Cartoonists on Parade
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Showcasing the talents of Harley Schwadron, Jeff Koterba, Maximilian Uriarte, Medar de la Cruz, Sydney Lindstrom, Tony Millionaire, and Barbara Shermund.
Harley Schwadron
Claudia Capos for Michigan Today profiles Harley Schwadron their Wizard of Wit alumni.
Schwadron is an internationally acclaimed freelance cartoonist and illustrator whose work has been published seemingly everywhere: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Readers Digest, Playboy, and the British humor magazine Punch, among many others.
…He continued freelancing the Record cartoon until 2012, marking 40 years with the series. His work also popped up on campus in the Michigan Alumnus (now Michigan Alum) and Michigan Ross’ Dividend magazine, as well About Ann Arbor magazine.
In the meantime, he landed a contract with Barron’s, which paid him $375 for each cartoon. Other publications followed, and gradually he broke into the big-time media markets. He syndicated his daily “9 to 5” panel in 1990 and still produces it today for the Chicago Tribune Content Agency; he also creates syndicated editorial cartoons for Cagle Cartoons and others. [links added]
Jeff Koterba
Going south we find Mo Al-Ebadi at The University of Nebraska-Omaha’s The Gateway informs us about cartoonist Jeff Koterba’s creative journey.
Growing up in Omaha, Koterba lived in a crowded house filled with broken televisions, musical instruments and five kids running around. His father, a professional drummer who also repaired TVs, kept music constantly playing. When the noise of the house became too much, Koterba retreated to the simplest refuge he could find: A blank sheet of paper.
“If I had blank sheets of paper, I knew I could go hide somewhere in a corner and draw,” Koterba said. “If I had a clean sheet of paper, it was like my safe place.”
For Koterba, the student newspaper was where art met responsibility.
“That time in The Gateway was my training as a cartoonist,” he said. “I cannot imagine my life without that opportunity.”
After graduating high school, Koterba joined The Gateway staff, drawing editorial cartoons and comic strips. Seeing his work printed in the newspaper for the first time changed how he viewed his talent…
Maximilian Uriarte
James Bacon at downthetubes notes A Timely Take on War: Terminal Lance by Maximilian Uriarte.
Terminal Lance is an online web comic by Maximilian Uriarte that has been running for sixteen years – and this week, he homaged a well known comic, using it to make a pointed observation on the current situation in the Middle East.
On the 24th March 2026, Maximilian posted a new comic strip and a blog post that uses a well known comic to help share the thoughtfulness that goes into a post, that reflects on the possibility of war, by a war veteran.
“We are here again,” Maximilian says. “Twenty-three years after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the entire Middle East has exploded into a fury of fire and missiles centred on Iran and Israel. We as a nation find ourselves yet again staring down the barrel of sending our nation’s finest to fight a war in the region.”
“However, this time feels markedly different…”
Medar de la Cruz
Ryan Cotter for KCAW tells of celebrated cartoonist Medar de la Cruz helping to instill the desire for illustrating in young people with Pulitzer Prize-winner illustrates power of comics to inspire Sitka students.
Sophomore Sydney Lindstrom is making her way through a stack of completed comic spreads.
Until now, Lindstrom only dabbled in illustration, usually characters from her favorite tv shows. But branching out to a whole comic in a new style was a fun challenge.
“It’s like a style that I don’t really ever draw in. It’s not my style really at all. But it was interesting to try out the new style,” says Lindstrom.
While this is Guevin’s second year teaching the comics course, it is the first time a guest artist helped lead the class, thanks to an Artist in Schools grant from the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, Sitka Public School District, and Alaska State Council of the Arts. The artist in question is Medar de la Cruz, a Pulitzer Prize winning illustrator and comic artist [link added] who taught art in Sitka before through the Fine Arts Camp. Chatting over Zoom from his home in Brooklyn, de la Cruz fondly recalls the first day at Pacific High, when he revealed the wide variety of art supplies he gifted to the school, including Lindstrom’s light-up tablet.
The Tony Millionaire Show
Cecilia Lee for Patch reviews a movie coming to a theater probably not near you unless you live in Massachusetts: The Tony Millionaire Show.
Tony Millionaire didn’t want a film made about him. In fact, he said NO to the filmmakers for years. At the producer’s insistence, he finally agreed to be interviewed. But in the middle of the first filming session, he walked out.
Filmed over a decade, the movie aims to answer the question: Who is Tony Millionaire? It’s the story of a loud giant of a man, chasing people around with his false teeth, performing drunk on stage, and being the worst party guest; the guy who did that thing last weekend that everyone was talking about. He is also the artist behind Maakies, a weekly comic strip featuring a drunk bird (Drinky Crow) and a foul-mouthed sailor monkey (Uncle Gabby).
Barbara Shermund
Robert Moses at Fox 5 New York presents Finding Barbara Shermund: A cartoonist time could not erase.
This is the story of how the remains of a longtime cartoonist were discovered after sitting in a funeral home for 35 years. It follows the subsequent journey of two women to bring her to her final resting place and ensure she wasn’t forgotten.
With Amanda Gormley, Caitlin McGurk, and Liza Donnelly.
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