Cartoonist John McPherson will present “A Behind the Scenes Look at the Funny Pages†at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 26, in Rice Library’s lower level auditorium, (RL 0017) at the University of Southern Indiana.
“Close to Home,†McPherson’s internationally-syndicated cartoon strip, appears in more than 700 newspapers, includingThe Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Tokyo Times and The Hanoi Daily News. He has published more than 20 collections of his cartoons and has an award-winning line of greeting cards, a yearly block calendar, and numerous other licensed products.
Born and raised in Painted Post, New York, McPherson graduated from Bucknell University in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and worked as a design engineer for seven years. During this period, he took up cartooning and moonlighted his way to a thriving free-lance cartooning career as a regular contributor to The Saturday Evening Post, Campus Life, Yankee, Marriage Partnership, and more than 30 other national magazines.
In 1990, McPherson left his engineering job and began freelancing full-time. Zondervan Publishing, which published his first two books, sent the books to Universal Press Syndicate, which offered him a contract for international newspaper syndication.
“Close to Home†started running in newspapers on November 30, 1992. Through the strip, McPherson shows the oddities, idiosyncrasies, and inconsistencies that make us human. Readers relish his oddball characters embroiled in awkward situations at work and in home and family life.
“A Behind the Scenes Look at the Funny Pages†is hosted by the USI College of Liberal Arts. For more information, contact Chuck Armstrong, instructor in graphic design, at carmstro@usi.edu.
