Jef Czekaj
 

Jef Czekaj is an illustrator, cartoonist, musician, and poster artist. His critically-acclaimed comic, "Grampa and Julie: Shark Hunters" is read by over a million children monthly in Spanish and English in the magazine Nickelodeon. His self-published comic Hypertruck has been called "the funniest indie-obsessed subcultural screed ever photocopied" by the Seattle Stranger. In 1999, he co-founded The Somerville Comics Collaborative. The organization uses the medium of comics as a means of bringing different community groups, businesses, artists, and people of all ages and backgrounds together around the common ground of storytelling using words and pictures. They have published several short collaborative comics and one 96-page graphic novel drawn by Somerville youth and organized a city-wide celebration of comics. He lives and works in Somerville, MA, USA.