Robb Armstrong

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Robb Armstrong (born March 4, 1962) is an American cartoonist best known for creating Jump Start, a widely syndicated daily comic about a middle-class Black family in Philadelphia.

Born in West Philadelphia, Armstrong was the youngest of five children. His mother Dorothy was a seamstress. He attended the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr and, during his senior year, did a three-week internship with cartoonist Signe Wilkinson. He studied advertising design at Syracuse University, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts.

In college he began submitting a comic called Hector to The Daily Orange and later became art director of the paper. When Hector didn’t work well beyond college, he reshaped it into Jump Start. He also worked a day job at Weightman Advertising in Philadelphia early in his career.

Jump Start centers on the Cobb family: Joe Cobb Sr., a police officer, and Marcy Cobb, a nurse, with their four children. The strip is set in the Cobb Creek neighborhood of West Philadelphia and was picked up by United Feature Syndicate in October 1989. It appeared in 69 papers within six months and has since grown to be published in hundreds of papers—over 300 in North America by 2018, including The Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, and The Boston Globe.

Armstrong has explored other projects and ideas over the years. In 2010 his work was showcased in The Original Art of the Funny Papers at Syracuse University. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Holy Family University in 2012. In 2016 he published Fearless: A Cartoonist's Guide to Life, part memoir, part self-help.

Schulz, creator of Peanuts, is one of Armstrong’s influences. Schulz gave the surname Armstrong to Franklin, the Black character in the 1994 special You're in the Super Bowl, Charlie Brown. Armstrong later co-wrote the 2024 Peanuts special Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin, which centers on Franklin.

Armstrong is married to Crystal D. Armstrong, an events planner, and they have two children. They live in Los Angeles. Armstrong’s great-uncle Eugene Benson played baseball in the Negro leagues and the majors.