Jump Start by Robb Armstrong

Jump Start offers an authentic, positive representation of middle-class African Americans. Joe and Marcy Cobb are a young African-American couple trying to balance their careers -- he’s a police officer, she’s a nurse -- with a loving marriage and warm family life shared with their young daughter, Sunny, toddler son, Jojo and twins Tommi and Teddy,and all the unexpected excitement” they bring to JumpStart.

July 15, 2005, was a momentous day in the Cobb household, as Joe and Marcy welcomed Teddy and Tommi into their lives,. Even before their birth, Teddy proved to be a fighter and natural “not-quite-born” leader (in the womb!) as he implored the more hesitant Tommi to follow his lead into the world.

“When Marcy became pregnant with twins, it came as a complete shock to me,” says Jump Start creator Armstrong. “My original idea was to expand the strip by just one new addition to introduce a little humorous tension between Joe and Marcy. Suddenly I thought that it would really stun Joe if, just when he got used to the idea of having one more kid, -TWINS! Two babies are twice as much fun to write about because they ‘converse’ about life, and bounce ideas and future plans off each other. I hope my readers are as excited as I am about the twins!”

For nearly 20 years, Armstrong has entertained millions of readers with Jump Start. One of a handful of syndicated African-American cartoonists, Armstrong brings a unique perspective to his strip with art and storylines that are upbeat, fun and undeniably realistic. Jump Start always has offered an authentic, positive representation of middle-class African Americans with charm and insight born of personal experience.

“I’m drawing about my life; about a black couple because I’m black. Nearly every married couple I know is like Joe and Marcy. The image of young blacks is so skewed, so false. Joe and Marcy and the characters I’ve developed are deep and based on real life.”

Jump Start appears in more than 400 newspapers across the country through Universal Uclick. The strip also can be found on the Internet at www.gocomics.com.

Armstrong has lent his characters to several public service campaigns, including the American Diabetes Association¹s campaign promoting the Diabetes Risk Test and the American Cancer Society’s “Great American Smokeout.” In 1995, the Religious Public Relations Council presented its Wilbur Award to Armstrong for demonstrating “excellence in the communication of religious issues, values and themes.” He has been recognized by the Governor of Pennsylvania, The Senate, House of Representatives, Department of Justice and Nestle’s “Men of Courage” program for his tireless community outreach.

Articles about Armstrong and Jump Start have appeared in Time, Ebony, The New York Times, Black Enterprise and People, among others. He also has contributed cartoons to national magazines, including The New Yorker. He has been a featured guest on “Good Morning America,” MSNBC and numerous local and national TV shows. He has served on the Boards of Directors of the National Cartoonists Society and his two alma maters, The Shipley School and Syracuse University.

There are three Jump Start books in print: Twins Twice the Fun: A bundle of Jump Start comics that really deliver (Journey, 2008); Jump Start (Andrews McMeel, 1997), the strip¹s first comic collection, and Jump Start: A Love Story, (HarperPerennial, 1996), a graphic novel that contains more than 80 previously unpublished flashback-style cartoons chronicling the humorous, touching story of Joe and Marcy’s courtship.