Home » Reading & Literature » Cartoonists » Mike Peters, Creator of Mother Goose and Grimm

Mike Peters, Creator of Mother Goose and Grimm

© Susanna McLeod

Drinking from the toilet, lifting a furry back leg to have a pee or buying an inflatable limb from the adult pet store for, ah, um, shall we say doggie delights; these are not the usual comic strip fare found in the newspaper funny pages. The rascal doing these strange and hilarious activities is a sassy pooch named Grimm, one of the main characters in Mother Goose and Grimm. Created by Mike Peters, this inventive comic produces guffaws of laughter in readers and has a huge fan following around the world. But, Mother Goose and Grimm is not the only cartoon to spill from Peters' pen.

Born on October 9, 1943 in St. Louis, Missouri, Peters attended Christian Brothers College High School, graduating in 1961. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1965 from Washington University and immediately dove into a position on the art staff of the Chicago Daily News. He spent a short year with the newspaper, leaving to begin a two-year stint of service as an artist during the Vietnam War with the U.S. Army's Seventh Psychological Operations Group in Okinawa.

After Peter's release, the famed cartoonist Bill Mauldin took him under his artistic wing. In 1969, the developing cartoonist found a position with the Dayton Daily News, drawing editorial cartoons. By 1972, his sharp eye for piercing political humour merited the national syndication of his work under King Features. The coveted Pulitzer Prize was awarded to him in 1981 for Journalism. Peters' editorial cartoon work, using satire, poetry and pointing out the obvious, continues to inform and entertain readers. His efforts have earned him an abundance of honours and awards. *(1)

With the help of his wife Marian, Mike Peters' created Mother Goose and Grimm. The single panel comic jumped into syndication in 1984 under King Features. "I knew if I ever did a strip, the main character would be a dog, because dogs are inherently funny... I wanted to have him do dog things, like having fleas, eat out of trashcans and chase cars, because there weren't any comic page dogs doing that," mentioned Peters in an online discussion on February 15, 2002. But, he noted, "The characters are actually based on people, not animals. Grimm is actually me, Mother Goose is my wife and Attila is a combination of a lot of friends." *(2)

Mother Goose and Grimm (the name taken from the Grimm Brothers stories) appears in over 500 newspapers world-wide and regularly is in the top ten ratings lists. Books of the cartoon number over two dozen - at least 28 different books plus products are globally distributed. Over one million Grimmy egreeting cards were sent through Gibson Greetings in 1999. An international favourite, Grimmy and his cohorts also appear on television; the first debuted in 1991 on CBS. It still airs in several locations.

The copyright of the article Mike Peters, Creator of Mother Goose and Grimm in Cartoonists is owned by . Permission to republish Mike Peters, Creator of Mother Goose and Grimm in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.