Steve Kelley moved to San Diego in 1981 immediately after college to begin his career as staff political cartoonist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Twenty years later, he joined The Times-Picayune in New Orleans – a move he describes as “cultural whiplash”: “I went from neat, tidy, well-governed San Diego to New Orleans – the absolute epicenter of patronage and corruption. It was like being married to June Cleaver for two decades, then waking up one morning next to Dennis Rodman.” In October of 2018, Kelley joined the staff at The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette where he produced five cartoons a week for four years and won the 2021 National Headliner Award for his portfolio of work on the Coronavirus pandemic. Creators Syndicate distributes Kelley’s cartoons which have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Time, Newsweek, Fortune and Forbes in addition to many other publications and websites. He won The National Headliner Award (2001 and 2021), The Scripps Howard Foundation’s National Journalism Award (2007) and was a 1999 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. With cartoonist Jeff Parker, Kelley created the comic strip Dustin in 2010. Syndicated by King Features to more than 370 newspapers, Dustin won The National Cartoonist Society’s Best Newspaper Comic Strip award in 2011 and 2017. Not content with amusing people in print, Kelley began writing and performing comedy in 1985, a pastime that led to seven appearances on The Tonight Show, both with Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. He has performed at Caesar’s, The Riviera and The Desert Inn in Las Vegas and at Carnegie Hall in New York City where he opened for Peter Allen. He has opened shows in large venues for Dolly Parton, The Gatlin Brothers, Lou Rawls, Reba McEntire, Bernadette Peters, Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. During his time in San Diego, Kelley produced shows to help provide underwriting for the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation and The Thousand Smiles Foundation. A high school and college pole vaulter, Kelley, 67, has taken up the sport again – this time in masters competitions. “Honestly, it helps me understand the gravitational pull on people to enter politics. Obviously at some level, the human spirit longs for the warm embrace of lunacy.” Kelley is the father of a 26-year-old son, Hayden, about whom he brags without regard to the listener’s interest.

Areas of Expertise

• Editorial Cartoon • Newspaper Strip