Hilary Price
At age 25, Hilary Price became the youngest-ever syndicated cartoonist when King Features Syndicate bought her comic Rhymes with Orange for distribution in 1995. Price graduated from Stanford University in 1992 and wrote ad copy to support herself while sending her cartoons to various newspapers and syndicates. The daily strip doesn’t use recurring characters, instead relying on individual, one-panel “gags” on topics ranging from zombies to medical woes. As of 2023, Rhymes with Orange appears in 400 newspapers and online and won the Best Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award of the National Cartoonists Society in 2007, 2009, and 2012. It has also been published in three collections, Rhymes With Orange in 1997, Reigning Cats and Dogs in 2003, and Pithy Seedy Pulpy Juicy in 2007. In 2015, Price was awarded the Inkpot Award for Career Achievement from the San Diego Comic Con International, and in 2023, she received the Elzie Segar Award for Outstanding Contribution to the field of comics. To encourage other artists, especially women, to try their hand at professional cartooning, Price teaches writing workshops on how to brainstorm and perfect gag comics.