison Bechdel, James Sturm, Harry Bliss and Gene Colan live here. Frank Miller and Jeff Danziger have heavy ties to the state. But the only four prominent cartoonists I can come up with who were actually born in Vermont are:

Steve Bissette
Rick Veitch
Tom Veitch (I'm assuming)
James Kochalka

Which, relative to our size, (600,000) is a pretty decent showing.

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Robert Boyd
Texas

Actually, I could do more than 5 if I wanted. But below is what I hope is a kind of cool and somewhat heterogeneous list of Texas-born cartoonists:

1. Robert Minor
2. Roy Crane
3. Gilbert Shelton
4. Gary Panter
5. Mat Brinkman

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Andrew Farago
Ohio

Ohioans all:

1. Harvey Pekar
2 & 3. Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
4. Tom Batiuk
5. Tom Wilson

Mr. Farago later wrote back to include 1. Bill Watterson and 2. Jeff Smith with help from Shaenon Garrity.


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Russ Maheras
Illinois

Walt Disney (Chicago)
E.C. Segar (Chester)
Harold Gray (Kankakee)
Chic Young (Chicago)
Herbert "Herblock" Block (Chicago)

Editor's Note: I liked the hometown breakdown so much I added it to my own!

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Steve Block
London, England

Carl Giles
Matt Davies
Gerald Scarfe
Martin Rowson
John Tenniel

That's if you accept that London isn't a state. It's not even a county, which is our best equivalent.

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Dan Parmenter
Massachusetts

Dr. Seuss (Springfield)
Peter Laird (North Adams)
Gluyas Williams (okay, born elsewhere, but a lifelong Newton MA resident, and Newton's my hometown)
George Baker
Scott McCloud

Honorable mention: Al Capp

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Cris Skokna
Maryland

1. Rick Detorie (Towson)
2. Aaron McGruder (Born in Chicago, but bred in Columbia)
3. Frank Cho (Beltsville)
4. Tim Kreider (Baltimore)
5. Bernie Wrightson (Baltimore)


Indiana Bonus: Franklin Daily Journal cartoonist Mark Brayer born in Cumberland.

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Eric Reynolds
Washington

Basil Wolverton
Hank Ketchum
Charles Burns
Lynda Barry
Gary Larson

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T Fraga
Galicia, Spain

Miguelanxo Prado
Carlos Portela
Xulio Das Pastoras
Xaquin Marin
Fran Jaraba

Historic Catalog of Galician authors

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Dave White
Pennsylvania

Jack Cole
Robert Crumb
Steve Ditko
Walt Kelly
Joe Matt

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Timothy Johnson
Connecticut

Connecticut is more known as a state that cartoonists move to (and die) than it is known for the ones actually born there.

1. Al Capp (New Haven)
2. B. (Bernard) Kliban (Norwalk)
3. Guy Gilchrist (Winsted)
4. Jim Aparo (not sure, but raised in New Britain)
5. George Tuska (Hartford)

And while Walt Kelly was born in Philadelphia, he spent most of his youth in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

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Marc Michaud
Alberta

Well, repping Alberta are five superhero cartoonists:

1. Todd Macfarlane
2. Travis Charest
3. Cary Nord
4. Dale Keown
5. Paul Pelletier (I think)

If there are any indy cartoonists, I don't know about them.

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Ian Brill
California

Steve Weissman
Rube Goldberg
Jaime Hernandez
Gilbert Hernandez
Mario Hernandez

You probably don't want me to go over every cartoonist who has moved here.

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(For Renee French)
New Jersey

Renee French
Jason Lutes
Charles Addams
Bud Blake
Don Martin

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C. Cilla
Arizona

Oh Hell,

I made a list of AZ cartoonists, then did a bit of internet check-up on my lunch break & found out that I was mostly wrong. So, here's my five:

1. Gus Arriola
2. Hal Empie
3. Ned Sutton
4. Bob Boze Bell
5. Max Cannon

I couldn't find any web info on Ned Sutton who used to draw some Kliban-ish strips in local papers & collected a couple of books, and I'm not sure Bob Boze Bell was born in AZ, but he deserves to be on the list because he edits http://www.truewestmagazine.com/

Max Cannon makes it to number five, because these guys, while notable Arizona cartoonists, were not born there:

Bill Mauldin
Jim Willoughby
Bil Keane
Reg Manning
and *cough*Todd MacFarlane

OK thanks for comics-related fun & facts.

*****

Milo George
Upstate New York

Jerry Moriarty [Binghamton]
Johnny Hart [Endicott]
Frank Cammuso [Ithaca]
Orlando Busino [Binghamton]

And to continue the George-Washington-Slept-Here fun: Art Spiegelman dropped out of Binghamton University.

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Devin Hyde
Saskatchewan

Here's a list of 5 cartoonists from the province of Saskatchewan:

Tom Grummett
Tim Brown (the ordering info is out of date)
Kaare Andrews
Christopher Steininger
David Collier (well, he lived here for 10 years)

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Dan Zettwoch
Kentucky

Cliff Berryman (Louisville)
Fontaine Fox (Louisville)
Archer Prewitt (Frankfort)
Pat Brady (Louisville)
Don Rosa (Louisville)

*****

Tom Parmenter
Georgia

Jack Davis

That's five right there. Graduate, like me, of North Fulton HS in Atlanta.