Rina Piccolo facts for kids

Rina Piccolo is a talented Canadian cartoonist. She is best known for her funny comic strip called Tina's Groove. This comic has been shared by King Features Syndicate since 2002. Rina has been a professional cartoonist for over 20 years. She has also recently become known for writing short stories. Since 2016, she has helped Hillary Price with another comic strip, Rhymes with Orange. This comic is also shared by King Features Syndicate.

Rina's Early Life and Start

Rina Piccolo was born and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She started her cartooning journey in 1989. That year, her very first cartoon was accepted by Now magazine. Rina has said that this early success made her think cartooning would be easy. But she soon learned it was much harder, facing many rejections after that first acceptance.

Her Amazing Comic Strips

In the early 1990s, a magazine called Comic Relief printed her cartoons. From 2000 to 2016, Rina was one of the cartoonists for King Features' daily comic strip Six Chix. She was known as the "Wednesday chick" for this strip.

In 2002, Rina launched her own comic strip, Tina's Groove. This comic is about a fun and smart waitress named Tina. Tina works at a place called Pepper's Restaurant. Rina draws her comics six days a week, working on them every other day. Tina's Groove appears in newspapers across the United States and Canada. You can also read it through King Features' DailyINK email service.

Rina once shared how she comes up with ideas for her comics. She said she often finds ideas for Six Chix while thinking of jokes for Tina's Groove. She usually writes for both comics at the same time, about two or three days a week.

In May 2010, Rina started an online comic strip called Velia, Dear. This comic was published on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Velia, Dear tells the story of a young woman from Toronto. She lives with her traditional Catholic mother and is dating a Jewish boyfriend. This comic strip seems to have paused since February 2012.

Rina has also been a guest cartoonist for Hilary Price's Rhymes with Orange comic strip a couple of times. She talked about this in 2010. Rina felt she had practiced a lot and gained more confidence in her work. She also understood Hilary's style very well from reading her comics for years.

Books and Collections

Besides comic strips, Rina has drawn for many other things. These include books, cartoon collections, greeting cards, and popular magazines. Some of these magazines are Parade and The New Yorker.

In 2006, Andrews McMeel published a book called Tina's Groove: A Cartoon Collection. Rina has also released other cartoon collections. These include Stand Back, I Think I'm Gonna Laugh (1994), Kicking the Habit: Cartoons about the Catholic Church (1996), and Rina's Big Book of ... Cartoons (1997).

Rina lives in Queens, New York City. She lives there with her husband, Brendan Burford, and their pet canary, Olive.

Awards and Recognition

Rina's short story, "The Dinner Plan", was a finalist in a contest. This was Narrative magazine's Spring 2011 short story contest. Later, in the Fall 2011 issue of Narrative, her story "Takeout" was published.