Wiley Miller

Wiley Miller has always had one simple goal: "Produce the funniest, best-drawn cartoon possible, regardless of theme, subject matter or setting."

Non Sequitur, his wry look at the absurdities of everyday life, has accomplished that and more: A hit with fans of all ages, the Universal Press Syndicate strip is distributed to more than 700 newspapers. Wiley became the first cartoonist to be presented a coveted National Cartoonists Society divisional award after only one year of syndicating Non Sequitur. He's the only one ever to win in both the comic strip and comic panel categories.

"Innovation" is a constant in Wiley's approach to cartooning, and his ongoing quest to stretch the medium has been integral to Non Sequitur's success. While the strip's sardonic humor and distinctive art have given Non Sequitur an impassioned following among readers, Wiley's technical innovations have earned admiration from newspaper editors and comics connoisseurs. In addition to developing a unique drawing method that allows the cartoon to be used in either a strip or panel format, Wiley also pioneered a cost-effective way to produce the strip using process color, which gives it a depth and richness of color not seen previously on the comics page.

Wiley studied art at Virginia Commonwealth University and worked for several educational film studios in Los Angeles before joining the Greensboro, N.C., News & Record as staff artist/editorial cartoonist in 1976. After a stint at the Santa Rosa Press Democrat in California, he created his first syndicated strip, Fenton, in 1982. He returned to editorial cartooning three years later, joining the staff of the San Francisco Examiner.

In 1988, Wiley was named Best Editorial Cartoonist by the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He won the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for editorial cartooning in 1991.

Wiley's gift-sized book collection of he-said, she-said themed cartoons, "Why We'll Never Understand Each Other" was released in April 2003 and is selling well. He has published four other books: "The Non Sequitur Survival Guide for the Nineties," "Non Sequitur's Beastly Things," "The Legal Lampoon," (a humorous stab at lawyers and the legal profession in general), and "Lucy and Danae".

A native of California, Wiley and his family now live in Maine.

For more information about Wiley or Non Sequitur visit www.amuniversal.com/ups.