You can’t just draw a strip to tell jokes. The cartoonist has to actually BE the lead character. When I realized I was Grimm, my strip took off.
-Mike Peters
Mike Peters is an American cartoonist who draws editorial cartoons including one of the most iconic comic strips of all time, Mother Goose and Grimm. The young man grew up in a relatively famous household so it wasn’t unusual for him to be around celebrities. But he says that it’s odd when people consider him a celebrity, even though he created one of the most famous cartoon strips in history. Peters says it was his destiny to draw. “I knew when I was five years old that I wanted to be a cartoonist. As I grew older, I thought it was the only thing I could do.”
Michael Bartley Peters was born in St. Louis on October 9th, 1943. His mother, Charlotte Peters, was a media personality in St. Louis was started one of the first TV talk shows in history on KSDK-TV. Mike would go with his mom to work where he was able to meet numerous stars. Being around celebrities made Mike and his sister celebrities in St. Louis as well. That early brush with stardom impacted him greatly as doors began to open for the aspiring artist.
Mike spent the first 10 years of his life in Dogtown, then moved with his family to Webster Groves. He attended the prestigious Christian Brothers College High School, known as CBC, where he graduated in 1961. Peters stayed in St. Louis for college and attended Washington University. He earned a degree in Fine Arts and graduated in 1965. It was at Wash U that he began to get serious about his drawing. He even drew cartoons for the student newspaper during his time at the university.
After graduating from college, Mike moved with his new wife to Chicago where he worked at the Chicago Daily News. But his time at the paper was short-lived. He was drafted into the Army where he served as an artist for the Seventh Psychological Operations Group in Okinawa. He spent two years on duty before returning to the U.S. where he landed a job with the Dayton Daily News.
His next move was groundbreaking. He began to draw animated editorial cartoons that appeared on the NBC Nightly News in 1981. This was the first time something like this had ever happened where editorial cartoons were used on a network newscast. He even won a Pulitzer Prize for his work. The critics and the audience loved them, so the groundwork was now set for him to become a household name.
Following up on his success for NBC, he launched a new comic strip that made him famous. Mother Goose and Grimm launched in 1984 and was published in 500 newspapers across the country. Those 500 papers gave him an audience of an estimated 100-million readers. In addition to his Pulitzer Prize, Peters also won the Reuben Award in 1991 from the National Cartoonists Society.
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