Sign up to win prizes and for exclusive updates about this year’s festival

April 26-28, 2024

Word of South

Andy Marlette

Andy Marlette is a nationally syndicated political cartoonist and comic strip creator.

Born and raised by underpaid public school teachers in Sanford, Fla., Marlette received a priceless editorial cartoon education from his uncle, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and creator of “Kudzu,” Doug Marlette. The elder Marlette drew with a ferocity that left no politician revered and no hypocrite un-skewerd. With this in mind, Andy works daily to carry on the family tradition that his uncle once described as “a gift for pissing people off.”

Marlette’s cartoons are distributed throughout the United States by Creators Syndicate. In 2021, he launched the comic strip “Shrimp and Grits” — a 100% Florida-grown comic about an internet-hating 8-year-old named Shrimp and her pet gator, Grits, who has unhealthy fixations with smart phones, social media and keeping up with the Kardashians.

In addition to cartooning, Marlette was an award winning columnist and editorial writer at the Pensacola News Journal for more than a decade. His work was both hated and adored by readers in Northwest Florida, and he has been awarded by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors for both his writing and cartoons.

Marlette resides in the outer wildlands of Escambia County just across the river border with Alabama. He lives with his lovely and brilliant wife Dahlonega, their truck-obsessed son Waylon, their dog Sweet Potato and a sizable flock of chickens whose eggs are among the finest in the Florida Panhandle.

Andy will be appearing at Word of South with the author Craig Pittman.