30 Facts About Jeff MacNelly

Jeffrey Kenneth MacNelly was an American editorial cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Shoe.

Jeff MacNelly was born in New York City in 1947 and grew up on Long Island.

Jeff MacNelly, ran an advertising firm, and was the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post from 1964 to 1968.

Jeff MacNelly was educated in his teens at Phillips Academy in Massachusetts, where he was a class clown and decided to be an illustrator.

Jeff MacNelly graduated in 1965 and went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jeff MacNelly joined the literary society St Anthony Hall and worked as a sports journalist and illustrator for The Daily Tar Heel.

Jeff MacNelly considered himself to be a horrible sportswriter, but his illustrations for the paper were well beyond the ability of an average art student.

Jeff MacNelly dropped out just shy of getting his bachelor's degree in 1970.

In 1969, Jeff MacNelly was commissioned to paint a representation of the Carolina Inn, which became an "iconic" image representing the Chapel Hill campus hotel and appeared on promotional brochures and menus issued by the inn in the ensuing decades.

Jeff MacNelly got a job at the Chapel Hill Weekly during his years at school in UNC.

Jeff MacNelly worked there for the editor who became his mentor, Jim "Shu" Shumaker, who was a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Shumaker's impression on the cartoonist was so profound that Jeff MacNelly created the comic strip Shoe after "Shu," and the strip's lead character is based upon him.

Jeff MacNelly considered his two years at the Chapel Hill newspaper to be what led to his "break"; his cartoons were picked up by newspapers across the state.

In less than two years, Jeff MacNelly won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1972, helping to put the small paper on the map.

In 1974, Jeff MacNelly was settling into being syndicated through the Chicago Tribune, while making the South his home.

Jeff MacNelly illustrated a book written by former Senator Eugene McCarthy and columnist James Kilpatrick, A Political Bestiary- Viable Alternatives, Impressive Mandates, and Other Fables.

When Jeff MacNelly represented the Irish Republican Army as a leprechaun that was a rat in one of his Chicago Tribune syndicated editorial cartoons after the IRA blew up a bus filled with schoolchildren, protesters objecting to the cartoon's contents picketed outside the Boston Globe's offices for three weeks.

Jeff MacNelly believed that in order to draw and write editorial cartoons, an artist had to have an opinion on the news, so he watched television news to gauge what other Americans were seeing and read the columns of Hugh Sidey, George Will and Meg Greenfield.

In 1992, Jeff MacNelly met Chris Cassatt, a computer expert and cartoonist who became his assistant.

In 1992, Jeff MacNelly hired Cassatt full-time, and they tele-commuted between Fishhawk Pass in Virginia and Cassatt's home in Aspen, Colorado.

Also in 1993, on a suggestion from his wife Susie and long-time friend and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, David Kennerly, Jeff MacNelly launched his strip Pluggers.

Jeff MacNelly did a caricature of the Louisiana cartoonist Pap Dean.

Jeff MacNelly continued working in spite of his illness, producing Shoe and editorial cartoons and Dave Barry illustrations in his Johns Hopkins Hospital bed right up to the day he died, June 8,2000.

Jeff MacNelly's legacy is continued through the work of Chris Cassatt, Gary Brookins, Susie Jeff MacNelly, his head writer Bill Linden and Doug Gamble.

Jeff MacNelly won his first Pulitzer Prize in 1972, a second Pulitzer in 1978, and a third Pulitzer in 1985.

Jeff MacNelly received a Reuben Award in 1978 and 1979.

Jeff MacNelly won "Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year" from the National Cartoonists Society in 1978 and 1979.

Jeff MacNelly was the first cartoonist inducted into the UNC School of Journalism Hall of Fame in 1985.

Jeff MacNelly's son Jake was born in 1972, followed by Danny in 1974.

Jeff MacNelly married Scottie Perry in 1985, and had a son Matt in 1986.