Jim Siergey

Jim Siergey has said that he was "brought up to be a polite boy" and that "music, writing, drawing, wordplay and humor were as much of a pastime while growing up as any physical activity." He grew up reading MAD comics by Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder and Jack Davis (cartoonist).[3] Siergey has stated that he has been drawing since he "could hold a pencil, for as long as I can remember". He attended Columbia College and began to draw "comix" in the 1970s.[2]

In his twenties, Siergey met Jay Lynch, a trailblazer of underground comix, which he describes as a turning point in his life. Lynch introduced him to Berkley cartoonist Clay Geerdes, who is considered the godfather of the mini-comix movement.[3]

In the early 1980s, Siergey started his career as a freelance cartoonist and animator, working on commercials as well as educational and industrial films, which he continued into the 1990s.[3] In the 1990s, he created the comic strip 'Cultural Jetlag' together with late writer Tom Roberts,[2] which appeared in many alternative press publications, before TIME (magazine) and USA Weekend carried it from 1997 to 2001.[3] As of 2019, he is a cartoonist for the Lansing Journal.[2]

Siergey is married to Cindy, with whom he attended Woodstock.[4] They lived and worked in Chicago until 2018, when they moved to Munster, Indiana.[5]

Siergey's illustrations are in black-and-white traditional cartoon style[2] usually with "clever silliness or visual wordplay".[5] He has called them edu-tainment,[2] a term used by Walt Disney.[6] His style has been influenced by the 1928 Walt Disney Steamboat Willie and 1950s Popeye cartoons; his humor has been compared to the one in The Far Side.[5]