Guest Cartoonist: Milt Priggee

By:
Publication: The Headline Club, Chicago, Illinois
Date: 12/1980

One of cartooning's most talented young artists is Chicagoan Milt Priggee. His cartoons appear weekly in Crain's Chicago Business, but his name and talent are known on both coasts -- and in Europe.

Priggee was born in Anchorage, Alaska, but has lived most of his life in Metropolitan Chicago. He'd been drawing cartoons for his school papers until becoming a stringer editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Daily News. There he met his mentor, John Fischetti.

For the past 2 1/2 years, Milt has been a full-time freelancer. Prior to this, he'd worked at two different commercial art studios. His work has appeared in about 30 publications in the Chicagoland area. He's done caricatures and sports cartoons for WBBM TV, and WLS-TV, as well as frequently contributing to the Chicago Daily nNews, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Chicago Tribune. His original cartoons and caricatures have been acquired by Tim Weigel, Mike Royko, Bill Veeck, and economist/author, John Kenneth Galbraith.

"Most ideas come easily. Politicians are the easiest subjects because most always have something to say. Janye Byrne is my favorite subject. Although we've never met, I feel I know her. I do my best caricatures of her," Milt says.

The Rogers Park resident now aspires to draw editorial cartoons on a regular basis for a major newspaper. "I never intended to freelance," Milt says. "I dislike the disorder, uncertainty, and the constant running around. It's hard to plan for a future this way," he says. With his successful track record thus far, he should have few (if any) problems in that department. -- M.H.