Donald Asmussen (October 31, 1962 – December 9, 2021) was an American cartoonist working for the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' and

Universal Press Syndicate Universal Press Syndicate (UPS), a subsidiary of Andrews McMeel Universal, was an independent press syndicate. It distributed lifestyle and opinion columns, comic strips and other content. Popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Eb ...

Career

Asmussen was born in

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...

. Early in his career, he published collages and celebrity caricatures in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and drew a comic strip for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' called ''The Drawing Board''; he worked on animations for

Mondo Media Mondo Media is an American multimedia company that mainly produces online animation. The company was founded in 1988 by John Evershed and Deirdre O'Malley in San Francisco, California. Before ''Mondo Mini Shows'', the company initially crea ...

and on the 2001 film ''

Monkeybone ''Monkeybone'' is a 2001 American black comedy fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, written by Sam Hamm, produced by Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe, and executive produced by Chris Columbus, Selick, and Hamm. The film combines live-acti ...

''. In newspapers, he worked at the ''

Portland Press Herald The ''Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram'' is a morning daily newspaper with a website that serves southern Maine and is focused on the greater metropolitan area around Portland, Maine, in the United States. Founded in 1862, its roots e ...

'', ''

The Detroit News ''The Detroit News'' is one of the two major newspapers in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. The paper began in 1873, when it rented space in the rival ''Detroit Free Press'' building. ''The News'' absorbed the '' Detroit Tribune'' on Februa ...

'', and ''

The San Diego Union-Tribune ''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868. Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...

'' before becoming a staff artist at the ''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...

'' in 1995; following its merger with the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' in 2000, he worked for the ''Chronicle'' for the remainder of his career. At the ''Examiner'', Asmussen started his first weekly comic strip, ''San Francisco Comic Strip''. He later drew ''Super Average Joe'' and short comic strip serials for events he covered on location, including ''Republican Convention Comic Strip'' and strips on the

Super Bowl The Super Bowl is the annual final playoff game of the National Football League (NFL) to determine the league champion. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966, replacing the NFL Championship Game. Since 2022, the game ...

, the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

, and the

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

festival. His strip ''The Hero Santon'' appeared in ''

Salon Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

'' and in '' Mad'' magazine. A strip by him ran in ''

'' from 1998 to 2001. His most recognized strip, the semi-weekly ''

Bad Reporter ''Bad Reporter'' is a semi-weekly editorial cartoon in comic strip format which first appeared in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' on September 25, 2003. After being syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate from August 12, 2005, to 2011, it is now ...

'', began in the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' in 2003 and ran under the slogan "The lies behind the truth, and the truth behind those lies that are behind that truth." The strip was syndicated by

. It was on hiatus from 2018 to 2019 during Asmussen's cancer treatment and last updated in March 2021.

Books

In 1997, Asmussen published a collection of his comic strips, ''The San Francisco Comic Strip Book of Big-Ass Mocha''. In 2006, he published ''Dog vs. Cat: A Nation Divided'', a

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...

of the 2004 presidential election. In 2019, Asmussen collaborated with blogger Mary Ladd on ''The Wig Diaries'', a collection of humorous essays about cancer by Ladd with illustrations by Asmussen.

Personal life and death

Asmussen was married to Kelly Zito, a former reporter for the ''San Francisco Chronicle''. They had two daughters. He was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-2010s, which recurred in 2018, including a

brain tumor A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and seconda ...

for which he underwent surgery. In February 2019, he announced on social media that it had "spread to his organs". He died on December 9, 2021, at the age of 59.

References

External links

"Cartoonist Don Asmussen's obituary, in his own words"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', December 12, 2021
''Bad Reporter'' archive at ''San Francisco Chronicle''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asmussen, Don 1962 births 2021 deaths American cartoonists Deaths from brain cancer in the United States Artists from Rhode Island Artists from San Francisco