Clay Jones
Clay Jones was often sent to the principal's office as a child for making fun of his classmates. He discovered at a young age that he had a knack for poking fun at the flaws of others, and he decided later to make it a career. He went from drawing simple Crayola caricatures of his friends to full-sized comic books by the time he was in high school.
His sharp satire first earned him freelance work at The Panolian in Batesville, Miss., where he eventually became their editorial cartoonist. Jones spent the next seven years in Mississippi working for The Panolian, The Daily Leader in Brookhaven, and soon self-syndicated his work across the nation from Jackson. He was lured away from the state by a position with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1997. He returned to the mainland to work for the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in 1998, where he remains today.
Jones has been the recipient of numerous awards in Hawaii and Virginia, along with three consecutive first-place awards from the Mississippi Press Association. He has entertained readers on CNN, in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, USA Today and Newsweek and Time magazines. His work is distributed by Creators Syndicate.
A collection of his work and professional papers has been archived at the Mitchell Memorial Library at Mississippi State University. His cartoons have also been published in his book "Knee-Deep In Mississippi."
Jones calls himself "an unreliable conservative," and believes it is his daily goal to lampoon authority and make it look as ridiculous as possible. "My cartoons do not tell readers what they should believe. I hope they simply challenge people to think."
Jones was born in Fort Hood, Texas, and was raised in Louisiana, Illinois, California and Georgia. He attended Belhaven College in Jackson, Miss. Clay currently lives in Fredericksburg and spends his spare time with his son, where he excels at being a lousy guitarist.
Occasionally, he is still sent to the principal's office.
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