Melvin Lazarus (May 3, 1927[2] – May 24, 2016)[3] was an American cartoonist, best known as the creator of two comic strips, Miss Peach (1957–2002) and Momma (1970–2016).

For his comic strip Pauline McPeril (a 1966-69 collaboration with Jack Rickard), he used the pseudonym Fulton, which is also the name of a character in his first novel, The Boss Is Crazy, Too.

[5] Miss Peach debuted on February 4, 1957, in the New York Herald Tribune, and ended up running for nearly 50 years.

I did commercial art and edited children's magazines prior to February 4, 1957 when my comic, Miss Peach, was launched.

The characters in Miss Peach are not actually modeled on real persons, with the possible exception of Lester, the skinny kid in the strip.

Its protagonist, widowed father Loring Neiman, having turned to burglary when his book is rejected, discovers he has a knack for it.

[4] Lazarus won the National Cartoonists Society's award for Newspaper Strip, Humor, in 1973 and 1979, both times for Miss Peach.

[13] On January 23, 2016, Lazarus became the second recipient of the National Cartoonists Society Medal of Honor, established the year before.