Jerry Kirschen was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Queens College in 1961. He became a freelance gag cartoonist for Cracked magazine, and later moved over to Playboy. He was an anti-Vietnam activist and moved to Israel in 1971. There, he changed his first name to Yaakov and started his comic strip 'Dry Bones' in January 1973. In 2003 the strip celebrated its 30th year in the Jerusalem Post. It has also been reprinted in the USA.
