Donald Asmussen (October 31, 1962 – December 9, 2021) was an American cartoonist working for the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

'' and

Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate (UPS), a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, was an independent press syndicate. It distributed lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger ...

Career

Asmussen was born in

Rhode Island Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...

. Early in his career, he published collages and celebrity caricatures in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' and drew a comic strip for ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' called ''The Drawing Board''; he worked on animations for his webseries "Like, News" which aired on

Mondo Media Mondo Media, Inc. is an American multimedia company that mainly produces online independent animation aimed at teens and young adults. It was founded in 1988 by John Evershed and Deirdre O'Malley in San Francisco, California. Before ''Mondo ...

throughout 1999-2001 and on the 2001 film ''

Monkeybone ''Monkeybone'' is a 2001 American black comedy fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, written by Sam Hamm, produced by Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe, and executive produced by Chris Columbus, Selick, and Hamm. The film combines live ac ...

''. In newspapers, he worked at the ''

Portland Press Herald The ''Portland Press Herald'' (abbreviated as ''PPH''; Sunday edition ''Maine Sunday Telegram'') is a daily newspaper based in South Portland, Maine, with a statewide readership. The ''Press Herald'' mainly serves southern Maine and is focused ...

'', ''

The Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United S ...

'', and ''

The San Diego Union-Tribune ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868. Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...

'' before becoming a staff artist at the ''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and has been published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst and the flagship of the He ...

'' in 1995; following its merger with the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' in 2000, he worked for the ''Chronicle'' for the remainder of his career. At the ''Examiner'', Asmussen started his first weekly comic strip, ''San Francisco Comic Strip''. He later drew ''Super Average Joe'' and short comic strip serials for events he covered on location, including ''Republican Convention Comic Strip'' and strips on the

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...

, the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB). It has been contested since between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winning team, determined through a best- ...

, and the

Burning Man Burning Man is a week-long large-scale desert event focused on "community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance" held annually in the Western United States. The event's name comes from its ceremony on the penultimate night of the event: the ...

festival. His strip ''The Hero Santon'' appeared in ''

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...

'' and in '' Mad'' magazine. A strip by him ran in ''

'' from 1998 to 2001. His most recognized strip, the semi-weekly '' Bad Reporter'', began in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' in 2003 and ran under the slogan "The lies behind the truth, and the truth behind those lies that are behind that truth." The strip was syndicated by

. It was on hiatus from 2018 to 2019 during Asmussen's cancer treatment and last updated in March 2021.

Books

In 1997, Asmussen published a collection of his comic strips, ''The San Francisco Comic Strip Book of Big-Ass Mocha''. In 2006, he published ''Dog vs. Cat: A Nation Divided'', a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

of the 2004 presidential election. In 2019, Asmussen collaborated with blogger Mary Ladd on ''The Wig Diaries'', a collection of humorous essays about cancer by Ladd with illustrations by Asmussen.

Personal life and death

Asmussen was married to Kelly Zito, a former reporter for the ''San Francisco Chronicle''. They had two daughters. He was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-2010s, which recurred in 2018, including a

brain tumor A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the Human brain, brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign ...

for which he underwent surgery. In February 2019, he announced on social media that it had "spread to his organs". He died on December 9, 2021, at the age of 59.

References

External links

"Cartoonist Don Asmussen's obituary, in his own words"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', December 12, 2021
''Bad Reporter'' archive at ''San Francisco Chronicle''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asmussen, Don 1962 births 2021 deaths American editorial cartoonists American comics writers American comics artists American humorists American satirical comics writers American satirical comics artists American satirists Deaths from brain cancer in California Artists from Rhode Island Artists from San Francisco