[3] Crane served a church mission in Uruguay and in 1973 he graduated with a BA degree from Brigham Young University with an emphasis on design and illustration.
[4] As Crane got older, he felt that he lacked the talent and sense of humor needed to write material for a successful daily comic strip, so he pursued a career in graphic design and art direction and for a time was employed with art studios, publishing companies, and advertising agencies.
[3] Reminiscing about his childhood dream of being a comic strip artist, Crane decided to look into the syndication process by reading Mort Walker's autobiography.
Pickles was syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group in 1990, and today appears in nearly 1,000 newspapers around the world.
In 2013, in a tie with Baby Blues co-creator Rick Kirkman, Crane received cartooning’s highest honor, the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year, for Pickles.