'Kudzu' comic creator, Pulitzer winner dies

RALEIGH — Doug Marlette, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who recently turned his incisive wit toward a budding career as novelist, died Tuesday in an auto accident in Mississippi. He was 57.

Marlette split his time between Hillsborough, N.C., and Tulsa, Okla., and was visiting Mississippi to help a group of high school students with the musical version of his syndicated comic strip, "Kudzu." He had just delivered the eulogy at his father's funeral Friday.

"You know, there's a couple of family members I'd rather have lost instead of Doug," author Pat Conroy said. "And he would have laughed at that. This has been a shock of all shocks."

Marlette was riding in a pickup truck driven by John P. Davenport of Oxford, Miss., the theater director at Oxford High School, said Mississippi Highway Patrol Sgt. Leslie White. Marshall County Coroner John Garrison said he thinks the truck hydroplaned, then hit a tree near Holly Springs.

The Oxford students planned to perform "Kudzu: A Southern Musical" in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.

Marlette started his cartooning career in 1972 at The Charlotte Observer and won the Pulitzer prize in 1988 for his work at The Observer and the Atlanta Constitution. He published two novels, "The Bridge," in 2001, and "Magic Time," in 2006.

Born in Greensboro, Marlette grew up in North Carolina, Mississippi and Florida. He was a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina. Surviving are his wife, Melinda, and a son, Jackson.