Jerry Marcus

Jerry Marcus was a prolific gag cartoonist and the creator of the syndicated newspaper strip *Trudy*. He was born on June 27, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York, and died on July 22, 2005, in Waterbury, Connecticut. A high school dropout, Marcus was turned away from the Navy during World War II for being underweight. He joined the Merchant Marine in 1943, shipping out on aviation fuel tankers in the North Atlantic. After gaining enough weight, he enlisted in the Navy and served with the Seabees in the Philippines. Following his discharge in 1946, he studied at New York's Cartoonists and Illustrators School. As a freelancer, his work appeared in *The New Yorker*, *Look*, *The Saturday Evening Post*, and *Ladies' Home Journal*, among other major magazines. His most credited titles include *The American Legion*, *Battle of the Sexes*, and *Best Cartoons of the Year*. Marcus was active in comics from 1951 to 1965, contributing as an artist, inker, letterer, and writer across 16 issues. His signature creation, *Trudy*, became a well-known syndicated feature.