Wayne Stayskal
 
Meet Wayne Stayskal

Wayne Stayskal, nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist for the Tampa Tribune, keeps readers chuckling and sometimes raises an eyebrow with his sharp wit and intriguing style. His cartoon commentary breaks the boundaries of politics to include topical subjects such as HMOs, education, global warming and the cigarette wars.

Stayskal grew up on Chicago's West Side. His interest in art goes back so far that he can't really say when it started. After graduating from high school, Stayskal got a job in WGN Radio's mail room, but six months later he entered military service and spent almost four years in the Air Force. He was lucky enough to be stationed in Paris for a year and a half, where he spent a good deal of his free time wandering around the Louvre. After he was discharged from the military in 1954, he enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. He graduated in 1956 and went into commercial art.

When a job opened up in the art department of the Chicago American, Stayskal got the job, and with the job came the opportunity to do some spot cartooning. The spot cartooning rekindled an old interest, and Stayskal made a place for himself drawing editorial cartoons.



In 1962, the paper hired an editorial cartoonist, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Vaughn Shoemaker, and Stayskal became his assistant. Between 1968 and 1970, as Shoemaker prepared to retire, Stayskal took over more and more responsibility until he was drawing the cartoons himself. In 1972, Stayskal took a job at the Chicago Tribune, where he worked until 1984.

Stayskal and his wife Helen live in Lakeland, Florida.