Reuben Lucius Goldberg studies at the University of California at Berkely. After graduating in 1904, he starts working as a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. In 1907 he moves to New York, after selling his Sunday half-page strip 'Mike and Ike'. This comic finds little response and with a lot of effort he eventually lands himself a job at the New York Evening Mail. Apart from drawing, he also takes a shot at vaudeville, becoming a stand-up comedian and fortuneteller in 1911. His sports cartoons gain him growing popularity, and in 1915 he is assigned to create a Sunday strip, which becomes 'Boob McNutt'. After this, he relaunches his 'Mike and Ike'-characters, this time with success.

In 1928 Goldberg starts his first and probably best daily strip, 'Bobo Baxter', which runs until 1930. In 1934, he creates 'Doc Wright', about a doctor and his patients. In 1936, 'Lala Palooza' is launched, with little response - it folds in 1939. It seems that Goldberg is at his best and wackiest when he makes his miscellany pages, such as 'Rube Goldberg's Sideshow', his last strip effort in 1939. Especially his creations of intricate and absurd inventions are memorable. He then focuses on his editorial cartoons, which win him a Pulitzer Prize. In 1945, he co-founds the National Cartoonists' Society, becoming its first president. He dies in 1970.

Bonnie

Dan Berger adds:

A "Rube Goldberg device" is specifically a complex mechanism for performing a simple task, and is based on Goldberg's cartoon inventions. For examples and more information, check out the Official Rube Goldberg Web Site (though the cartoon scans there are not very clear).

The Theta Tau national engineering fraternity still holds an annual Rube Goldberg Machine contest.