Actor, singer, and Amanda Panda cartoonist Jack Millie has passed away.
October 19, 1949 – June 6, 2023
From the Swing Era Big Band Facebook page:
Sad news for Swing Era Big Band and fans. Jack Millie passed away June 6th … Jack’s wife Bonnie said he died at home from stage 4 COPD…
Jack was a gifted and multi-talented artist, actor and musician…
In his younger years, he played many leading roles in the Lakewood Little Theatre and later performed with the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival. He played guitar, bass and sang with several bands during the late 1960’s and, more recently, performed as a lead singer with the local Swing Era Big Band.
More from the obituary:
Beginning in the early 70’s, Jack was the illustrator for the nationally-syndicated comic strip “Amanda Panda” for many years.
From late 1971 to early 1975 Jack was the artist for Marcia Course’s Amanda Panda comic, a strip created for the youngest of newspaper readers. In 1973 the comic was Newspaper Enterprise Association’s Christmas strip.
Again from the obit:
Later in life, he was well-known for his many imaginative caricatures, political cartoons, celebrity drawings and montages, children’s book illustrations and formal portrait paintings of prominent public figures.
Jack illustrated Robert Hasman’s Perry the Poodle books and illustrated for various Cleveland area publications – including Cleveland Magazine (below).
Being a Cleveland area cartoonist it was only natural that Jack drew a Harvey Pekar comic story.
