Cartoonist, cartoonist, illustrator
Mike Tuohy was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was part of a creative family — his parents were managers of a technology company in Silicon Valley, “before the term “high technology” came into use. Later they ran their own art and lithography studio in San Francisco. In addition to his parents, his uncle and aunt were artists, and his uncle also drew cartoons and wrote detective stories for television and magazines. Mike Tuohy’s wife is a professional musician and artist who “has been a true partner and collaborator in all aspects of my career.”
As one of those kids who drew everything, Mike Tuohy always drew cartoons. As a child, he made his own newspaper and, in accordance with the newspaper style, drew full pages of comics with cartoons of various kinds. The growing cartoonist continued to draw, sketching sports cartoons for The Palo Alto Times. He later took an unusual summer job illustrating math textbooks while in college. Tuohy first studied at San Jose State University, and then transferred to the University of California, Berkeley. He received his master’s degree in painting in 1973, planning to become an excellent artist and teacher.
The plans didn’t last too long. Since Tui’s work was in the spirit of pop art with cartoon aspects, he was not afraid to answer an ad on a bulletin board about a joking author who is looking for a cartoonist to present his ideas. The artist-turned-cartoonist began submitting his work to magazines, receiving approval from TV Guide, Audubon, Esquire and other publications, including the Vegetarian Times. His work has appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 1980.
Mike Tuohy uses real-life events as a source of inspiration to work in the magazine as a freelancer. Along with the sounds of a talk radio in his studio in Berkeley, California, the animator uses several coffee shops to come up with his funny cartoons. He gets different ideas in different stores: “If I don’t get ideas in one place, I’ll go to another coffee shop.” It’s easier for him to focus on drawing away from home, it’s more like work. Tui does his work by hand using ink, and he paints his Sunday ribbons by hand with colored pens and watercolors.
Reference: thecartoonists.ca, 2003
