Johnny Gruelle is best known as the creator of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. A newspaper cartoonist for most of his adult life, he drew two Sunday pages during his career. The first was Mr. Twee Deedle, which ran from 1910 to 1921, and the second was Brutus, which started in 1929 and lasted until his death.

Born in Illinois and reared in Indiana, John Barton Gruelle was the son of a painter father and a writer mother. Despite his fathers profession, he insisted on growing up a self-taught artist. Gruelle went to work as a political cartoonist on an Indianapolis weekly in 1899. Next, he worked on the Indianapolis Sun, a daily, and then on the Star, another daily. In 1910, he entered a contest by the New York Herald. The paper was seek...