Howard Cruse

comic artist

Howard Cruse's comic strips and humorous illustrations have appeared in *Playboy*, *The Village Voice*, *Artforum International*, *Harpoon*, *Heavy Metal*, *The Advocate*, *Starlog*, and numerous other national magazines. Five books have been published compiling Cruse's own comic strips and stories from underground comic books and elsewhere: *Wendel* (1986); *Dancin' Nekkid With The Angels* (1987); *Wendel on the Rebound* (1989); *Early Barefootz* (1990); and *Wendel All Together* (2001). Cruse's critically acclaimed graphic novel *Stuck Rubber Baby* was published in 1995 by Paradox Press, a division of DC Comics. *Stuck Rubber Baby* was the winner of Eisner and Harvey Awards as well as a United Kingdom Comic Art Award and a British Comics Creators Guild Award. Andreas Knigge's translation won a Luchs literary award in Germany and Jean-Paul Jennequin's French translation won the 2002 Prix de la Critique at the Angouleme International Comics Festival. Cruse's seventh book, *The Swimmer With a Rope In His Teeth*, a collaboration with Jeanne E. Shaffer, was published by Prometheus Books in April 2004. For two years during the early seventies Cruse drew a daily newspaper comic strip, *Tops & Button*, for the *Birmingham Post-Herald*, while earning his living as art director for a Birmingham television station. In 1972, he began gaining a national readership with *Barefootz* stories drawn for underground comic books published by Kitchen Sink Comics. Moving to New York in 1977, Cruse art directed *Starlog* magazine until a fulltime cartooning career became practical in 1978. In 1983 Cruse introduced his comic strip *Wendel* to the pages of *The Advocate*, where it appeared regularly until 1989.