Brian Crane | |
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Born | Brian Crane Twin Falls, Idaho, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Cartoonist, Writer |
Awards | Inkpot Award (2014)[1] |
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Brian Crane is an American cartoonist who created Pickles, a comic strip featuring a retired couple, Earl and Opal Pickles, their family, and their family pets, Muffin (cat) and Roscoe (dog).
Born in Twin Falls, Idaho, Crane grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.[2] He began drawing at an early age, according to accounts by his mother, and hoped to grow up to be a comic strip artist. Crane served a mission in Uruguay and graduated with a BA degree from Brigham Young University in 1973.[3] As he got older he didn't think he had the writing talent or sense of humor to be able to come up with material for a daily comic strip, so he became a graphic designer and art director, working for publishing companies, art studios and advertising agencies. When he got near the age of forty he began reminiscing about his childhood dream of doing a newspaper comic strip, so he created Pickles, a strip about an elderly couple, their daughter, their grandson, and their pets.
Pickles was syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group in 1990, and today appears in nearly 1,000 newspapers around the world.[4] In 2001 it was awarded the prize for Best Comic Strip by the National Cartoonist Society. In 2005 and 2011 he was a nominee for Cartoonist of the Year by the same group. In 2013 he won the Reuben award for cartoonist of the year from the National Cartoonists Society. Crane creates Pickles by hand from a studio in his home in Sparks, NV. His daughter Emily colors the daily and Sunday strips for him. Brian and his wife Diana recently celebrated their forty-fifth wedding anniversary and are looking forward to the birth of their 18th grandchild in October.