Robert Leighton is an American cartoonist, writer, artist, puzzle writer, illustrator, and humorist. He lives and works in New York City. His cartoons have appeared regularly in The New Yorker and other periodicals. In 1996, with Mike Shenk and Amy Goldstein, Leighton co-founded Puzzability, a puzzle-writing company. As part of Puzzability, Leighton has coauthored many books of puzzles, as well as puzzle-oriented Op-Ed pieces for The New York Times.
Asked why he creates cartoons and puzzles, two apparently different kinds of work, Leighton replied: "I think a puzzle is like a cartoon, like a joke, because the puzzle is the setup and the solution is the punch line. A good puzzle keeps you in suspense while you’re working on it, like a cartoon. And the ‘aha!’ is the equivalent of the laugh when a joke is resolved.”[1]
Since 2002, Leighton has been a regular contributor of single-panel cartoons to The New Yorker.[1] He has also created comic strips and humorous illustrated puzzles. In 2006, with his partners at Puzzability, Leighton wrote The New Yorker Book of Cartoon Puzzles and Games, which used approximately 700 New Yorker cartoons and their captions as the basis for a variety of puzzle types.[2]
While he was at Northwestern University, Leighton wrote and drew a comic strip called "Banderooge".[8] He also cofounded and edited the college humor magazine Rubber Teeth.[9]
After Leighton graduated from college, he was interested in the possibility of finding employment as both a humor writer and illustrator, and so he went to work as an editor for Games magazine, which hired him on the basis of his humor writing; at that time he had no experience writing puzzles.[10] After leaving Games, he and Mike Shenk and Amy Goldstein, who also had both worked at Games, went on to form a puzzle company called Puzzability.[11] As one of the three principals of Puzzability, Leighton has co-authored a number of puzzle books ranging from crosswords to puzzles for children:
In May 2014, Puzzability was hired by Campbell Ewald advertising agency to create an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) for the U.S. Navy’s cryptology division. The resulting puzzle-based game, Project Architeuthis, won 11 advertising awards[17] and resulted in a sequel, Operation Sleeper Shark. Both games played out in real time on Facebook.
Leighton's first published work appeared in Bananas magazine. This was edited by R. L. Stine, who went on to create the Goosebumps series of children's books. While at Northwestern University, Leighton cofounded and edited the college humor magazine "Rubber Teeth."
Leighton was a contributor of cartoons, puzzles, and other humorous articles to Nickelodeon Magazine[5] for its entire run (1993–2009) as well as a contributing writer and editor at National Lampoon magazine in the early 90s.[18]
Leighton has illustrated a number of books, including What's Going on Down There?, a book about puberty,[19] and Poop Happened! A History of the World From the Bottom Up, a book about human sanitation throughout history.[20]
^[4] Banderooge.com>About, accessed August 28, 2013
^The Daily Writer, November 3, 1995, the NU LIFE section (NU = Northwestern University), "100 years of comic strips celebrated in display" by Liza Berger
^October 24, 2007, New York Times podcast, an interview with Mike Shenk and Robert Leighton (Puzzability had a puzzle on the Op-Ed page that day) [5] Accessed June 14, 2013
