I was shocked to learn yet another of my cartoonist heroes has died a tragic death. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Doug Marlette, author of the Kudzu comic strip, died in a car wreck today. He was 57.
While I thought Kudzu seemed stale as of late, it was the coolest thing back in 1986, my junior year of high school. This was Kudzu’s “moon pie” phase, a schtick that wound up decorating the signature pages of my South Meck High School yearbook. Marlette’s political cartoons were always top-notch, too. In fact, I consider him one of the very best. His caricature of Jesse Helms – with Helms’s eyes to the extreme edges of his glasses, fish like – is an absolute classic. The humor that went into his cartoons was always apparent.
Marlette graduated from Florida State in 1971, won his Pulitzer at the Charlotte Observer, and lived part-time in nearby Hillsborough. From all accounts, he was a talented author, too. Its ironic that he died just days after giving a eulogy at his father’s funeral.
I didn’t know you, Doug, but I sure wish I had. Thanks for the laughs.