Mike Konopacki is a political/labor cartoonist living in Madison, Wisconsin. He began labor cartooning for the Madison Press Connection, a local daily created by striking newspaper workers in 1978. After the paper folded in 1980, Mike began syndicating his labor cartoons through the labor news service, Press Associates, Inc. In 1983 he and Gary Huck, cartoonist for the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE), created Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons, syndicating their cartoons to the labor press in the U.S. and Canada. Since that time they have published six collections of labor cartoons, Bye! American, THEM, MAD in USA, Working Class Hero, Two Headed Space Alien Shrinks Labor Movement, and the latest, American Dread.
Mike is co-author and illustrator of Howard Zinn’s graphic history A People’s History of American Empire published in 2008. He earned his Master of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin in 2009 and his MFA in 2010. Mike is presently an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Extension School for Workers and a guest lecturer in Labor Studies at the University of Illinois.