Mark Lasky (1954 – July 31, 1983 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) was an American

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

known for having succeeded

Ernie Bushmiller Ernest Paul Bushmiller Jr. (August 23, 1905 – August 15, 1982) was an American cartoonist, best known for creating the daily comic strip ''Nancy (comic strip), Nancy'', which premiered in 1938 and features the title character who has remained ...

on '' Nancy''. Lasky first worked on ''Nancy'' as Bushmiller's editor, and was named the strip's new writer and artist after Bushmiller's death in 1982. He had previously worked on other comic strips, including

Mell Lazarus Melvin Lazarus (May 3, 1927 – May 24, 2016) was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of two comic strips, ''Miss Peach'' (1957–2002) and '' Momma'' (1970–2016). Additionally, he wrote two novels. For his comic strip ''Paulin ...

's ''

Miss Peach ''Miss Peach'' was a syndicated comic strip created by American cartoonist Mell Lazarus. It ran for 45 years, from February 4, 1957, to September 8, 2002. Format and style The daily strips often contained only a single panel. The format wa ...

'' and ''

Momma ''Momma'' is an American comic strip by Mell Lazarus that ran from October 26, 1970, to July 10, 2016. Publication history ''Momma'' was Lazarus' second strip; he had been publishing the syndicated strip ''Miss Peach'' since 1957. Debuting o ...

''. After less than a year, however, Lasky died of cancer; there was no gap in ''Nancy'' publication, as Lasky had prepared enough strips to run for two more months, during which publishers were able to arrange for

Jerry Scott Jerry Scott (born May 2, 1955) is an American cartoonist and writer. He is known for co-creating the comic strips ''Baby Blues'' and '' Zits''. He is one of only four cartoonists to have multiple strips appearing in over 1,000 newspapers world ...

to succeed Lasky. In his honor,

United Media United Media was a large Column (periodical), editorial column and comic strip newspaper print syndication, syndication service based in the United States, owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, that operated from 1978 to 2011. It syndicated 150 comi ...

and

Parsons The New School for Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

launched the Mark Lasky Memorial Internship in 1984.Program
(page 48) for the 1983 Reuben Award Ceremony, April 23, 1984; by the

National Cartoonists Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

; archived at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It cond ...

. Retrieved January 5, 2014.

References

American cartoonists Art Students League of New York alumni University of Bridgeport alumni 1954 births 1983 deaths Deaths from cancer in New York (state) {{US-cartoonist-stub