Peter Gallagher - Heathcliff

2015.04.11 East Coast Comic Con, Secaucus, NJ

Heathcliff is a comic strip created by George Gately (Gallagher) in 1973, featuring the wisecracking cat as the title character. Peter Gallagher took over the comic in 1988 after apprenticing under his uncles Gately and John Gallagher. Heathcliff is distributed by Creators Syndicate in over 1,000 newspapers. Heathcliff has also appeared in comicbook format and has been the subject of an animated motion picture...

Peter Gallagher was born into cartooning, following his uncles Geroge Gately and John Gallagher, who both worked on the original Heathcliff...

A New Jersey native and instructor at Montclair State University, Gallagher has also created the "Jersey Tomato" comic strip in Weird NJ Magazine...

Bob Camp - Ren & Stimpy

Asbury Park Comic Con, Asbury Park, NJ

Bob Camp started his animation career working on the animated series Thundercats, Silverhawks, TigerSharks and many others for producer Rankin/Bass. At DiC, Camp worked on The Real Ghostbusters. At Warner Bros, he worked on Tiny Toon Adventures...

Camp would co-found Spumco, the studios that gave us Ren & Stimpy. John Kricfalusi created The Ren & Stimpy Show for the NIckelodeon Network in 1991. Bob Camp would take over as director in 1992 when production of the show was moved to Games Animation (later Nickelodeon Animation Studios).  Ren is an unstable chihuahua and Stimpy (Stimpson J Cat) is good natured and dim-witted. The show developed a cult following for it's satirical style and off-color humor

Camp has been nominated for two Emmys, a Cable ACE Award and an Annie Award for The Ren & Stimpy Show...

Camp would also work on Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Robots, Horton Hears a Who and Ice Age: The Meltdown; as well as illustrations for several comics including GI Joe, Crazy Magazine, Bizarre Adventures.....

Patrick McDonnell - Mutts

2003 Patrick McDonnell appeared at Buchmeister Books, Chatham, NJ to sign copies of his books and to support the North Shore Animal League, (McDonnell is involved with The Humane Society of the United States). McDonnell has been awarded the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben for Cartoonist of the Year 1999, Comic Strip of the Year 1996; Germany's Max and Moritz Award for Best international Comic Strip 1998; Harvey Award for Best Comic Strip 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003 among others...

Mutts first appeared in 1994 and is based on the every day antics of Earl, the dog, and Mooch, the cat, and their human owners. Their friendship shows the differences between the animals as pets and their relationships with their owners.

One of my favorite parts of the Sunday strip is the title panel. Each Sunday the panel features a tribute to some of the most influential artists and designers of the past century, such as Mike Mignola, Donald Baechler, Shuster and Siegel, Katsushika Hokusai, Dali, Toulose-Latrec and many more....

Mutts has seen publication in several books...

Signing his book - Mutts - What Now...for my sons Mike and Matt, McDonnell noticed they were wearing soccer shirts. He said he had never drawn Earl or Mooch playing soccer and this would be the first time. Since I read the comic strip everyday, I have seen Earl play baseball, but have yet to see them play soccer outside of this drawing.