He contributed to most major magazines in the 1950s and 1960s, signing his work “Gallagher.” He won the National Cartoonist Society Gag Cartoon Award in 1957 and 1971.
One brother was Gerald, who became an attorney and the other was George “Gately” Gallagher who created the comic strip Heathcliff.
After John and George became professional cartoonists, their father clipped hundreds of cartoons from magazines and glued them in spiral bound notebooks for their reference.
He served as a Signalman aboard a destroyer escort which was en route to invade Japan when the war ended.
After the feature ran its course in Boys’ Life it was syndicated, appearing biweekly in newspapers in the United States and Canada.
When the magazine cartoon markets began to dry up in the late 1960s, John left freelancing and became Art Director for American Kitchen Foods, where he designed packaging and promotional material for their new frozen French fry products, including “Tasti Fries.” Later, he drew more than a hundred oversized industrial safety posters for Marlin Industries, where his cartoonist friend Herb Green was Art Director.
During this period, he also began a long association with fellow cartoonist Bob Weber, supplying gags for his syndicated comic strip, Moose.
Dutton (1968) True Cartoon Parade, Fawcett Publications (1969) The Fireside Book of Baseball Volumes I – III by Charles Einstein, Simon & Schuster (1956, 1958, 1968)