The Best of Shoe

Shoe is the everyday story of motley crew of newspapermen, all of whom are birds. Originally written and drawn by its creator, triple Pulitzer Awarding winning cartoonist Jeff MacNelly from September 13, 1977 until his death in 2000 where it was continued by Chris Cassatt, Gary Brookins and Jeff’s wife Susie MacNelly.

The strip won MacNelly two National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben Awards in 1978 and 1979.

Triple Pultizer prize winning cartoonist, the first ever.
＂MacNelly’s editorial cartoons were magic [. . .] I wish I could say just what combination of graphic mastery, writing skill and sheer perversity goes into Jeff’s work. I can’t, but when people say Jeff has a special perspective on the world, they are engaging in heroic understatement.＂ - Jack Fuller Chicago Tribune

Born in 1947, MacNelly the son of a retired journalist and a newspaper publisher. Described as the class clown he was destined to be a cartoonist and started his career as a sports journalist and illustrator for satirical newspaper The Daily Tar Heel before creating Shoe, who was based on MacNelly’s university professor and mentor, Jim ’Shu’ Shumaker.
As well as his three Pulitzers and two Reuben Awards, he also won a George Polk Award and was the first cartoonist inducted into the UNC School of Journalism Hall of Fame. He said at the time of his induction: ＂I’m afraid if my mother finds out, I’ll be in big trouble. She thinks I’m running numbers in Baltimore. MacNelly won ＂Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year＂ from the National Cartoonists Society in 1978 and 1979.