Acclaimed freelance editorial cartoonist and comic strip creator Steve Nease is a staple in Metroland community newspapers around Ontario, including The Brampton Guardian. Steve has displayed his original cartoon artwork at Artway Gallery, annually, since 1998.

“I got into cartooning by sheer accident,” Steve Nease said back in 1999. “I’d graduated from university and was desperately looking for a job—any kind of job.”

One of his first jobs was a freelance photographer for The Vaughan Courier. But, in 1978, Steve Nease was hired by The Oakville Journal Record, which later merged with The Oakville Beaver, as a staff artist and art director. Since late-2008, Steve has worked on his editorials and comic strips on a freelance basis.

Remarkably, Steve is mostly self taught. “In school, I didn’t find art classes too stimulating.” he said.

His work hangs on the walls of Don Cherry, ex-Prime Minister Paul Martin, and ex-Premier Mike Harris.

About the Pud comic strip

In 1984, Steve Nease did an editorial cartoon about how children flock to advertisements. The editorial was illustrated in two panels, and received great response from readers and newspaper co-workers.

He decided to do up some more samples, basing the character on his family, with some creative license applied. Said Nease: "Like a writer, an artist should draw about what he knows. Ideas and inspiration were all around me."

He showed these samples to the editor, who decided he could use extra content to fill up the space on the editorial page. The strip’s been going strong since. The strip runs in many papers within the Metroland chain, monthly in City Parent Toronto, weekly in the Saturday Globe and Mail, and the Middlesex Banner near London.

The recurring characters are himself, his wife, the family dog, and sons Max, Ben (Pud), Sam, and Robert.

Where'd he get the name "Pud" from? As a kid, Steve loved the Lionel Barrymore movie On Borrowed Time. When he had a child named Ben, he started calling him "Pud", after the child in the film.

At the time the strip started Fleer had stopped putting their "Fleer Funnies starring Pud" strip in the Dubble Bubble gum packages. He decided he could safely name the strip after this character, without confusion. Four years later, unfortunately, the comics in the gum packages restarted. He says he’s considered renaming the strip, and has a title that he’s batted around in his mind, but he’s just never got around to it.

Steve Nease draws from Pud, who was hanging out in his studio in 2008 for Laughlines publicity photos.

CONTACT Artists listed on the Visual Arts Brampton site can be contacted through the group's studio. Phone 905-453-9142, or email us, and we'll pass the message on.