Mike Luckovich

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Michael Edward Luckovich (born January 28, 1960) is an editorial cartoonist who has worked for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution since 1989. He is syndicated nationally to about 150 newspapers (as of October 2005), through Creators Syndicate and is the 2006 winner of the Reuben, the National Cartoonist Society's top award for cartoonist of the year.

Luckovich began his career with the The Greenville News in South Carolina in 1984, and moved to the New Orleans Times-Picayune later that year.

He was born in Seattle, Washington, attended Sheldon High School in Eugene, Oregon and graduated in 1982 from the University of Washington with a degree in political science. For two years after graduation, Luckovich sold cartoons on a freelance basis to the Everett, Washington newspaper while working as a door-to-door salesman.

In a September 2001 interview, Luckovich commented on his style of cartooning and how it changed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks:

Normally with my cartoons I try to use humor to get across my point. After Sept. 11th, you just couldn't use humor. The tragedy was so enormous, you couldn't be funny. It's almost like you have to come up with cartoons using a different part of your brain. I was just trying to come up with images that expressed the emotions that I was feeling and tried to focus in on different aspects of the tragedy that I thought were important.

In that same interview Luckovich cited Jeff MacNelly as his "biggest editorial cartoonist role model" and Mort Drucker as his "first hero."

In 2000, Luckovich started his comic-strip "SuperZeros", about a pair of dim-witted superheros. It was distributed by Tribune Media Service and lasted a year.

He won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize and 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. He also received the National Cartoonist Society Editorial Cartoon Award for 2001, with additional nominations for 1998 and 2002.

[edit] External links and references

• Current Mike Luckovich Cartoons From the Atlanta Journal Constitution Website
• 1995 biography from the Pulitzer Prize website
• Drawing Attention, a September 1995 article from Columns Magazine, hosted on the University of Washington website
• Bio in New Georgia Encyclopedia
• 2001 interview from a website "operated in partnership with Columbia Journalism Review"
• NCS Awards

Preceded by Nick Anderson

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning 2006

Succeeded by Walt Handelsman

Preceded by Michael Ramirez

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning 1995

Succeeded by Jim Morin