Pat Brady was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He started submitting comic strips to newspapers at the age of eleven. In 1969, he graduated in art and creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He had his first syndicated comic strip in the early 1980s with 'Graves, Inc.', through Register and Tribune Syndicate.
He is however best-known for his newspaper comic 'Rose is Rose', about the everyday life of the Gumbo family, which he depicts with a warm mix of fantasy and reality. It is syndicated by Univted Feature since 1983, and has been collected in several book publications. By 2004, the strip was taken over by Don Wimmer, while Brady continues to contribute to the writing. Pat Brady won the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year in 2005.