Stuart Carlson

As a youngster growing up in West Bend, Wis., Stuart Carlson exhibited a knack for cartooning at a tender age, sometimes drawing on the walls of his parents' apartment with lipstick.

Before joining the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in 1983, Carlson was reporter, cartoonist and editor for a weekly newspaper and a small daily newspaper in Wisconsin.

Carlson's ability to translate current events into cogent visual statements has won him several awards, including the John Fischetti Award; best cartoonist by the National Press Foundation; numerous "best cartoon of the year" honors from the Milwaukee Press Club; the Robert W. Gillespie Sentinel Staff Award for Excellence; and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Young Alumni Award.

His work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Barron's, Playboy magazine and on ABC News' "Nightline." His cartoons are distributed nationally by Universal Press Syndicate.

Carlson lives in a maintenance-intensive Victorian house in Milwaukee with his wife, Mary, daughters Caitlin and Bridget, and son, Brandon.