John Brinkerhoff – RIP

Humor writer and copywriter John Brinkerhoff has passed away.


John Scott Brinkerhoff
August 16, 1944 – November 23, 2020

 

From the obituary:

After graduating from Newbury High School in 1962, he went to Ohio University to study journalism. In his junior year, he was the recipient of a William Randolph Hearst National Journalism Award for his eyewitness account of an October 1965 mining disaster in Sardis, West Virginia.

After graduating from OU in 1966, he was employed as a humor writer by American Greetings Corporation in Cleveland.

From AG, John went to Carr Liggett Advertising in Cleveland as a copywriter before joining Lord, Sullivan & Yoder, Inc. Advertising in Marion, Ohio in 1970, where he remained as a copywriter, creative director, and company officer until 2002. John also continued to write and have published works of poetry and fiction. His first collection of poetry, All in Time, was nominated for the national Lamont Poetry Prize.

More from the obit:

He teamed up with [American Greetings] artist Bob Campbell to create a Viking-themed comic strip called “Norse by Norsewest,” which was nationally distributed for two years by the McNaught Syndicate of New York City.

Almost 15 years ago Allan Holtz could find it in only one paper for a short run to the end of 1969.
These days I find it running to the end of February 1970; but not for two years as the obit says.

The strip managed to get published overseas. A comic history site in Italy notes, as did Holtz above, this Viking comic strip beat the more successful Hägar the Horrible to the funny pages by four years.

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