Jerry Craft is the creator of Mama’s Boyz, a comic strip that has been syndicated by King Features since 1995. He is also the artist / writer of  “Mama’s Boyz: Home Schoolin’ a brand new 112-page collection of his award-winning comic strip. The book, which is scheduled for a fall 2007 launch,  features individual comics strips, stories, and even a section on how he draws one of his characters and creates his strip. The book is aimed at getting kids and young adults to focus on the positive aspects of African-American life and has already been endorsed by “Teachers Against Prejudice!” 

His first book, Mama’s Boyz: As American as Sweet Potato Pie! was named in "Great Books For African-American Children. In addition, the Mama's Boyz characters have acted as national spokes characters for the American Diabetes Association's African-American Program (which earned Craft two Outstanding Supporter Awards for his work during National Diabetes month). In June of 2007, he received a “Conversation Starter” award from the DC Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy.

The Mama’s Boyz characters have also been used to spread the word for several other organizations such as The Coalition on Donation’s “Donate Life” program and are now being worked into a campaign for the American Council for Fitness and Nutrition as a way to combat obesity in our young people.

Jerry Craft is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts where he received his BFA degree in advertising. After working in the ad world for a dozen years as a copywriter, he got his first job as a cartoonist working with Barbara Slate on a variety of comic books for Marvel and Harvey Comics. Next, he worked at King Features Syndicate where he wrote sales brochures for some of the world’s most popular comic strips.

He followed that with eight years at Sports Illustrated For Kids where he started as a web producer and ended as its Editorial Director. While there he created and executed the popular SI KIDS TV segment which consisted of several Flash animated TV commercial spoofs such as the “Randy Moss Driving School” (still available on YouTube).

In the spring of 2001, he was nominated by the National Cartoonists Society for an award in their New Media Division. He also hosted a daily online sports radio show for kids (interviewing athletes such as Derek Jeter and Dontrelle Willis) and did a weekly guest spot on Radio KOL.

In October of 2006, Craft left his job as Editorial Director for in order to pursue his passion for drawing full time under his own company, Mama’s Boyz, Inc.

Jerry has been nominated for a Glyph Award for Outstanding Achievement in Black Comics and is the recipient of an African American Literary Awards Open Book Award for best comic strip, beating out both Curtis and Boondocks.

He has drawn greeting cards, board games, book covers and illustrations for publications such as Essence Magazine to name a few, and is currently working on his first children’s book for a publisher on the East coast.

Jerry has appeared on WCBS’ Sunday Morning show with Mario Bosquez as well as cable news shows such as Cablevision News 12’s Our Lives with Janus Adams, and in publications like the Stamford Advocate, Cartoonists Profiles magazine, and the Onion to name a few. Radio interviews include stations like WNYC, WBAI and WLIB radio in New York.