American cartoonist John Caldwell began his career doing campaign posters for a classmate. He studied at the Parsons School of Design in Manhattan, and worked as a cartographer at the state Department of Transportation before turning to cartooning and advertising art. His cartoons, with their spindly-headed humanoids, frequently appeared in National Lampoon, Hugh Hefner's Playboy, The New Yorker, Mad Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and Barron's. Caldwell also produced a newspaper panel cartoon called 'Caldwell' (1985 - 1989). He lived in upstate New York, where, in 2016, he passed away from pancreatic cancer at the age of 69.