Mike Peters
EDITORIAL CARTOONING
Dayton Daily News

Cox is the news group of great editorial cartoonists, and none is more irrepressible than Dayton's Mike Peters.

He once entered a meeting of the Dayton Daily News editorial staff from a third-floor ledge, wearing a Superman costume.

He arrived at the National Cartoonist Society's black-tie dinner dressed in a kilt.

Once he pasted bubble gum under the chair of the Secretary of Defense in the White House Cabinet Room.

When Garry Trudeau and his wife visited him in Dayton, Peters took them bowling.

"Cartoonists like Mike exist on a totally different experiential plane," said Brad Tillson, publisher of the Daily News.

"I've never seen anyone take a bigger drink of life than Mike Peters," said his friend and colleague Jim Borgman of the Cincinnati Enquirer.

It has now been 20 years since Peters won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. Yet he still behaves like a mischievous child -- albeit one with one of the nation's premier cartooning platforms from which to skewer the rich and powerful.

"No one is safe when Mike is at the drawing board," said Jeff Bruce, editor of the Daily News.

"He has no sacred cows. From the President to political leaders to corporations and the Boy Scouts, no one gets off easy.

"If there's inconsistency, cowardice, silliness or doublespeak in their behavior, Mike will expose them."

By Tillson's account, Peters finally got a parking space at the Daily News after he won his 1981 Pulitzer. However, he no longer needed it when he began working from home, at first in Beavercreek, Ohio and now on Florida's west coast. One of the nation's premier cartoons reaches the Daily News and his syndication group each day by FAX.

A St. Louis native, he graduated from Washington University, worked in the Art Department of the Chicago Daily News, and joined the Dayton Daily News in 1969.

"Mike is a commentator on the times in which we live," said his editor, Bruce. "Our culture, our priorities, our icons are all subjects he tackles with cleverness and creativity."

Cartooning is an advanced science at Cox Newspapers. In addition to Peters, its editorial cartooning cast also includes Pulitzer Prize winners Mike Luckovich of Atlanta, Ben Sargent of Austin and Don Wright of the Palm Beach Post, plus David Catrow, Springfield's multi-talented cartoonist and childrens' book illustrator.