Kurt Erichsen

American openly gay cartoonist and civil engineer, creator of the syndicated LGBT-themed comic strip "Murphy's Manor", which ran for 1183 weekly strips from the 1980s until 2008. Erichsen won the Gay/Lesbian Press Association award for Outstanding Achievement in Illustration in 1985 and 1987. "Murphy's Manor" focused on the lives of gay men living together in the titular manor, in the fictional town of Black Swamp, Ohio. The series was carried in about 70 papers over the course of its run. Another series he produced was "The Sparkle Spinsters" about a trio of gay friends, inspired by Gilbert Shelton's "Freak Brothers." He also produced a single-panel syndicated series called "GLIB Talk" from 2000 to 2006. Erichsen attended Oregon State University, receiving a bachelor of science in Civil Engineering. The following year he received a master's degree in Sanitary Engineering from Michigan State University. In 1979 he moved to Toledo, Ohio, where he became vice president of environmental planning for the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, until his retirement on 31 January 2018. Link to Wikipedia biography