Jake Thompson,
a junior in advertising at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign,
is this year’s winner of the AAEC/John Locher Memorial Award.

According
to Thompson, even though he has always enjoyed comics, in particular the
work of Bill Watterson, he did not actively begin cartooning until he studied
abroad in Scotland where he illustrated for Edinburgh University’s newspaper,
The Student.

He will
receive an all-expense paid trip to this year’s AAEC convention in Seattle
where he will meet professional editorial cartoonists and attend meetings
and workshops.

The AAEC/John
Locher Memorial Award was founded in 1986 by members of AAEC, who felt
the need to establish an award that would not only honor the memory of
John Locher, the late son of Dick and Mary Locher, but would also help
discover young cartoonists and stimulate interest in editorial cartooning
among college-age students In North America.