Jerry Marcus was a prolific freelance gag cartoonist who also created the syndicated newspaper comic strip, Trudy

Trudy (american comic strip)

Trudy is the title character of a comic strip about a suburban homemaker by Jerry Marcus which debuted on March 18, 1963. It was syndicated until August 20, 2005, after Marcus died on July 22 of that year....

.

A high school drop-out, Marcus was rejected by the Navy during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 as underweight, so in 1943, he signed on with the Merchant Marine

Merchant Navy

The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom, and describes the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...

, shipping out on aviation fuel tankers in the North Atlantic. After gaining the required weight, he joined the Navy and was assigned to the Seabees in the Philippines.

After his 1946 discharge, he attended New York's Cartoonists and Illustrators School. As a freelancer, he was published in The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, Look

Look (American magazine)

Look was a bi-weekly, general-interest magazine published in Des Moines, Iowa from 1937 to 1971, with more of an emphasis on photographs than articles...

, The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post

The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...

, Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal

Ladies' Home Journal is an American magazine which first appeared on February 16, 1883, and eventually became one of the leading women's magazines of the 20th century in the United States...

and other leading magazines.

Trudy

When he launched Trudy in 1963, it was distributed to more than 75 newspapers by King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate

King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...

. Homemaker Trudy finds time to manage the house, her husband, their children and pets, including the family cat, Fatkat.

Marcus was 81 when he died in 2005 after a long illness.