After 13 straight nominations, South Jersey’s Mark Tatulli has won the nation’s biggest cartoon award

Mark Tatulli doesn’t know what made this year different from the last 12 times the National Cartoonists Society nominated him for one of the highest honors in his field.

But something did, since the creator of long-running comic strips Liō and Heart of the City finally won the biggest award of the annual celebration.

He had not expected his name to be called this time around, so the Gloucester County resident and Willingboro native didn’t bring his reading glasses for his acceptance speech. While it was an honor to have been nominated so many times, Tatulli said, he felt relieved to finally be off the docket.

“I’m looking forward to not being nominated this year and drifting back into the shadows,” Tatulli, 63, said.

The National Cartoonists Society gathered on Aug. 7 in Columbus, Ohio, for the 80th Anniversary Reuben Awards, named after cartoonist and Pulitzer Prize winner Reuben “Rube” Goldberg.

The Reuben Award has gone to the most outstanding cartoonist of the year since 1954 (and has been retroactively awarded to those who won the award under its original name, the Billy DeBeck Memorial Award, from 1946 on) chosen by a secret ballot of NCS members. The late Pogo creator Walt Kelly, a Philly native, was one of the first.

This year, there were seven nominees, including Dave Blazek, a Philly resident and creator of comic strip Loose Parts, and Dav Pilkey, creator of Dog Man and Captain Underpants.

Tatulli won the honor on his 13th consecutive nomination, joining the likes of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes.

“I don’t even include myself in this group,” Tatulli said. “I’m a byproduct of what they already achieved.”

His wife, Donna Tatulli, and fellow members of the NCS Philadelphia chapter were present to celebrate the win. When Tatulli shouted out his home chapter, an attendee responded with a familiar “Go Birds!,” said Jamar Nicholas, a member of the NCS board of directors and chair of the Philly chapter.

Nicholas, author of the graphic novel series Leon the Extraordinary, said he believes Tatulli is the first NCS Philly member to win the Reuben since the chapter was formed in 2014.

“Even though this is his accomplishment, we all win,” Nicholas said.

Blazek, who has seven nominations of his own, won the Divisional Silver Reuben Award in the newspaper panel category.

Tatulli, a Willingboro High School alumnus, was 26 years old when his first comic strip debuted in the Burlington County Times. Mr. Fipps told the story of a new teacher and his experiences with junior high school students.

While Tatulli said he cannot speak for everyone, South Jersey was a good place to grow up drawing comics.

“You can literally write comics from everywhere,” Tatulli said. “My experiences in South Jersey predominantly feature in all of my comics.”

Since Mr. Fipps, Tatulli has won three Emmy Awards, become an internationally syndicated cartoonist (including features in The Inquirer), created a graphic memoir, written and illustrated several middle-grade books, and had two of his longtime comic strips explode in popularity.

Liō, a pantomime comic that shares the adventures of a young boy who treats the monstrous as everyday happenings, recently hit its 20th year running in newspapers, and Tatulli does not plan to end it until he stops having fun.

“If I’m not totally excited about what I’m doing, the readers will know,” he said.

Tatulli launched Heart of the City, a strip about a girl named Heart living in Philadelphia, in 1998. Six years ago, Tatulli passed the Heart baton to fellow cartoonist Steenz, who has kept the comic going since.

As for what comes next for Tatulli, he said he hopes to one day create a long-form version of Liō and keep writing middle-grade graphic and illustrated novels. He will continue to spend time with family, a benefit of moving to Pitman a year and a half ago from Washington Township. The Reuben Award — a bronze, abstract statuette designed by Goldberg — will live either on the mantle over his fireplace or down in his office, depending on where his wife wants it.

“I’m going to keep drawing until I drop,” Tatulli said.