Wizard of Id co-creator Brant Parker has died

[Raph's Girl]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/ar.../18parker.html

Brant Parker, a co-creator of “The Wizard of Id,” an award-winning comic strip that is set in medieval times and has poked fun at politics and cultural follies for more than 40 years, died on Sunday at his home in Lynchburg, Va. He was 86.

The cause was complications from Alzheimer’s disease, according to an announcement by the Creators Syndicate, which distributes “The Wizard of Id.”

Mr. Parker’s death came eight days after the death of his collaborator, Johnny Hart, who was best known as the creator of the comic strip “B.C.”

With Mr. Parker doing the drawing and Mr. Hart coming up with the gags, “The Wizard of Id” began its run in 1965 and eventually appeared in more than 1,000 newspapers. It has won six awards from the National Cartoonists Society. Since 1997, “The Wizard” has been produced by Mr. Parker’s son Jeff.

The strip takes place in the Kingdom of Id, where a greedy, diminutive tyrant known simply as the King rules over an oppressed people who are still able to find humor in the situation. Its cast includes the Wizard; Lackey, the King’s servant; Bung, the alcoholic jester; and Turnkey, a dungeon guard.

In one “Wizard” strip, a bare-chested Turnkey climbs down a staircase into the torture chamber, walks past a victim being halved by a scythe, another dangling over a pot of boiling water and a third being whipped — then hangs a sign saying, “No smoking!”

Brant Julius Parker was born in Los Angeles on Aug. 26, 1920. He attended the Otis Art Institute in the late 1930s, then worked at the Disney Studios until 1942, when he joined the Navy. After World War II, he returned to Disney, where he worked on Donald Duck cartoons and the half-hour animated film “Mickey and the Beanstalk.”

Mr. Parker married Mary Louise Sweet in 1947 and moved to Binghamton, N.Y., where he was a political cartoonist for The Binghamton Press.

In 1950, while judging a high school art contest, Mr. Parker met and befriended a contestant, Mr. Hart. Fifteen years later, Mr. Hart asked Mr. Parker to collaborate on “The Wizard.” They worked together until 1997, when Mr. Parker handed his pen to his son.

In addition to his wife and his son Jeff, Mr. Parker is survived by another son, James; three daughters, Julie Shackleton, Laurie Tannenbaum and Kathie Borkowski; a brother, John; 13 grandchildren; and 14 great-grandchildren.

On Monday, on the Creators Syndicate Web site, Jeff Parker posted a cartoon showing the King and the Wizard peering at the stars through a telescope. “Hey!” the Wizard says. “There’s cartoons up there!”