Brooke McEldowney

Brooke McEldowney is the creator of two popular comic strips, "Pibgorn" and the award-winning "9 Chickweed Lane". "9 Chickweed Lane" has been syndicated by United Media since 1993, won Best Newspaper Comic at the 2006 National Cartoonists Society Awards, and has one published collection called "Hallmarks of Felinity", while "Pibgorn" has been developed strictly as an online comic strip. The first "Pibgorn" story, "Pibgorn: The Girl in the Coffee Cup", was released as a graphic novel in 2006. In 2008 he released "" a rendition of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

Biographical information

Born in Charleston, West Virginia, McEldowney grew up in Florida and now lives in Maine with his wife and two daughters. He attended Allegheny College and majored first in biology, then changed to art. From there he went to the Juilliard School in New York, where he studied the viola and got both a bachelor's and master's degree in music. He also studied and performed at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Following that he worked concurrently as a professional violist, music critic, and cartoonist. He was assistant editor of "Opus", a classical music magazine, and has had cartoons in magazines such as "Yankee", "Opus", and "Pulse". His first cartoon sale was to "Punch". He has also had music articles and reviews in many magazines, and he designs sets, writes, and composes for the theater.

Cartooning

McEldowney says he has been drawing cartoons for as long as he can remember, often in the margins of whatever he was actually supposed to be working on. He describes himself as self-taught, though he studied art in college. His influences include H.M. Bateman, Ronald Searle, Gerald Scarfe, and Jean-Jacques Sempé, not to mention Charles Schulz. He also cites Don Martin and Pat Brady as role models. His comics reflect his experiences — music is a common theme in both, and though he claims that Juliette of "9 Chickweed Lane" best reflects him, Amos appears to be the character who mirrors his experience by studying at Juilliard.

Other writings

In 2007, McEldowney began a weblog (http://officialpibgorn.livejournal.com) devoted to his comic strips, as well as other assorted observations. He also recommends the humor weblog The Snark Ascending (http://snarkascending.livejournal.com by Brooke’s daughter Nicola McEldowney.

External links

* [http://www.comics.com/comics/chickweed/html/contact_the_artist.html FAQ and contact for Brooke McEldowney]