Bio
J.D. Crowe is the statewide cartoonist for Alabama Media Group. His cartoons and essays appear online all the time at AL.com. You can subscribe to his newsletter if you dare. It’s a dark, sticky delicious mess of toons and stories he calls Crowe Jam.
JD spreads tough love in this deep red state, as his primary duty is to weed out goober politicians on the home front before they jump the fence and get in the national spotlight. He also tends to national issues with a focus on human rights and social justice. If folks are talking about it, JD is most likely drawing about it.
A native Kentuckian, Crowe attended Eastern Kentucky University where he studied painting, journalism, and received a B.F.A. degree in design in 1981. He won the state’s top collegiate journalism awards for his cartoons in the university newspaper, The Eastern Progress.
He cut his teeth in professional journalism with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1982, first as a staff artist, then as editorial cartoonist in 1983. He moved to San Diego in 1987 where he was the staff cartoonist for the (now-defunct) Tribune. In 1991 he published a book of cartoons, paintings and other musings titled, “Daze of Glory; Images of Fact and Fantasy Inspired by the Gulf War.”
Crowe spent most of the 90’s as a freelance artist, cartoonist and travel writer for the Los Angeles Times, Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Examine and the San Diego Reader.
His work is syndicated by Artizans Entertainment (Artizans.com) and can be viewed online at AL.com and politicalcartoons.com. He has produced several books of his cartoon collections, including his most recent: “Half-thunk Thoughts and Half-fast Drawings.”
Crowe won the 2020 RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons. In 2018, he was honored with the Rex Babin Award for state and local cartoons from the AAEC.
Crowe is a frequent public speaker who dabbles in standup comedy. Give him a holler sometime.
JD lives on the Gulf Coast in Fairhope, Alabama with his wife, Lori, where he rides around the bay on his bike and takes sunset photos.
October 3-6
