Cartoon by Monte Wolverton, 2016, caricaturing Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Monte Wolverton is a U.S. comic artist and editorial cartoonist, whose acerbic satire and caricatures are syndicated worldwide through Cagle Cartoons. His work appeared regularly in MAD Magazine, the L.A. Daily News and Washington (DC) Monthly magazine. He is also managing editor and former art director of Plain Truth magazine.
Early life and career
Wolverton was born in 1948 in Vancouver, Washington, as the son of legendary comic artist and cartoonist Basil Wolverton. He attended college in Los Angeles while following in his father's footsteps as graphic designer and cartoonist in the early 1970s. His first cartoons were published in such magazines as Petersen Publishing's CARtoons magazine, CB Radio, Creative Computing and Youth. He was further trained at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design. By the end of the decade he was back in the Pacific Nortwest working as a freelance artist in illustration, magazine art direction, advertising and publication design, corporate image and creative consulting.
'Dr. Dean Cleanbean Deals with Drug Difficulties' (from Dope Comix #5, January 1984).
In 1985 Wolverton returned to California to become art director for The Plain Truth. The magazine was by then still a free of charge monthly magazine published by The Worldwide Church of God, which followed the controversial British Israelism doctrine. When its founder Herbert W. Armstrong died in the following year, the magazine began selling subscriptions and its tone changed to more mainstream Protestantism. Wolverton gradually took on more editorial duties for the magazine as well.
'Dreaded Medical Conditions of Our Times' (Mad #360, August 1997).
Cartooning career
From the mid-1990s on, Monte Wolverton has been mainly focusing on his cartooning activities. He began contributing to Mad magazine around that time, and selling his biting political cartoons to newspapers and magazines. His work is syndicated by Cagle Cartoons to over 850 weekly publications, as well as the L.A. Daily News. He also produces artwork for the U.S. Forest Service.
Cartoon ridiculing U.S. President George Bush, Jr., 27 June 2005.
Basil Wolverton
Monte Wolverton has been involved in several reprint editions of his father's comic book work. Together with Michael T. Gilbert, he drew a two-page introduction comic to the 8th issue of 'Mr. Monster's Super Duper Special' (Elipse, 1987) dedicated to Basil Wolverton monster stories. He has written forewords and introductions to reprint editions by Dark Horse Comics and Fantagraphics, and adapted his father's style for the illustrations in 'Lena's Bambinas' (Fantagraphics, 1996). The book featured equally grotesque family members of Lena the Hyena, a repulsive girl drawn by Basil Wolverton for Al Capp's 'Li'l Abner' strip in 1946. Monte Wolverton also edited the Fantagraphics collection 'The Wolverton Bible' (2009).
Other activities
Monte Wolverton is additionally active as a painter, sculptor and writer in Westlake Village, California. He is the author of the novels 'Chasing 120' (2014) and 'The Remnant' (2016).
Two beauties from 'Lena's Bambinas'.