Jeffrey Kenneth MacNelly (September 17, 1947 – June 8, 2000) was an American editorial cartoonist and the creator of the comic strip Shoe. After Shoe had been established in papers, MacNelly created the single-panel strip Pluggers. The Wall Street Journal wrote: "MacNelly's superb draftsmanship as well as his heightened sense of the ridiculous is in the vanguard of a new generation of American cartoonists." in 1947 and grew up on Long Island. MacNelly's mother was a retired journalist. His father, C.L. MacNelly, ran an advertising firm, and was the publisher of the Saturday Evening Post from 1964 to 1968.

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

Career

MacNelly got a job at the Chapel Hill Weekly during his years at school in UNC. He worked there for the editor who became his mentor, Jim "Shu" Shumaker, who was also a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. Shumaker's impression on the cartoonist was so profound that MacNelly created the comic strip Shoe after "Shu," and the strip's lead character is based upon him. 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 1992, MacNelly met Chris Cassatt, a computer expert and cartoonist who became his assistant. Cassatt helped him change the way he worked by adding digitalization to his mediums. In 1992, 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, MacNelly launched his strip Pluggers.

Later career and legacy

One of MacNelly's friends and colleagues at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Gary Brookins, had assisted MacNelly in filling in doing finish work. Brookins was a fan of Pluggers and could replicate MacNelly's style. Exhausted after his son's death, MacNelly gave the strip to Brookins to take over in early 1997. Pluggers was produced by Brookins until 2020, after which it was handed over to Rick McKee; it is syndicated in more than 60 newspapers in the United States.

In the late 1990s, MacNelly began to also put more concentration into fine art painting and sculpture. He did a caricature of the Louisiana cartoonist Pap Dean. By 1999, he had almost finished passing the task of creating Shoe onto Cassatt, Susie MacNelly and Brookins. Then, in December 1999, MacNelly was diagnosed with lymphoma. He 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.

MacNelly's legacy is continued through the work of Chris Cassatt, Gary Brookins, Susie MacNelly, his head writer Bill Linden and Doug Gamble. This team keeps alive Jeff MacNelly's work on Shoe and Dave Barry's illustrations, as well as museum shows, fine art sales, licensing and publishing.

Awards and honors

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

In 1977, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

MacNelly won the Thomas Nast Award in 1985. He married Scottie Perry in 1985, and had a son Matt in 1986. In 1989, MacNelly met his last wife, Susie Spekin. They married in Washington D.C. in 1990 and soon thereafter moved to Flint Hill, Rappahannock County, Virginia.

Jake died in a rock climbing accident on October 15, 1996.

References

  • NCS Awards
  • Shoe Official Site
  • Jeff MacNelly Art site