About Us

Dennis Schmidt

I grew up in northern Wisconsin on a steady diet of Mad magazines and Saturday morning Looney Tunes Cartoons. In 1985, I graduated with a degree in commercial art and began work as a graphic designer and illustrator in the Madison area. Some years later, Jim Byrne and I started a greeting card company called Byrne and Schmidt Greetings. The cards did well nationally and we changed the product name to "Raspberries".

Our greeting cards had been designed around single panel humor. The transition from greeting cards to single panel cartoons was as natural as flying south for the winter. "This End Up" was born!

Jim Byrne

I grew up on a farm near Brooklyn, Wisconsin. Outside of chores, I probably had too much time on my hands. I developed a healthy fascination for rubber chickens and whoopee cushions. I also appreciated newspaper comics. How can you not be drawn to a world where you can slip on a banana peel, fall down a manhole and not even get hurt!