Tom Wilson (1931–2011,) fully Thomas Albert Wilson, was an American cartoonist. He was the creator of the rotund comic-strip character Ziggy.
Born in Grant Town, West Virginia, Wilson studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, landed his first job as a newspaper layout artist. After a stint in the U.S. Army, he started working at the greeting-card company American Greetings in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1955. Wilson spent the next 35 years at American Greetings and rose to become its creative director.
Wilson’s short, bald, big-nosed, barefoot character that became Ziggy first appeared in a series of uncaptioned sketches that Wilson collected in the pocket-sized book When You’re Not Around (1969.)
Wilson’s Ziggy strip made its début in 1971 in 15 newspapers. It soon started appearing in more than 500 papers and became a pop culture phenomenon. Ziggy (along with his cat Sid and dog Fuzz) appeared in numerous cartoon collections, gift books, and calendars, and was the subject of the Emmy-winning TV Christmas special Ziggy’s Gift (1982.)
Wilson’s son Tom Wilson Jr. has been drawing the strip since 1987.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Tom Wilson
About the only time losing is more fun than winning is when you’re fighting temptation.
—Tom Wilson
Topics: Temptation, Self-Control
You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.
—Tom Wilson
Honesty is the best image.
—Tom Wilson
Topics: Honesty
A waist is a terrible thing to mind.
—Tom Wilson
Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
—Tom Wilson
Topics: Aging, Age, Wisdom
How come “fat chance” and “slim chance” mean the same thing?
—Tom Wilson
Topics: Chance
Many of us are more capable than some of us … but none of us is as capable as all of us!.
—Tom Wilson
I think in our own heads we’re never all that confident. I’m not.
—Tom Wilson
You can complain that roses have thorns; or rejoice that thorns have roses.
—Tom Wilson
I try not to worry about the future—so I take each day just one anxiety attack at a time
—Tom Wilson
Topics: Worry
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