John McPherson (born August 19, 1959) is an American cartoonist best known for Close to Home . [1] In the 1990s John decided to leave his engineering job and focus on free-lance cartoons. [2] Close to Home debuted in 1992 [3] and went on to appear in over 600 papers worldwide, including The Washington Post, New York Daily News, Miami Herald and The Tokyo Times. [4] [5]