LOCHER, Richard

Land of Lincoln Award designed by Richard Locher

LOCHER, Richard. (Dubuque, IA, June 4, 1929- ). Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist. Locher studied art at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art and the Art Center of Los Angeles. While in Chicago, he became an assistant to Rick Yager, who was drawing "Buck Rogers." He left the job after few months to enlist in the Air Force, where he became a test pilot. While at the Air Force, he began freelancing for the Stars and Stripes.

In 1957, Locher began assisting Chester Gould on Dick Tracy, where he inked the figures and colored the Sunday strips. He also contributed to a story that was cited in Gould's 1959 Reuben Award. Locher left the strip in 1961 to work on other areas. He started an advertising company and worked on designing some of McDonald's characters.

Locher kept in touch with Chester Gould even after leaving the strip. In 1973, an editorial cartoonist position at Chicago Tribune opened up and Gould recommended Locher to take the position. His cartoons, pointing to the ludicrous parts of daily life, have appeared for many years in the Chicago Tribune and were reprinted in Time, Newsweek, Forbes, and the Harvard Law Review.

In 1983, Locher assumed the duty of illustrating the comic strip 'Dick Tracy'. Early on in his career, Locher had assisted Dick Tracy's originator, Chester Gould. The "Land of Lincoln Trophy," designed by Locher is presented to the winner of the annual college football game between Illinois rivals Northwestern University, located in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, and the University of Illinois, located on the border between the central Illinois cities of Champaign and Urbana.

Locher was the recipient of the Scripps Howard Institute Award for Conservation in 1977. In 1978 he received the Overseas Press Club's second place award for best American cartoon printed overseas. In 1982 Locher received their award for the best American cartoon of a foreign subject. The following year, he received the Pulitzer Prize.