Growing up in the Houston area a long time ago, I was blessed to enjoy two Sunday papers. I’d spend part of the day copying my favorites, like Peanuts, Garfield, Bloom County, & Tank McNamara… which makes being a member with Bill Hinds even more special to me. I’m a huge sports fan too, and the Pro football Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony led to my interest in sculpting… but we’ll get to that later.
After graduating high school, I created Silva Comics, my own independent comic book company, which ate up all of my time. I spent long days writing and drawing and dealing with the printing company in San Antonio. And, my weekends were spent at comic conventions selling and signing books. Soon after launching my comic book, I began penciling and inking a storyline for another local independent comic called Space City Comics. With no time and even less sleep, I decided to end my book and stop collaborating with Space City Comics too. Bob Schreck gave me his card and asked me if I’d consider penciling for Dark Horse Comics. DC and Marvel also showed interest, but I wanted to go have the college experience and earn my degree and be an art teacher. So I turned back to my original love of comic strips.
I received an art scholarship to a local college and set my mind on submitting a comic strip to the school’s newspaper. I worked up ten strips, but when I went to show them, I realized the Texas City Sun newspaper with a circulation of 50K a day, was right across the street from campus. So I went there instead and twenty minutes later I had a weekly strip called “The Boys” on their “Teen Page”. The strip ran for a few years until I transferred to a larger university. The highlight of drawing “The Boys” came one week when I drew the band Oasis into the strip, which led to me getting to hang out with them backstage on their tour bus when they played Houston for the first time.
After arriving at Midwestern State University, I set my mind on pitching my strip to the school paper. I renamed the strip “Dysfunctional” and drew it weekly until I graduated. I also drew a weekly editorial cartoon for the paper. The job paid well and kept me from having to wait tables like most of my college friends. During the summer of 2000, I studied abroad at the University of London. After a trip to the Louve in Paris I was determined to seriously begin studying sculpture.
I was fortunate to receive a Marcus Fellowship to pursue a Master of Arts Degree in Art Education at the University of North Texas. But one of the stipulations of the fellowship was that I could not hold a job. And that ended my career as a working cartoonists. Since graduating from UNT, I have taught every level of art from kindergarten through high school for almost twenty years. I am currently the head of the Fine Art Department at Burkburnett High School, where I have taught all levels of art for the past seven years. I am happily married to my wonderful wife Amanda, who has always been supportive of my creative impulses. Over the past two decades I have be fortunate to create sculptures for Texas Christian University’s College of Education, the University of North Texas Athletic Department, and other collections.
While I absolutely love teaching my students and making sculptures, I have missed creating cartoons. I was previously a member of the Texas Cartoonists a few years back, but commissions and teaching kept me from being able to commit time to cartoon projects. Now I’m developing a new comic strip. Hopefully it will be good enough to see publication some day.
