Mark Fiore (cartoonist)

The Wall Street Journal called Fiore "the undisputed guru" of his editorial cartoon niche.^[1]

Fiore lives in San Francisco, California, and his cartoons have appeared in numerous American papers and a number of web sites. He studied political science at Colorado College and was a staff cartoonist for the San Jose Mercury News. He left newspapers for animated online comics in 2001,^[2] and he currently makes animated editorial cartoons for his web site markfiore.com,^[3] from which he also sells DVDs of his cartoons. He is a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

Fiore's comics were included in Ted Rall's Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists, along with other web-comics such as Dinosaur Comics, Diesel Sweeties, Fetus-X, and The Perry Bible Fellowship.^[4] In their review of Attitude 3, the American Library Association's Booklist called Fiore's cartoons a standout for their "unique and personal" vision.^[5]

In some of his Flash cartoons, Fiore makes use of several characters more than once. Some of those characters include:

• Suzie Newsykins
• Dogboy & Mr. Dan—an anthropomorphic dog chats who with his friend Mr. Dan, who is rabidly conservative
• Buster Bunker The Friendly Nuke—a nuke
• Knuckles—a slow man in an executioner's mask who loves torturing Guantanamo prisoners
• Flamey McGassy
• Ouchie—a talking bandaid
• Captain Killmore
• Snuggly the Security Bear—a rather sadistic teddy bear who puts a positive spin on domestic spying and wiretaps
• Right-wing Ralphie—a squat lawyer with pixie wings who fights for homosexuals to gain restitution for being "forced" into marriage; after the passage of California's Proposition 8, Ralphie celebrates the "protection of heterosexual marriage"; he is a caricature of Ralph Reed, the former Religious Right leader
• Buzzie the Fly—a Cajun fly who updates the nation on the New Orleans reconstruction, especially the living conditions of Hurricane Katrina refugees