Close to Ho-Ho-Home: John McPherson
Born and raised in Painted Post, New York (we're not making this up), John McPherson first began drawing cartoons at age 5, on the dining room wall (we are making this up). Discouraged by the poor reviews these early cartoons received-- and the fact that he was grounded for the next 13 years-- John decided to put his cartooning career on hold until he was 25.
After graduating from Bucknell University in 1983 with a B.S. in mechanical engineering, John worked for seven years as a design engineer. It was during this period that he again took up cartooning, discovering that his drawings looked much the same as they did 20 years earlier. Nonetheless, John was able to moonlight his way to a thriving free-lance cartooning career as a regular contributor to The Saturday Evening Post, Campus Life, Yankee, Marriage Partnership, and 30+ other national magazines.
Although people laughed a lot at John's engineering drawings, they laughed even harder at his cartoons, and in 1990 he made the totally irresponsible decision to leave his engineering job and leap blindly into the terrifying world of full-time freelancing.
Shortly thereafter, Zondervan Publishing discovered him and published his first two books. An editor at Zondervan sent these books to Universal Press Syndicate... which led them to offer John a contract for international newspaper syndication.
As they say, the rest is hysteria... and the hysterical laughter that John's Close to Home has generated since it started running in newspapers on November 30, 1992. John has built a loyal and enthusiastic following of millions of readers in 700 newspapers throughout the United States and abroad (from The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Tokyo Times, to The Hanoi Daily News).
Changing diapers, mowing lawns, preparing meals-- the world of John McPherson's Close to Home is familiar to all. Yet, McPherson presents this world with a particular slant: he shows us the oddities, the idiosyncrasies, and the inconsistencies that make us human and make us laugh. Readers relish his oddball characters embroiled in awkward situations at work and in home and family life. His distinctive style and ability to catch us in the act of being ourselves often hit precariously close to home....
John's 20+ books include: Chicken Soup for the Soul Cartoons for Moms, Chicken Soup for the Soul Cartoons for Dads, Chicken Soup for the Soul Cartoons for Teachers, Chicken Soup for the Soul Cartoons for Golfers, When Bad Things Happen to Stupid People, McPherson's Marriage Album, Life at McPherson High, McPherson on Parenting, McPherson Goes to Work, McPherson's Sports & Fitness Manual, Close to Home, One Step Closer to Home, Dangerously Close to Home, Home: The Final Frontier, High School Isn't Pretty, The Honeymoon Is Over, The Barber of Bingo, The Get Well Book, Close to Home Uncut, The Close to Home Survival Guide, Close to Home Unplugged, Close to Home Revisited, The Silence of the Lamberts, Striking Close to Home, Everything I Need to Know I Learned on Jerry Springer, The Scourge of Vinyl Car Seats, and Great Sex After 50! And Other Outlandish Lies About Getting Older. He also has an award winning line of greeting cards, a yearly block calendar, and numerous other licensed products.
In addition to his cartooning, John is part of The HUMOR Project’s Speakers Bureau and been an active speaker for organizations, schools, associations, hospitals, and human service agencies around the country. He has been a featured presenter 12 times at The HUMOR Project’s renowned annual international conference on “The Positive Power of Humor & Creativity” that has attracted people from all 50 states and 6 continents. At the most recent conference, John gave his highly-acclaimed presentations on “Healthy Humor” and “Drawing the Line: An Introduction to Cartooning.”
John McPherson: Short Bio Blurb
John McPherson is an internationally-syndicated cartoonist whose Close to Home appears in more than 700 newspapers from The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Tokyo Times, to The Hanoi Daily News. He has published over 20 book collections of his cartoons, has an award-winning line of greeting cards, a yearly block calendar, and numerous other licensed products. John is part of The HUMOR Project’s Speakers Bureau and been an active speaker for organizations, schools, associations, hospitals, and human service agencies around the country. Born and raised in Painted Post, New York (we’re not making this up), this former mechanical engineer now has over 8000 published cartoons to his credit. John has been a back-by-popular demand presenter 12 times at The HUMOR Project’s renowned annual international conference on “The Positive Power of Humor and Creativity.” At the most recent conference, John gave his highly-acclaimed presentations on “Healthy Humor” and “Drawing the Line: An Introduction to Cartooning.”