Rick Stromoski (born December 25, 1958) Lambiek's ''Comiclopedia''. Accessed Dec. 22, 2018. is an American
cartoonist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...
comic strips
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
Edison, New Jersey
Edison is a Township (New Jersey), township located in Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Situated in Central Jersey, Central New Jersey within the core of the state's Raritan River, Raritan Valley r ...
, part of a family of twelve children, and graduated from Edison High School in 1977. He is a self-taught artist who was influenced by the artists of '' Mad'' magazine, including Jack Davis, Don Martin,
Sergio Aragonés
Sergio Aragonés Domenech ( , ; born 6 September 1937 in Sant Mateu, Castellón, Spain) is a Spanish-Mexican-American cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to ''Mad (magazine), Mad'' magazine and creating the comic book ''Groo t ...
Al Jaffee
Allan Jaffee (born Abraham Jaffee; March 13, 1921 – April 10, 2023) was an American cartoonist. He was notable for his work in the satire, satirical magazine ''Mad (magazine), Mad'', including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in, ''Mad'' F ...
, and
Mort Drucker
Morris "Mort" Drucker (March 22, 1929 – April 9, 2020) was an American caricaturist and comics artist best known as a contributor for over five decades in ''Mad (magazine), Mad'', where he specialized in satires on the leading feature film ...
. His favorite comic strips were ''
Andy Capp
''Andy Capp'' is a British comic strip created by cartoonist Reg Smythe, seen in the ''Daily Mirror'' and the ''Sunday Mirror'' newspapers since 5 August 1957. Originally a panel (comics), single-panel cartoon, it was later expanded to four ...
'' and ''
Smokey Stover
''Smokey Stover'' is an American comic strip written and drawn by cartoonist Bill Holman (cartoonist), Bill Holman from March 10, 1935, until he retired in 1972 and distributed through the ''Chicago Tribune''. It features the misadventures of t ...
''.
Stromoski's career started out in the
greeting card
A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthday ...
industry. He illustrated books for such publishers as Macillan, Workman, and
Random House
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
.
Stromoski's daily strip '' Soup to Nutz'' was syndicated by the
Newspaper Enterprise Association
The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary new ...
from 2000 to 2018.Degg, D. "SOUP TO NUTZ ENDS 18 YEAR RUN," ''The Daily Cartoonist'' (May 28, 2018). He teamed up with fellow cartoonist
Steve McGarry
Steve McGarry (born 24 January 1953, Lambiek's ''Comiclopedia''. Retrieved 21 December 2018. in
Mullets''Astor, Dave "Cartoonist’s Pro-Kerry Signs Stolen," ''Editor & Publisher'' (September 22, 2004). from November 24, 2003, to January 15, 2005.
Stromoski was president of the
National Cartoonist Society
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
(NCS) from 2005 to 2007.
Awards
Stromoski was the first cartoonist to twice win the NCS Greeting Card Award, doing so in 1995 and 1998. He also won the NCS
Gag Cartoon
A gag cartoon (also panel cartoon, single-panel cartoon, or gag panel) is most often a single-Panel (comics), panel cartoon, usually including a caption beneath the drawing. In some cases, dialogue may appear in speech balloons, following the com ...
Award for 1999, and was nominated for the organization's Book and Illustration Award for 1999.
Bibliography
* ''Face the Facts... 40 Happens!'' (Trisar, 1994)
* ''Face the Facts... 50 Happens! Humor Book'' (Trisar, 1994)
* ''Madame Wrinkleski Predicts: A Women's Guide to Getting Older'' (Trisar, 1995)
* ''Bad Dogs: A Collection of Canine Pranks and Practical Jokes'' (Contemporary Books, 1995)
* ''Bad Cats: A Collection of Feline Funnies and Kitty Tomfoolery'' (McGraw Hill, 1995)
* ''Soup to Nutz: The First Course'' (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2012)
* ''Soup to Nutz A Second Helping'' (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2013)