Cartoonist Dan Perkins: Iowa Time Machine April 5, 1961

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On April 5, 1961, political cartoonist Dan “Tom Tomorrow” Perkins was born. His Iowa roots seeded a strip syndicating nationwide, earning Pulitzers nods and Herblock glory.

Born April 5, 1961, in Wichita, Kansas, his family relocated there around age five after parental divorce, immersing him in a college town pulsing with Vietnam protests and alt-publishing ferment. Local shops stocked Zap Comics and Freak Brothers, while late nights at Iowa Theater bonded him with projectionists sharing comic hauls. This backdrop honed his collage eye before alt-weeklies exploded in the 1980s.

Perkins' family settled in Iowa City in 1966, planting roots for his formative years through West High graduation in 1979. Parents' divorce prompted moves to Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, yet Iowa City reclaimed him as teen haven where underground comics gripped his imagination. Class of '79 cemented his aficionado status, eyeing Peanuts and Charles Addams via UI library stacks. Those years brewed the collage experiments, birthing precursors to This Modern World.

Zephyr Copies night shifts in mid-1980s Iowa City crystallized This Modern World, Perkins abusing copiers for degraded self-portraits and Life magazine collages mocking office drudgery. Debuting in 1988 in San Francisco's Processed World, self-syndication hit SF Weekly in 1990, San Francisco Examiner in 1991, expanding to 80-plus papers by 2015 amid the alt-weekly surge. Kickstarter anthologies like 2020-2025's Our Long National Nightmare shattered goals, sustaining him through print's digital rout. Tom Tomorrow's Iowa City genesis photocopied rebellion into This Modern World's enduring bite. That West High devotee's Crumb-inspired penguins persist, peddling sharp truths from Ped Mall to pixels. #Iowa #OTD #History #Cartoons #Illustration