Henry Payne

A Pulitzer-Prize nominated cartoonist, Payne produces five local editorial cartoons a week for The News. He also writes and draws a weekly column, “Payne & Ink.” His weekly “CAR-toon” – a humorous look at America’s car-crazy culture – runs exclusively on The News’ web site, detnews.com.

Additionally, Payne draws five cartoons a week on national and international subjects for United Feature Syndicate in New York which distributes his cartoons to 40 newspaper clients worldwide. His work is reprinted in The New York Times, USA Today, National Review, and other publications.

He has been a runner-up for both the Pulitzer and Mencken awards. “Payne’s Sketchbook,” a daily cartoon blog in which he discusses how he creates his cartoons, can be found at detnews.com (as well as HenryPayne.com).

As a writer, Payne reports regularly on economic, consumer and environmental issues. His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard magazine, National Review, Reason, Scripps Howard News Service and numerous newspapers around the country. He also is a correspondent for National Review’s popular “Planet Gore” blog.

Payne came to The Detroit News in 1999 after 13 years as an editorial cartoonist, writer, and editor for Scripps Howard News Service in Washington, DC .

In 1998, Payne created “Hub & Axel,” a comic panel distributed by the Tribune Company Syndicate about an American family and its very American passion for the automobile.

Payne published his first book, “Payne & Ink: The Cartoons and Commentary of Henry Payne, 2000-2001,” in 2002. He has also illustrated two children’s books for Random House: “Where did Daddy’s Hair Go?” (by Joe O’Connor) in 2006, and Dr. Seuss’ “The Ear Book” in 2007.

Born in 1962 in Charleston, West Virginia, Payne received a degree in history from Princeton University in 1984. As editorial cartoonist for two student newspapers, The Daily Princetonian and the Nassau Weekly, Payne won the College Media Advisers Cartoon Contest and the Tribune Company Syndicate’s National College Cartoonist’s Contest. Upon graduation from Princeton, Payne began his newspaper career as staff artist and editorial cartoonist with the Charleston (WV) Daily Mail. In 1986 he joined Scripps Howard News Service and began syndication with United Feature in 1987.

Payne is an active race car driver, tennis and squash player, and lives with wife, Talbot, and two children in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.