Robert Leighton (cartoonist)
| Robert Leighton | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 23, 1960 |
| Occupation | Cartoonist, puzzle writer, illustrator, humorist |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Northwestern University |
| Spouse | Valerie Green |
| Children | Kyle Leighton |
| Website | |
| www |
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Robert Leighton is an American writer and artist, cartoonist, puzzle writer, illustrator, and humorist. He lives and works in New York City. His cartoons have appeared regularly in The New Yorker and other periodicals. In 1996, with Mike Shenk and Amy Goldstein, Leighton co-founded Puzzability, a puzzle-writing company. As part of Puzzability, Leighton has coauthored many books of puzzles, as well as puzzle-oriented Op-Ed pieces for The New York Times.
Asked why he creates cartoons and puzzles, two apparently different kinds of work, Leighton replied: "I think a puzzle is like a cartoon, like a joke, because the puzzle is the setup and the solution is the punch line. A good puzzle keeps you in suspense while you’re working on it, like a cartoon. And the ‘aha!’ is the equivalent of the laugh when a joke is resolved.”
Since 2002, Leighton has been a regular contributor of single-panel cartoons to The New Yorker. He has also created comic strips and humorous illustrated puzzles. In 2006, with his partners at Puzzability, Leighton wrote "The New Yorker Book of Cartoon Puzzles and Games" which used approximately 700 New Yorker cartoons and their captions as the basis for a variety of puzzle types.
Work that Leighton both wrote and drew has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal,Games,Nickelodeon Magazine,Slate, and SpongeBob Comics.
While he was at Northwestern University, Leighton wrote and drew a comic strip called "Banderooge". He also cofounded and edited the college humor magazine "Rubber Teeth."
After Leighton graduated from college, he was interested in the possibility of finding employment as both a humor writer and illustrator, and so he went to work as an editor for Games magazine, which hired him on the basis of his humor writing; at that time he had no experience writing puzzles. After leaving Games magazine, he and Mike Shenk and Amy Goldstein, who also had both worked at Games, went on to form a puzzle company called Puzzability. As one of the three principals of Puzzability, Leighton has co-authored a number of puzzle books ranging from crosswords to puzzles for children:
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