Margaret McCrohan Ahern (February 16, 1921 – August 27, 1999) was an American cartoonist and illustrator. She was educated at Providence High School, the Harrison Art School, and the

Chicago Academy of Fine Arts The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum a ...

. Ahern worked for the Chicago Archdiocese's ''

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

'' newspaper (later the ''Chicago Catholic''), as well as the 1950s WGN television show, ''Cartuno''. She drew the monthly strips, ''Beano'', from 1948 to 1999, and ''Angelo'', from 1951 to 1954 for ''The Waifs' Messenger'', but is best known as the cartoonist who took over Tut LeBlanc's ''

An Altar Boy Named Speck ''An Altar Boy Named Speck'', also known as ''Speck the Altar Boy'', is an American gag cartoon comic strip series created by Tut LeBlanc.

'', which was syndicated by the

National Catholic News Service Catholic News Service (CNS) is an American news agency owned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) that reports on the Catholic Church. The agency's domestic (United States) service shut down on 30 December 2022, but CNS ...

(later known simply as Catholic News Service), following LeBlanc's 1953 death until 1979. Ahern's work on ''Speck'' was featured in books published separately as: ''Speck, the Altar Boy'' (Hanover House, 1958), ''Presenting Speck, the Altar Boy'' (Hanover House, 1960), and ''A Speck of Trouble; New Escapades of the Inimitable and Irresistible Speck, the Altar Boy'' (Doubleday, 1964). Under the pseudonym Margarita, Ahern was also the creator of the comic strip ''Little Reggie'' (syndicated by

Western Newspaper Union Patent insides were preprinted newspaper pages sold to newspaper publishers to provide them with content at a nominal cost, about what the publisher would have to pay for blank paper alone. History In 1863, Andrew J. Aikens devised an idea im ...

) and, under the pseudonym Peg O'Connell, ''Our Parish'', which was syndicated and then collected in ''Our Parish'' (John Knox Press, 1968). She died in 1999.

References

External links

Margaret Ahern biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia
American female comics artists American women comic strip cartoonists American women illustrators 1999 deaths 1921 births American comic strip cartoonists American humorists American women humorists 20th-century American women artists 20th-century American artists Artists from New York City School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Catholic comics artists Female Catholic artists {{US-illustrator-stub