Newspaper syndicator who brought ‘Doonesbury’ to millions
John P. McMeel, a newspaper syndicator who enlivened American funny pages with the distribution of comic strips such as “Doonesbury,” “Calvin and Hobbes” and “Cathy” and delivered the writings of columnists including Abigail Van Buren and Garry Wills to millions of readers across the United States, died July 7 at his home in Kansas City, Mo. He was 85.
His company, founded as
Universal Press Syndicate and now called Andrews McMeel Universal, announced his death but did not cite a cause.
Mr. McMeel, a law school dropout once dubbed “Deals McMeel” for his gift for salesmanship, started his syndicate with friend Jim Andrews in 1970. With an early coup — the first cartoonist they signed was Garry Trudeau, then a student cartoonist for the Yale Daily News and later of “Doonesbury” fame — their operation grew into the world’s largest independent newspaper syndicate.
They called their operation Universal Press Syndicate, according to information provided by the company, because they thought “the name sounded impressive.” Mr. Andrews was credited with recruiting Mr. Trudeau when he was penning a college newspaper strip called “Bull Tales,” with characters including a football player called B.D.
Later renamed “Doonesbury,” Mr. Trudeau’s creation became a landmark of cartooning as one of the first newspaper comic strips to plunge headlong into politics. While other fixtures of the funny pages trafficked in tame, even childlike humor, “Doonesbury” addressed matters such as drugs, divorce and the AIDS epidemic — sometimes to the vexation of editors, who on occasion declined to print installments that they judged to have crossed the bounds of propriety.
In 1975, five years after Mr. McMeel and Mr. Andrews introduced Mr.
Trudeau to U.S. newspaper readers, he received the Pulitzer Prize in editorial cartooning. “Doonesbury” was carried by nearly 2,000 newspapers at its peak, at least partly as a result of Mr. McMeel’s promotion.
“His blarney was legendary,” Mr. Trudeau said, according to the syndicate’s announcement of Mr. McMeel’s death, “but behind it was a deep regard and respect for the artists he championed. That loyalty was mutual; many of us fondly called him ‘ boss’ for decades.”
Mr. McMeel was born Jan. 26, 1936, in South Bend, Ind., where his father was the doctor for the University of Notre Dame football team. His mother was a homemaker.
In 1966, Mr. McMeel married Susan Sykes. Besides his wife, of Kansas City, survivors include three daughters, Maureen McMeel Carroll and Suzanne McMeel Glynn, both of Kansas City, and Bridget McMeel Rohmer of Los Angeles; and nine grandchildren.