{{Short description|American freelance cartoonist (1928–2022)}} right|320px|thumb|Don Orehek self-portrait '''Don Orehek''' (August 9, 1928 – December 6, 2022) was an American freelance cartoonist who contributed gag cartoons to a wide variety of newspapers, magazines and books. On more obscure publications, he used several pseudonyms, including '''Sam de Sade''', '''Di Benvenuto''' and '''Kobasa'''.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Orehek attended the School of Industrial Art, spent four years in the Navy and then studied cartooning and illustration at the School of Visual Arts.
The Oreheks lived in Port Washington, New York on Long Island. They also lived in Renton, Washington.
His work appeared in ''Adam'', ''Army Laughs'', ''The Christian Science Monitor'', ''Cosmopolitan'', ''Cracked'', ''Good Housekeeping'', ''Ladies' Home Journal'', ''Look'', ''Modern Maturity'', ''Playboy'', ''The Saturday Evening Post'' and other publications, including one-shot magazines and specialized cartoon magazines, such as ''Prize Cartoons''.
Orehek died on December 6, 2022.<ref>{{cite web |author1=D. D. Degg |title=Don Orehek – RIP |url=https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2022/12/07/don-orehek-rip |website=The Daily Cartoonist |access-date=7 December 2022 |date=7 December 2022}}</ref>
==Syndication== Orehek was a major contributor to the McNaught Syndicate's ''This Funny World'' single-panel series, and he also drew many cartoons for King Features' ''Laff-A-Day''.<ref name=don>[https://donorehekcartoons.blogspot.com/ Don Orehek Cartoons]</ref>
==Books== He has illustrated more than 30 paperback humor and joke books, beginning with Bob Vlasic's ''101 Pickle Jokes'' in 1974. This was followed by ''The Official Name Callers' Book'', ''The Laugh-a-Minute Joke Book'' (1989) and many more. His work has been reprinted in numerous cartoon collections, such as Sam Gross' ''Movies Movies Movies'' (Harper & Row. 1989).
Based on 28 years of recorded sales, Orehek and his wife Suzanne calculated that he had sold over 12,000 cartoons during his lengthy career: <!-- Deleted image removed: right|thumb|390px --> :Our estimate is 12,000 +. Hard to believe, isn't it? Our basis for this number is a written record of sales from August 1966 (when wife Suzy started working for Don) through December 1994. This record is a simple list of sales on three-hole notebook paper. It is 253 pages with 25 lines per page. That's 6,325 sales. Add to that multiple-drawings in sales to magazines like ''Cracked'', about 30 drawings for each of 32 joke books, and the other 32 years before and after the list, and--well--we stopped counting at 12,000.<ref name=don/>
==Awards== He is a four-time winner of the National Cartoonists Society's Gag Cartoon Award (1972, 1982, 1984, 1985), and he received awards twice at Montreal's Man and His World exhibition.
His interest in caricatures was solidified in 1966 with a trip to Vietnam under the auspices of the National Cartoonists Society and the U.S. Department of Defense. Shortly after returning, Orehek and his fellow cartoonists were invited to the White House where they were personally thanked by President Lyndon Johnson for entertaining American and Vietnamese troops.<ref name=don/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * [https://donorehekcartoons.blogspot.com/ Don Orehek official site] * [https://www.lambiek.net/artists/o/orehek_don.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia biography.] * [https://web.archive.org/web/20060106021759/http://www.reuben.org/ncs/awards.asp NCS Awards] * [http://www.reuben.org/ncs/members/biogs/orehek.asp NCS: Don Orehek]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Orehek, Don}} Category:1928 births Category:2022 deaths Category:American magazine cartoonists Category:American illustrators Category:American comics artists Category:American caricaturists Category:People from Port Washington, New York Category:High School of Art and Design alumni Category:School of Visual Arts alumni