AARON MCGRUDER Biography - Other artists & entretainers

 
 

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AARON MCGRUDER

Name: Aaron McGruder                                                                   
Born: 29 May 1974 Chicago, Illinois                                                   
                                                                                       
Aaron McGruder (born May 29, 1974 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American                 
cartoonist best known for writing and drawing The Boondocks, a Universal Press         
Syndicate comic strip about two young African-American brothers from inner-city       
Chicago now living with their grandfather in a sedate suburb. Through the             
leftist Huey (named after Huey P. Newton) and his younger brother Riley, a young       
want-to-be gangsta, the strip explores issues involving African American culture       
and American politics.                                                                 
                                                                                       
When McGruder's father accepted a job with the National Transportation Safety         
Board, McGruder moved to Columbia, Maryland at age six with his parents and his       
older brother Dedric. He attended a Jesuit school from grades two to nine,             
followed by public high school at Oakland Mills High School and the University         
of Maryland, from which he graduated with a degree in African American Studies.       
The Boondocks debuted in the campus newspaper, The Diamondback, in late 1997,         
under its then-editor, Jayson Blair. McGruder created the comic while working at       
the Presentation Graphics Lab on campus. At the time, he was also a DJ on the "Soul   
Controllers Mix Show" on WMUC.                                                         
                                                                                       
McGruder presently lives in Los Angeles, California, where his projects include       
the Boondocks animated TV series and the Super Deluxe variety comedy series, "The     
Super Rumble Mix Show". He is the author of five "Boondocks" collections: "All         
The Rage", "Public Enemy #2", "A Right To Be Hostile", "Fresh for '01: You             
Suckaz", and "Boondocks: Because I Know You Don't Read The Newspaper" McGruder         
is also the co-author, with Reginald Hudlin, of a 2004 graphic novel, Birth of a       
Nation, drawn by cartoonist Kyle Baker, and a frequent public speaker on               
political and cultural issues.