About Daryl Cagle

In 2001, Daryl started a new syndicate, Cagle Cartoons, Inc. (www.caglecartoons.com), which distributes the cartoons of sixty editorial cartoonists and a dozen columnists to more than 800 subscribing newspapers in the United States and around the world, including over half of America’s daily, paid-circulation newspapers. Daryl is America’s most widely syndicated editorial cartoonist (along with the other CagleCartoonists).

Daryl is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society and the National Cartoonists Society Foundation.

For the past 35 years, Daryl has been one of America’s most prolific cartoonists. He worked for 15 years with Jim Henson’s Muppets, illustrating scores of books, magazines, calendars, and all manner of products. Daryl still sees pigs, frogs, Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock characters when he closes his eyes.

Daryl worked for many years as an advertising illustrator, doing cartoon campaigns for such clients as Discover Card, McDonalds, Sega and General Foods Post Cereals. Daryl drew a syndicated comic called “True!”​ in the 1990’s for Tribune Media Services. He worked as the editorial cartoonist in Hawaii, then drew for the Washington Post’s Slate.com site before working seven years as the cartoonist for MSNBC.com.

Toy Inventor and Product Designer

Cagle Design Inc.

1985 – 1995 (10 years)

This is a list of some of the companies that Daryl has worked with, along with some products he has invented, developed, designed or illustrated: Hasbro: Kenner‘s My Magic Genies; Classic Kermit doll packaging, Baby Kermit and Piggy jack in the boxes,
Miss Piggy Talking Telephone; Fisher-Price, conceptual design of various products; Mattel, designs for the See ‘n Say line; Disney preschool, Hot Wheels, dolls, games and other toys; Playskool/Tommee Tippee: Peek n’ Plays, jigsaw puzzles and Lift n’ Look Puzzles; Milton Bradley game designs; Hudson Soft (Nintendo game packaging); Worlds of Wonder (little BIG rigs); Ertl, (design concepts for their Bumble Ball).

Binney and Smith (color rubs, coloring plates, Fold-a-Books); American Publishing (sticker sets); Empire-Marx; Tomy; CBS Toys; Shaper; Casio; Combi; Mel Appel; Quincrafts (Make it n’ Bake it); Colorforms (sticker sets and packaging); Remco; Galoob (Trash Bag Bunch, Z-Bot characters and other designs); Tyco Toys (game design and preschool Looney Tunes character toys); Pepperwood International (Stampos); Nasta; Viewmaster/Ideal Toys; Commonwealth; Ben Cooper/BBI (Mad Mouth); Dakin; CAP Toys; Applause (mugs, character designs), Avon Products (packaging for many children’s and character products).The Anchor Hocking Sesame Street Glasses line, DEKA and Eagle Affiliates Muppet melamine dinnerware, Enesco (mugs, tea sets, nutcracker designs), and a variety of products for Thermos. The entire Muppet line of watches, clocks and POP displays for Timex; pencils and POP displays for Empire Pencil; Muppet toothbrushes and packaging for Oral B; packaging for Armitron.

Literally thousands of character clothing designs for: Allison; Andover Togs; Artex; Danskins; Billy the Kid/Calamity Jane; Union Underwear; Majdahl; Cutler; Wink; St. Lawrence; Riegal; Wormser; Keds (the entire Muppet shoe line with POP displays).

Cartoonist, Illustrator, Character Designer

Cagle Design, Inc.

1978 – 1995 (17 years)

I have done design work for Hanna-Barbera Productions, Sepp International (producers of the Smurfs), and The Walt Disney Company. I worked with the Henson Associates design team to create the Emmy award winning Muppet Babies characters. I worked with a wide variety of studios designing new characters and storyboarding, including Universal Cartoon Studios. I also did animatics and for Grey Advertising/General Foods/Post Cereals, and character designs for Universal Cartoon Studios.

I worked with a wide variety of advertising clients, including a weekly gag cartoon ad series for Sega Sports, which ran at the top of the box score section in USA Today; I have done campaigns for Reynolds Wrap, Safeway stores, Sears, Discover Card and many others; the Great Muppet Caper Glasses for McDonalds/Libby Glass (this was a tremendously successful promotion for Henson’s second motion picture and McDonalds first foray into a premium utilizing non-McDonalds characters). I designed and illustrated promotional cereal packaging for General Foods Post Cereals and designed the Muppets Take Manhattan hats, shirts and melamine glasses promotion for Frito-Lay. I also have done advertising art for: Fi·Bar, Pepsi, SNET (Southern New England Telephone), LINX (cellular), Centel Cellular, Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) and various local clients.

I have illustrated books for Ballantine (Random House), Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Western Publishing (Golden Books), Berkley Books and Scholastic. I’ve done artwork for many magazines including: Fortune, Forbes, Field and Stream, Family Circle, Sports Illustrated for Kids, Sesame Street, Electric Company, Argus Publishing; Guideposts, Plain Truth, Youth, Muppet Magazine, Zillions (Consumer Reports for Kids), TennisMatch, Playboy, Inside Sports and Scholastic magazines.

Cartoonist/Illustrator

The Jim Henson Company

1979 – 1993 (14 years)

The Muppets kept me busy drawing and painting pigs, frogs and Sesame Street for almost fifteen years. They made my career for me when I got out of college, and I remain, forever, a big Henson fan. Henson also gave me the opportunity to design for all the major toy companies and led me to a short career as a toy inventor before I turned to editorial cartooning.