Mike Gersher was Jim Raymond's assistant on the 'Blondie' newspaper strip for seventeen years. Originally Raymond's trainee following a national cartooning contest in 1963, Gersher was eventually handed full art duties. He took over the strip completely, and signed it with his name, in December 1981, when Raymond had passed away. Gersher's run wasn't long though, and he relied a lot on assistants like Denis Lebrun, before he was replaced by Stan Drake in 1984.