Jef Czekaj is a cartoonist, musician, and poster artist who lives and works in Somerville, Massachusetts.

His adventure comic strip, Grandpa and Julie: Shark Hunters, is read by over a million children monthly in Spanish and English in Nickelodeon Magazine. A Zeric-award-winning collection of the first 3 years of this strip has been collected in a book of the same name (Top Shelf). His self-published comic Hypertruck has been called "the funniest indie-obsessed subcultural screed ever photocopied" by the Seattle Stranger. In 1999, he and Alex Pirie formed The Somerville Comics Collaborative. The organization uses the medium of comics as a means of bringing different community groups, businesses, arts, and people of all ages and backgrounds together around the common ground of storytelling using words and pictures. They have published several short collaborative comics and one 96-page graphic novel drawn by Somerville youth, Fire on the Nunnery Grounds, and organized a city-wide celebration of comics.

In 2003, Boston Magazine included Jef on their list of "hot" visual artists. He's not sure what that means, but appreciates the compliment.

Visit Jef online at www.czekaj.com.

Books by Jef Czekaj