American cartoonist (b. 1954) whose syndicated strip Life in Hell began in 1980 as an obscure weekly comic in the Los Angeles Reader, where he worked as an editor. Groening moved into animation in 1985, developing The Simpsons as a series of shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show, and then as a regular series. Following the worldwide success of The Simpsons, Groening published a line of Simpsons comics and produced another animated show, Futurama, while continuing to draw Life in Hell.