Herb Gardner

Herbert George Gardner (December 28, 1934 – September 25, 2003), was an American commercial artist, cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter. Early life Born in Brooklyn, New York, Gardner was the son of a bar owner. His late brother, Robert Allen Gardner, was a professor of comparative psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno and is famous for teaming with his wife Beatrix Gardner on Project Washoe, the attempt to teach American Sign Language to a chimpanzee named Washoe. Comic strip Gardner was educated at New York's High School of Performing Arts, Carnegie-Mellon University and Antioch College. While a student at Antioch, he began drawing The Nebbishes. The comic strip was picked up by the Chicago Tribune and syndicated to 60-75 major newspapers from 1959 to 1961. Even before syndication, the Gardner characters were a national craze, marketed on statuettes, studio cards, barware (including cocktail napkins), wall decorations and posters. In 1960, after "the balloons were getting larger and larger, and there was hardly any drawing left", he dropped it and began writing plays.