Jay Kennedy
Encyclopedia
Editing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
and writer. He joined King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
in 1988 as deputy comics
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
editor and became comics editor one year later. He began as King Features' editor-in-chief in 1997.
Born in Toledo, Ohio
Toledo, Ohio
Toledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
, Kennedy grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey
Ridgewood, New Jersey
Ridgewood is a village in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the village population was 24,958. Ridgewood is an affluent suburban bedroom community of New York City, located approximately northwest of Midtown Manhattan.The Village of Ridgewood was...
. After studying sculpting
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
at New York's School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
, Kennedy graduated with a sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
. At the University he was an active member of the Pail & Shovel Party, a student group dedicated to bringing humor to student government via absurdist and playful pranks. Kennedy drew posters and flyers for the group and took part in many activities including the famous Pink Flamingo planting. From 1983 to 1988, he served as cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
editor of Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
where he edited and co-wrote Lynda Barry
Lynda Barry
Lynda Barry is an American cartoonist and author. One of the most successful non-mainstream American cartoonists, Barry is perhaps best known for her weekly comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. Barry's cartoons often view family life from the perspective of pre-teen girls from the wrong side of the...
's Modern Romance. At the same time, Kennedy was a humor book agent as well as a cartoon consultant and editor for magazines and publishers, including People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
and Whittle Communications
Chris Whittle
H. Christopher "Chris" Whittle is an American media and education entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer of Avenues: The World School, a planned international system of independent pre-K-12 schools. Avenues will open its first campus in New York City in fall 2012. Whittle founded Edison...
. In 1985, he was a guest editor for the “European Humor” issue released by the National Lampoon.
Kennedy wrote articles about the history of cartooning, and he profiled cartoonists and contemporary comics for magazines, including New Age Journal
New Age Journal
New Age Journal, or New Age: The Journal for Holistic Living was an American periodical prominent in the late 20th century, and defining itself as covering topics related to the period's "New Age"; it has been succeeded, in turn, by Body & Soul, and under new ownership by Body + Soul.It was founded...
, Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal (magazine)
Heavy Metal is an American science fiction and fantasy comics magazine, known primarily for its blend of dark fantasy/science fiction and erotica. In the mid-1970s, while publisher Leonard Mogel was in Paris to jump-start the French edition of National Lampoon, he discovered the French...
, New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
and Escape Magazine
Escape Magazine
Escape magazine was a landmark British comic strip magazine founded and edited by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury. Nineteen issues were published between 1983 to 1989...
, an English bi-monthly. His interest in cartooning, he once explained, was because:
- In the fine arts, artists generally comment on the world only obliquely; and sadly, only those people who have the leisure to study art history can fully appreciate their comments. By contrast, cartoons are an art form accessible to all people. They can simply laugh at the jokes or look beyond them to see the artist's view of the world. Cartoons are multileveled art accessible to everyone at whatever level they choose to enjoy.
In 2006, Kennedy introduced King Features' DailyINK, an online service which bills subscribers $19.99 annually and makes available, on a web page and via email, more than 90 vintage and current comic strips, puzzles and editorial cartoons. The vintage strips have included Bringing Up Father
Bringing up Father
Bringing Up Father was an influential American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus . Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 12, 1913 to May 28, 2000....
, Buz Sawyer
Buz Sawyer
Buz Sawyer was a popular comic strip created by Roy Crane and highly regarded by comic strip historians. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it had a long run from November 1, 1943 to 1989. The last strip signed by Crane was dated 21 April 1979....
, Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon
Flash Gordon is the hero of a science fiction adventure comic strip originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by and created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers adventure strip. Also inspired by these series were comics such as Dash...
, Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat
Krazy Kat is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George Herriman, published daily in newspapers between 1913 and 1944. It first appeared in the New York Evening Journal, whose owner, William Randolph Hearst, was a major booster for the strip throughout its run...
, The Little King
The Little King
The Little King was a comic strip created by Otto Soglow, famously telling its stories in a style using images and very few words, as in pantomime.-Publication history:...
, The Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...
and Rip Kirby
Rip Kirby
Rip Kirby was a popular comic strip featuring the adventures of the eponymous lead character, a private detective created by Alex Raymond in 1946...
.
Kennedy, who lived in New York City and Orient Point, Long Island
Orient, New York
Orient is a census-designated place in Suffolk County, New York, United States. The CDP's population was 709 at the 2000 census.Orient and Orient Point are used almost interchangeably...
, died March 15, 2007 while vacationing in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
. He drowned after having been caught in a riptide. His wife, Sarah Jewler, the managing editor of New York magazine, had died in 2005. King Features appointed associate editor Brendan Burford to the position of comics editor on April 23, 2007.
In memory of Kennedy, King Features established the Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship Fund, which is "designed to acknowledge excellence among college-aged aspiring cartoonists". Through the NCS Foundation, the Jay Kennedy Memorial Scholarship is awarded yearly to a deserving college student for their junior or senior year based on the judging of submitted work to the Foundation’s panel of professional cartoonists. The award is presented at the annual NCS Reuben Awards dinner.
Book
Underground comix
Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...
of the 1960s and 1970s. Much of the information in that book was based on Kennedy's personal collection of alternative comics
Alternative comics
Alternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...
, later donated to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, a research library of American comic art, is affiliated with the Ohio State University library system in Columbus, Ohio...
.