Cartoonist Margaret Shulock has passed away.
Margaret (Ackerman) Shulock
September 27, 1949 – October 17, 2021
Margaret Ackerman Shulock, of 7652 Wideman Road, Friendship, passed away Sunday (Oct. 17, 2021) after a long illness.
Margaret grew up in Canastota, New York and attended SUNY State College at Buffalo for several years. A talented artist, she lived in Friendship, NY for many years, where she worked out of her studio. She loved music, animals, and observing the rhythms of nature on her farmland as well as horses and the people who rode them.
Her single-panel comic first appeared in the Olean Times Herald. She later joined 5 other women cartoonists as Six Chix, a comic strip that appeared in major newspapers. From 2004-2014 she was also part of the Snowman Group, a group of artists who sold their work at local shows held twice a year. Margaret’s greeting cards and wall calendars reflected her rural surroundings and witty sense of humor. She had friends from Maine to California that she kept in contact with.
Margaret was most famously one of the original Six Chix contributors until 2017.
From a Women You Should Know profile about that panel:
As noted in the obituary Margaret did a panel called Sticks for the Olean Times Herald.
That panel is spread among other drawings at her Sticks blog.
From Susanna McLeod’s Cartoonists site:
Celebrating her 50th birthday in 2000, Margaret also celebrated earning a spot as one of King Features Syndicate’s Six Chix. She had been working in the medical industry for years when she burned out on that career. She and her husband Jim – a navy man who was a submariner in the 1960s – took up not-so-successful farming near Friendship, in southwestern New York State not too far from the Pennsylvania state line. A doodler from childhood, Margaret drew postcards for her parents, then created a calendar in 1996. *(1) Her calendar was seen by someone with a good eye for comics who suggested that she send her work to King Features Syndicate for examination. It didn’t take long to get a response.
Jay Kennedy, Editor in Chief of King Features, accepted some of her work for publication on the first submission.
Susanna also lists some other credits for Margaret:
Margaret enjoys her cartooning work immensely. “To be part of the Six Chix is wonderful. I can see myself doing it at 80!” *(2) Her intriguing career now also encompasses work on other comic strips. She has been enlisted to join cartoonist Frank Volle as the writer for “Apartment 3-G“, a long-running, soap opera-style comic strip. Margaret also works with cartoonist John Rose on the legendary “Snuffy Smith” comic strip; Rose creates the art while Margaret writes the gags. All three under the King Features Syndicate, the strips are enjoyed and treasured by fans in newspapers and publications around the world.
Add that Margaret contributed to King Features’ New Breed panel
and subbed for Hilary Price on Rhymes With Orange once or twice.
Margaret’s passing was originally posted on Facebook by her sisters-in-law.
It hurts to announce the following – Margaret passed away peacefully today. We all will miss her and her brilliant sense of humor among our many other memories. We were fortunate that she married our brother who she was devoted to. May she rest in peace. XOXO
So sad to hear this. I once lived in the same area of NY, which is beautiful and pulls the creativity out of a person. Her cartoons were funny and always brought at least a wry smile.
As a fellow (???) female King Features cartoonist, I would like to cheer for Margaret’s contribution to our cartooning world. She was one of the trailblazers in a time when the comics were dominated by men and when some people thought women couldn’t be funny.
She was.