I'm a Boulder Colorado-based cartoonist, humorist, and illustrator - and began writing and drawing when I was old enough to hold a crayon without also eating it. This early self-imposed dietary restriction led to work for some school media outlets, (the pre-school media outlet was the back of a spare Pampers.)

Later, at the University of Illinois, I worked part-time as a cartoonist, columnist, and editor at the Daily Illini student newspaper.

After graduation, I was an art director for a 10,000 employee company near Chicago creating artwork and humor for sleep-inducing presentations - to firms like Boeing, Ford, General Motors, and Northrup Grumman. In my spare time, I also created political cartoons for syndication to newspapers in the Midwest.

After two years, I quit my corporate job and moved to Colorado, to ski and to create a comic strip for international syndication. The former takes little effort, making it a perfect counter to the latter, which is a pursuit with notoriously low odds of success. 

"The largest syndicate, King Features, receives 6,000-8,000 submissions a year, and chooses one. Sometimes they choose none. It is harder than becoming a professional athlete."   (Cartoonist Darby Conley, New York Times.)

I thoroughly failed to beat those odds, for a while. But I became (only slightly) more respectable when King Features offered me a contract, and six months later, much more so when I met my future wife. (A good year.) Three years later, I signed a contract with Tribune Media to create a second comic strip.

I wrote and drew comics for several years, and having them also published in the Denver and Boulder newspapers allowed my neighbors to think I was more than "that grinning idiot". (I became the guy with the same name as the the cretin on the comics page.) Unfortunately, the timing was terrible, as newspapers were languishing. Over 2,400 newspapers closed in the next three years. Most of the remaining papers cut the number of comics pages by 50% on average - eliminating half of the cartoonists...particularly affecting the new folks like me.

With a new family, I also began illustrating books and writing & drawing humor for corporations. That grew beyond my expectations, so I withdrew from newspapers, (which are now sadly on life-support.)

Shift to today: I draw and write humor full-time, (and then some). It's more fun than I could have ever imagined.

My corporate clients range from startups, to more familiar folks like Coca Cola, Fidelity Investments, Google, Intel, McDonalds, Ralph Lauren and Time Warner. 

I've also had the good fortune to illustrate books published by Penguin/Random House, MacMillan, Pearson, Harvard Business Review Press, Prentice Hall, McGraw-Hill, and Wiley, including some bestsellers.

It may sound like I've grown and evolved, but I haven't really. At times, I'm still mildly tempted to chew/suck on my drawing utensils. But I use a digital drawing pen and board now, so there is a 120 volt incentive not to do so. (Technology has come a long way.)

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My Process

The best cartoons are more than funny art. It's usually the written idea that makes you laugh first - with the artwork adding a big boost. So, I like to start with ideas. If you already have ideas for cartoons or illustrations, I can create publishing quality artwork to bring them to life.

If you need help (or are feeling stuck) with concepts or ideas, I can either spray some verbal WD-40 in appropriate areas, or dive in head-first with humor writing.

98% of my clients are outside of my home state of Colorado...so I can create something for you, no matter where you are.

My agent helps to procure some of my work, but if you found me here, feel free to contact me directly. My schedule is typically busy, so I am fairly selective, choosing projects for which I feel I can do excellent work. If you have ideas burning to come to life, I'm happy to discuss them with you.

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Partial Client List (alphabetical):
 

Akamai Corp., The American Red Cross, Arista Records, Armour Foods, The Atlantic Magazine,  AT Internet-France, Ball Horticultural, Bayer Pharmaceutical, Better Business Bureau, (national office), Blackrock, Boeing, Boars Head, Breck's, Burpee Seeds, CapGemini - Paris, Coca Cola, Cold Stone Creamery, Cisco Systems, CNBC News, Eckrich Meats, Fidelity Investments, Forbes Magazine, General Motors, Golin Public Relations, Google, Granite Corp., Harvard Business Review Press, Hearst Corporation, Home Depot, Hubspot, Intel Corp., Kroger Foods, McDonald's, Macmillan Books, McGraw-Hill Books, McKesson Medical & Pharma, Merck Pharmaceutical, Merk Investments, NBC's Today Show, Northwestern Mutual, Pelican Books, Penguin Books, Pepsi, Prentice Hall/Pearson Press, Popl, Ralph Lauren/Polo, Random House Books, Roche Pharmaceutical, Smithfield, Spyder Sportswear, Stanford Business School,  Steel Case Inc., Steuben Foods, SunTrust Financial, Taco Bell, Time Warner, Towers Watson, Univ. of Colorado, Dartmouth Univ., Univ. of Delaware, Univ. of Southern California, Univ. of Toronto, The Wall Street Journal, Wiley & Sons Publishers, Zoom Info Technologies, Zscaler.

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Feel free to stop by my blog to see what I've been working on.

Disclaimer: It may be antiquated, as journaling is my last priority when I am under deadlines, (or skiing, mountain biking, reading a good book...)