Jonathan Todd has been drawing comics since he was eight years old. As a bored kid in his father’s office one summer day, he discovered the joy of making people laugh—well, at least his father’s secretary—with words and pictures. By the sixth grade, Todd gained more readers by organizing two kids in each grade at his elementary school to sell his the thrice-annual comics magazine, The Kids’ Comic Journal. Todd, who studied history at Emory University and the University of Zimbabwe, later studied journalism and illustration at Syracuse University. He worked as an education reporter and contributing cartoonist at The (Syracuse, N.Y.) Post-Standard. While there, he broke a national story about a teacher who sued a student to cover the teacher’s smoke inhalation-related medical bill after the teacher caught him smoking in the boys’ room.
In 2003 Todd began drawing and self-syndicating editorial cartoons for a dozen newspapers in Louisiana and other states, reaching more than one million readers. In addition to work for Louisiana newspapers, he has drawn cartoons for The Boston Globe, the San Jose Mercury News, and The Tennessean, and his work has been reprinted in The Nation, Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year, and in daily newspapers around the country. From 2006 to 2011, Todd drew Saving Grace, a weekly comic strip for the student Intranet of Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida. Todd’s cartoons have received awards from the Massachusetts Press Association and Editorial Humor magazine. Former President Jimmy Carter and former U.S. Senator John Breaux own originals of Todd’s work, and he has been quoted by Columbia Journalism Review for his perspective on a controversial New York Post cartoon about President Obama. In addition to drawing comics, Todd works as a copywriter and Web site editor. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife and son.