Johnny Hart

In his later years, he was known (and sometimes criticized) for incorporating Christian themes and messages into his strips and seeming to denigrate other religions. Hart was referred to by Chuck Colson in a Breakpoint column as "the most widely read Christian of our time", over C. S. Lewis, Frank E. Peretti, and Billy Graham.

Johnny Hart studied at Union-Endicott High School. The recorded working language is English. Works named in the authority record are B.C. and The Wizard of Id. Distinctions recorded are Silver Reuben Award, Elzie Segar Award, Inkpot Award and Yellow Kid Award.

• Birth Name — John Lewis Hart • Born — 18 February 1931 • Birthplace — Endicott, New York, U.S. • Died — 7 April 2007 • Place of death — Nineveh, New York, U.S. • Area — artist, writer • Notable Works — B.C. The Wizard of Id • Awards — full list • Spouse — Ida Jane "Bobby" Hatcher (1932–2018) John Lewis Hart (February 18, 1931 – April 7, 2007) was an American cartoonist noted as the creator of the comic strips B.C. and The Wizard of Id. Brant Parker co-produced and illustrated The Wizard of Id. Hart was recognized with several awards, including the Swedish Adamson Award and five from the National Cartoonists Society. In his later years, he was known (and sometimes criticized) for incorporating Christian themes and messages into his strips and seeming to denigrate other religions. Hart was referred to by Chuck Colson in a Breakpoint column as "the most widely read Christian of our time", over C. S. Lewis, Frank E. Peretti, and Billy Graham.

Born in Endicott, New York, Hart published his first work in Stars and Stripes while he served in Korea as an enlisted member of the United States Air Force. Returning in 1953, he published cartoons in The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly and other magazines. His pre-cartooning employment included working in a barbecue restaurant and sign painting. Hart's biggest success, B.C., was created in 1957 and began appearing in national daily newspapers on February 17, 1958. Hart also co-created and wrote the comic strip The Wizard of Id, drawn by Brant Parker, which has been distributed since November 9, 1964. According to cartoonist Dale Hale, Hanna-Barbera approached Hart about creating an animated B.C. series, but instead ended up creating their own caveman cartoon which eventually became The Flintstones. Hart died of a stroke on April 7, 2007. According to his wife Bobby, he was working at his drawing table at the time of his death. His co-creator for The Wizard of Id, Brant Parker, died just eight days later, on April 15, 2007.

Hart was raised in a casually religious family, and he attended Christian Sunday School regularly. Although his formal education ended with high school, he was fascinated by the Bible from a young age. In 1984 there was a distinguishable shift in Hart's spirituality, and Hart and wife Bobby began attending a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Nineveh, New York. Hart attributed his religious awakening to a father-son team of contractors who installed a satellite dish at his home. Hart's increasingly deep religious faith, and the staunch theological and political conservatism that accompanied it, came to be the source of considerable controversy in the later years of his life. In a 1999 interview with The Washington Post, for example, he stated that "Jews and Muslims who don't accept Jesus will burn in Hell" and that "homosexuality is the handiwork of Satan." In the same piece, Hart opined that "the end of the world is approaching, maybe by the year 2010." The lion's share of controversy, however, came from Hart's increasing tendency to incorporate his religious and political themes and ideals into his comic strips, especially B.C. Some newspapers refused to print strips with overtly religious themes or, as with the Los Angeles Times, moved them to the religious section of the newspaper.

Two strips in particular were controversial. The B.C. strip for April 15, 2001, which was Easter Sunday, portrayed a Jewish menorah with seven candles progressively burning out as the strip captions ran the words of Jesus Christ. At the end, the outer arms of the candelabrum broke away, leaving a Christian cross, with the final panel portraying the opened and empty tomb of Christ. Critics including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee argued that Hart's strip portrayed replacement theology, that is, the conception of Christianity as supplanting Judaism. Hart offered an apology "if I have offended any readers", but said he still thought the strip could increase "religious awareness" and claimed that he had meant the strip to be a tribute to both religions. Another B.C. strip, which ran November 10, 2003 (on the 15th day of the month of Ramadan), showed an outhouse with a traditional crescent symbol on its door, which a character entered with a graphic labeled "SLAM", and then asked, "Is it just me, or does it stink in here?" The Washington Post described the layout of "SLAM" as "stacked vertically, in the shape of an I". Critics including the Council on American-Islamic Relations claimed that the combination of the vertical bar and the "SLAM", as well as the crescent moons both in the sky and on the outhouse, made the strip a slur on Islam. Hart denied that it was anything but an outhouse joke.

Hart was an active member of his local community – the area of Greater Binghamton in Broome County, New York, which shares a common abbreviation of "B.C." Hart donated B.C.-based drawings and logos free of charge to many entities and organizations found in the Broome County area, including logos for: • B.C. Transit – Caveman on Wheel • Broome County Parks – Dinosaur • Broome County Meals on Wheels – Caveman on Wheel with Food • Southern Tier Red Cross – Caveman building Red Cross with Bricks • Broome County Celtic Pipes and Drums – Caveman wearing Kilt and playing Bagpipes • Broome County Celtic Kazoos – Irish Caveman with Kazoo • B.C. Open PGA Tour Event (1971–2006) – Caveman golfing • Broome Dusters NAHL Hockey Club – Caveman with hockey stick • B.C. Icemen UHL Hockey Club – Brute Cavemen playing hockey • Southern Tier Independence Center – Caveman in stone wheelchair stuck in cave doorway, "Wiley" character navigating a landscape full of holes Hart's involvement with the B.C. Open dated back to the early 1970s, and characters from B.C. were used extensively in advertising and marketing materials for the event, including the winner's trophy, which was a bronzed version of a hapless B.C. Caveman golfing, a light-hearted trophy when compared to many others, leading it to have earned the designation of being "voted by the players on Tour as the best trophy on Tour; the one that they would love to have." Additionally, Hart contributed original panels of B.C. strips for charity auctions with the Binghamton, New York-based PBS affiliate, WSKG-TV. He also provided album cover art for the 1999 album Still Fresh by the world-famous jazz vocal group The Four Freshmen, and his strips for B.C. were the inspiration for the mascot of UC Irvine, the anteater.

He and his wife Bobby had two daughters, Patti and Perri. Perri died in 2023 at the age of 56. As of January 2026, Patti and her two sons Mason and Mick Mastroianni remain the three members of "Team B.C."

Traditionally, every December 3, Johnny Hart would draw a B.C. cartoon with his wife Ida "Bobby" Hart portrayed as the queen of the ant colony, to celebrate her birthday. On December 3, 2007, his grandson Mason Mastroianni carried on the tradition, a practice he would keep up yearly until 2019, the year after Bobby Hart's death.

In January 1967, the Canadian writer bpNichol edited and published the first issue of the avantgarde literary magazine grOnk, named after the prelinguistic sound uttered by dinosaurs in Hart's B.C.. grOnk ran for at least 122 issues in various series until the time of Nichol's death in 1988, with a further seven "Inadmissible Series" issues published posthumously.

Johnny Hart is recorded as having received Silver Reuben Award, Elzie Segar Award and Inkpot Award. Hart received Silver Reuben Award, Elzie Segar Award, Inkpot Award, Yellow Kid Award, Reuben Award and Adamson Awards.