Jim Benton


Jim K. Benton is an American illustrator and writer. Licensed properties he has created include Dear Dumb Diary, Dog of Glee, Franny K. Stein, Just Jimmy, Just Plain Mean, Sweetypuss, The Misters, Meany Doodles, Vampy Doodles, Kissy Doodles, and the jOkObo project, but he is probably most known for his creation It's Happy Bunny.

Early life and education

Jim Benton was raised in Birmingham, Michigan, graduating from Seaholm High School in 1978. He studied fine arts at Western Michigan University.

Career

Benton began his career in a Shirt shop where he started designing his own characters on T-shirts. At the same time, he did illustrations and artwork for magazines and newspapers. People magazine named him "one of the most visible cartoonists in America."
Benton also created greeting cards and worked in the magazine and publishing industry. In 1998, his SpyDogs characters became an animated series, The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs, that aired on Fox Kids. Licensing his own creations brought them widespread attention on products, such as It's Happy Bunny, which he created in the mid-1990s but licensed in 2002.
Benton currently lives in Michigan, where he operates out of his own studio. He is married and is a father of two children.
Benton is a frequent and well-known poster on the comics subreddit, where over a third of the top-voted comics are his.

''Dear Dumb Diary''