Brant Parker, who for decades illustrated The Wizard of Id comic strip, has died just days after the passing of his collaborator on the comic. He was 86.
Parker, of Lynchburg, died on April 15 at a nursing facility there from complications of Alzheimer’s disease and a stroke he suffered last year, said Kathy Kei, an editor of The Wizard of Id at Creators Syndicate.
Eight days earlier, the strip’s writer, cartoonist Johnny Hart, died of a stroke at his storyboard, according to his wife. He was 76.
The pair collaborated on the strip for more than 30 years beginning in 1964, each winning the National Cartoonist Society’s highest honour, the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year.
In 1997, Parker handed the illustration of the cartoon over to his son, Jeff Parker, who continued working with Hart by fax.
The two met in 1950, when Parker, then a staff artist for the Binghamton (New York) Press, was judging a high school art competition. One contestant, a teenager ten years his junior, left such an impression that Parker arranged a meeting.
Eventually, their partnership led to The Wizard of Id, which follows the tyrannical ruler of an imaginary kingdom called Id.
Also featured are the kingdom’s inhabitants, often referred to as ”Idiots”.
”It’s a clever satire on American culture and politics, but it speaks to readers on an everyday level as well,” said Kei of the strip, which is now syndicated to more than 1 000 newspapers.
Born on August 26 1920, Parker served in the United States Navy during World War II and the Korean War. Before meeting Hart, he worked animating Donald Duck for Disney Studios.
Parker is survived by his wife of 60 years, as well as five children, 13 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. ‒ Sapa-AP