Universal Press Syndicate, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, is the world's largest independent syndicate and provides syndication for a number of lifestyle and opinion columns, comics, and various other content. Some of the most popular columns include Dear Abby, Ann Coulter, Roger Ebert, William F. Buckley and News of the Weird.
Universal Press Syndicate was founded by John McMeel and Jim Andrews in 1970. The two graduates of Notre Dame first big strip came after Andrews was reading the Yale Daily News. He was clipping a column by a priest and he kept getting distracted by a comic on the other page. The comic was Bull Tales by Garry Trudeau. Universal Press would later accept Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury for syndication.
Popular Universal Press Syndicate comics include For Better or For Worse, FoxTrot, Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, The Boondocks, Doonesbury, Cathy, Pooch Cafe, Prickly City, Ink Pen, Lio, Cul de Sac, Ziggy, Tom the Dancing Bug, and The Far Side during its rise in newspapers, calendars and books.
Universal syndicates the editorial cartoonists Ben Sargent, Pat Oliphant, Tom Toles, Glenn McCoy, Ted Rall, and Don "Bad Reporter" Asmussen.
Universal syndicates crossword puzzles and games edited by Timothy Parker.
Universal Press Syndicate's sister company, uclick, runs the gocomics.com website. Universal Press Syndicate is credited at the end of The Boondocks television show.
