Name Eric Shansby | Role Cartoonist | |
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Education Montgomery Blair High School (1999–2003) | ||
Eric Shansby, commonly known as Shansby, is an American cartoonist and children’s book illustrator. His cartoons appear in American news outlets, most prominently in The Washington Post alongside columns by humorist Gene Weingarten. Shansby is the illustrator of the children's book Me & Dog.
Contents
Background
Shansby grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. While a student at Montgomery Blair High School, Shansby met Washington Post writer Gene Weingarten when Weingarten gave a guest lecture in Shansby's journalism class. After Shansby's graduation, Weingarten asked him to illustrate "Below the Beltway," his humor column in the Washington Post Magazine. Shansby began drawing weekly cartoons for the magazine in 2004 as a freshman in college, succeeding cartoonist Richard Thompson, who was leaving to launch his comic strip, Cul de Sac.
Shansby illustrated the 2014 children’s book Me & Dog, a parable on atheism written by Weingarten. On the Kojo Nnamdi Show, Shansby identified himself as a “culturally Jewish, American atheist.”
Shansby studied philosophy at Yale University, where he was a three-time champion of the Bologna Sandwich Contest. In his fourth and final entry, he had to resign after it was discovered his samdwich had been poisoned by a competitor. The culprit was never caught. He was also a popular political cartoonist for the Yale Daily News.
Books
As Contributing Artist