Richard A. Cavalli (September 28, 1923 – October 16, 1997)[1] was an American commercial illustrator and cartoonist best known for the comic strips Morty Meekle and its successor, Winthrop, which consecutively were syndicated to newspapers from 1956 to 1994.
[3] On his return to the U.S., he did pen and ink drawing of fossilized specimens for the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan,[3] and studied cartooning at the Cartoonists & Illustrators School, where he was in the first graduating class.
[6] On January 9, 1956, Cavalli launched Newspaper Enterprise Association's syndicated comic strip Morty Meekle, featuring the courtship of the title character and his girlfriend, Jill Wortle.
[7] The strip gradually began emphasizing what comics historian Maurice Horn called its "background chorus of snide youngsters with a perceptive take on the human condition.
"[5] On February 27, 1966, Cavalli removed the adult characters and renamed the strip Winthrop, after Jill's kid brother, the most prominent of the young social critics.