Megan Jurek (Megan the Cartoonist)

Megan Jurek was a master cartoonist for two hit stories on *Green Screen Adventures!* When she started, she was only 11 years old, but already she was an accomplished cartoonist. She also has her very own Facebook page with most of her art.

The youngster, a sixth grader at Regina Coeli School in West Toledo, went national in November, 2013 with her work. The show ran its adaptation of an illustrated story she submitted during the summer that year.

The episode aired at 8 a.m. Nov. 24 on the MeTV network. Both Megan and her school got a credit for the story, called “Perky the Pig,” which was, in fact, the first episode on the Green Screen DVD! It begins: “Once there lived a pig named Perky. Perky lived in an old farm with his animal friends. His friends were Clucky the Chicken, Spots the Cow, and Fuzzy and Wuzzy, the twin lambs. Perky enjoyed eating, playing in the mud, and talking with his friends.” You can read the rest of the story and see her illustrations here: http://greenscreenadventures.tv/perky-the-pig/ , try to catch the segment on the episode whenever it airs, and you can also watch it on the DVD! Her work is on display on her Facebook page, called Megan the Cartoonist, which has almost 700 “likes” from around the world!

Kitty Kan, a maker of disposable cat-litter boxes in Alabama, noticed Megan’s Facebook page and liked her cat cartoon character, named Herb. The firm asked her to draw Herb promoting its product. She did, and Kitty Kan made a donation in her name to animal shelters. Herb likes water and peanut butter, plays the ukulele, and has an unnamed mouse friend. Herb, Megan readily acknowledges, was inspired by the Garfield comic strip. “I love Garfield,” she said. “Her idol is Jim Davis,” Garfield’s creator, said Michele Jurek, Megan’s mother.

Megan loves cats too but can’t own one, her mother said, “because I’m allergic to anything with hair.” (Small world! Because Wolf King has that same allergen!) And Megan’s inability to own a cat might stoke her creativity when she is drawing and writing her Herb cartoons, Mrs. Jurek said. Gail Sikevitz, the producer of Green Screen Adventures, said it was Megan’s “exceptional writing and illustrating” that caught her eye. “We just looked at those drawings, and it was a wonderful story,” Ms. Sikevitz said.

The show, produced in Chicago, gives children a chance “to express themselves, to understand that words have power.” she said. “The show is designed to show them the importance of writing and to write more and do work beyond the classroom.” *Perky the Pig* was the lead segment of the 30-minute Nov. 24 show and last about eight minutes. “We want children to be inspired, and when children see that another child did something like this, it sends out a message.”

Megan's other story, *A World Apart,* can be found here: http://greenscreenadventures.tv/a-world-apart/

(All of this info was used from here: https://www.toledoblade.com/Art/2013/11/11/TV-series-drawn-to-story-art-of-West-Toledo-girl-Megan-Jurek.html?fb\_comment\_id=439921992786595\_2229790 , so no copyright infringement was intended in the making of this article.)

TRIVIA:

Did you know that Megan illustrated the children's book *Delilah the Dish* and many other books by that same authors?

External links:

https://www.facebook.com/MeganTheCartoonist/ (Her Facebook page.)