Dick Kulpa obit

Dick Kulpa – RIP

 

He was not on the list.

Richard Allen (Dick) Kulpa

January 12, 1953 – January 3, 2020

Family and friends of Dick Kulpa are reporting his death.

… a few days ago when a hospital visit about one thing turned into a deadly diagnosis of stage 4 cancer.

Dick found a battle he couldn’t survive.

From the Rockford (Illinois) Register Star, the area where Dick began his political and cartooning careers:

Kulpa was adept at using his skills as a cartoonist and performance artist to advance his agenda as an elected official, former colleagues said.

He ran an unsuccessful campaign for mayor of Loves Park in 1973 as a 19-year-old fresh out of Harlem High School.

Four years later, Kulpa was elected to a seat on the Loves Park City Council where he created an alter-ego known as “Alder-Man,” the “defender of truth, justice and my hometown’s way,” Kulpa quipped.

Kulpa’s political cartoons during his days on the City Council lampooned fellow politicians, police and even the Environmental Protection Agency.

Kulpa’s roots as a cartoonist can be traced back to 1969 when the Loves Park Post published his first comic strip, Double Eagle & Co., the semi-autobiographical cartoon that told the story of a young man obsessed with his 1960 Chevy.

In the early 1980s, Kulpa created cartoons for “The Bear Report,” a weekly publication documenting the fortunes of the Chicago Bears.

Dick career as cartoonist started in his teen years, he would draw political cartoons for his local weekly and school papers and superhero comics for fanzines.

Kulpa's first syndicated work appeared in 1983, when he produced the Star Trek and Bruce Lee newspaper comics for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Kulpa met Star Trek creator and producer Gene Roddenberry when he served as alderman and presented Roddenberry with one of his original Star Trek cartoons from the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

From 1982-88, Kulpa served as graphic arts manager for the Testor Corporation, manufacturer of model kits, where he designed cartoon instruction sheets and collateral materials for their line of Weird-Ohs models.

He illustrated Tribune Media Services' nationally and internationally syndicated Ghost Story Club comic strip and the weekly cartoon panel Draw Play for the Chicago Bear Report newspaper.

For over ten years, Kulpa served as art director for the nationally distributed supermarket tabloid Weekly World News, and was lampooned as such in the Topps' comic book Jurassic Park. Kulpa co-created the now-famous Bat Boy character which first appeared in Weekly World News on June 23, 1992.

In 2000, Kulpa acquired the national humor magazine Cracked and became its editor and publisher. Kulpa, contractually prohibited from talking about it, says the magazine suffered from sudden changes in financing and unexpected distribution cuts. When the distribution company's account executive openly questioned the difference between Cracked's existing huge 62,000 rack database with its actual low 15,000 rack distribution, he was immediately taken off the title by the distributor. Kulpa sold the magazine in 2005.

Kulpa was a former alderman of Loves Park, Illinois. In 1977 he was elected to the Loves Park City Council. He would wear red, white and blue leotards and cape and become Alder-Man, crusader for justice, much to the delight of the townspeople. He served in this position until 1984, when he then became County-Man, (in maroon and gold tights) after an upset election to the Winnebago County board. Kulpa the elected official continued to pen issue-oriented editorial cartoons in office, sometimes commenting on other politicians.

Trading in his "superhero" leotards for a more conservative sea captain's look, Kulpa appeared as Captain Cartoon, caricature artist, at venues throughout South Florida.