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I was born on February 9, 1956 in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia. My father was a coal miner and Baptist preacher. My mother is a housewife. I have three sisters. My wife Beth and I have been married since 1977. We have two children, Benjamin and Emily.

After graduating from Gauley Bridge High School in 1974, I briefly attended both the Columbus College of Art and Design and West Virginia University. In 1979, I enrolled in the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in New Jersey from which I graduated with Dean's List in 1981.

EARLY WORK
The day after my graduation, I went to New York City and came away with my first professional assignments from SPI, a publisher of fantasy role playing and strategy games. I continued to work in the fantasy game field for about three years, most notably as a staff illustrator for TSR Hobbies, the creators of "Dungeon's and Dragons."

THE "INDY" COMIC MOVEMENT

I started working in comics in the mid-1980's, becoming one of the mainstays of the so-called "independent" comics movement. For First Comics, I helped create (with writer John Ostrander) the science fiction mercenary GRIMJACK. Grimjack became one of the most well known and widely imitated characters of the 80's and early 90's and was instrumental in paving the way for the era of so-called "grim and gritty" action comics. (As a matter of fact, the very term "grim and gritty" was coined during a Grimjack editorial meeting!) With First I also wrote and illustrated one of the first all-original American graphic novels, TIME BEAVERS.

My next major work was SCOUT, which I wrote and drew for Eclipse Comics. SCOUT told the story of Emanuel Santana, an Apache warrior doing battle with crooked bureaucrats and mythological monsters in a post holocaust United States. The title earned several fan nominations for "Best New Series" and "Favorite Artist, " and won a Spanish "Haxtur" Award. Like Grimjack, Scout proved to be popular and influential. Native American readers and educators have applauded the book for its respectful but non-patronizing portrayal of Southwestern Indian culture and beliefs. Because various names, issue titles, plots, and themes in the book frequently paid tribute to rock and blues music and musicians, I learned that SCOUT was also a favorite comic book of rock musicians like Jerry Garcia and Carlos Santana, both of whom I would later have the privilege of working with.

While with Eclipse, I headed a comic packaging group called 4Winds. 4Winds produced several best-selling comic titles, such as THE SPIDER, PROWLER, and AIRBOY. Later, 4Winds became a publishing company specializing in graphic novels from South America and Europe. We also published comics legend Sam Glanzman's two-volume S.F. epic, ATTU.

During this time, I wrote and illustrated DRAGON CHIANG (a futuristic tale of a two-fisted Chinese Communist truck driver, serialized by a European publisher. (DRAGION CHIANG a few years ago and is available in my "Books" section.)

In the early 90's, I accepted an offer from editor Mike Gold at DC Comics to revamp, revise and revive DC Comics' long-running science fiction character HAWKMAN. I did so in the 4-issue, full color, graphic novel length "Prestige Series" comic, HAWKWORLD. HAWKWORLD won another Spanish "Haxtur" award for me, this time for "Best Comic."

WESTERNS FOR THE 90'S
I've spent much of the last few years helping to resurrect a genre that was long considered "taboo" for modern comics: the Western. The first was WILDERNESS-- my most ambitious project to date, and the one of which I am the proudest. This two-volume graphic novel is the biography of vilified Revolutionary War era outlaw, Simon Girty. Wilderness took five years to research and won me accolades from mainstream historians and frontier era historical reenactors. (Reprint editions of WILDERNESS are also available in the "Books" section.)

Following WILDERNESS were two more history projects. The first was a graphic novel adaptation of the popular outdoor drama "TECUMSEH!", which gave me a chance to work with Pulitzer-nominated author, Allen W. Eckert. I also served as costume consultant for the 20TH Anniversary Season of the play. This was followed by STRAIGHT UP TO SEE THE SKY, an all-prose, illustrated guide to several heroes and villains from the Ohio River frontier. This book also proved very popular with history buffs.

JONAH HEX: TWO GUN MOJO was my first collaboration with noted novelist, Joe R. Lansdale. This bloody but real dang funny miniseries won for Joe and I a 1995 "Bram Stoker" Award from the Horror Writers Association. A second JONAH HEX series, RIDERS OF THE WORM AND SUCH, called down the wrath of 70's blues rockers Johnny and Edgar Winter, two whose Texas musical legacy was among the topics parodied in the miniseries. (Paradoxically, I'd once paid tribute to Johnny Winter by naming a major SCOUT comic character after him, "Sergeant Laura Winters".) A massive First Amendment victory was won when all nine points of the unfortunate suit were thrown out of court by a Los Angeles judge.

Joe and I also helped revive the comic book careers of western fiction icons THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO before returning to JONAH HEX for one more miniseries in 1996.

My last published Western in the 90's was THE KENTS miniseries, which told of the frontier beginnings of Superman's adopted family as written by old GRIMJACK cohort, John Ostrander.

Doing these books in the 90's was a special treat for me, in that they proved to naysayers that the Western genre could still be a valid and popular springboard for entertaining comics stories.

ROCK AND ROLL!
As a serious music fan and musician, I've been able to channel these interests into my comic book and illustration work. Eclipse Comics allowed me to feature examples of my musical endeavors on flexi-disc soundpages in both Scout and The Prowler, and later released my first full-length LP, MARAUDER, performed by my band THE DIXIE PISTOLS.

In 1991, I began a long association with The Grateful Dead. I've created many CD covers, tour illustrations and limited edition T-shirts for them and was the main contributor to Kitchen Sink's GRATEFUL DEAD COMIX. DC's Vertigo wing published DOGMOON, a graphic novel which I illustrated for lyricist Robert Hunter. I create a full-color comics page in every issue of THE GRATEFUL DEAD ALMANAC, available free from Grateful Dead Merchandising. It's an honor to follow in the footsteps of Greg Irons, Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, and other great illustrators who've been associated with the band. Through Grateful Dead Records, I also fulfilled one of my teenage dreams when I did the cover illustration for a CD one of my favorite bands, Hot Tuna.

I've also worked with one of my favorite guitarists, Carlos Santana, whose biography I wrote and Illustrated for Rock-it Comics. It was during my interviews with Carlos that I discovered he was a longtime fan of my comic, SCOUT (Coincidentally enough, furthering the comic's tradition of naming it's main characters after my favorite guitarists, the protagonist of SCOUT, Emanuel Santana, was originally named in honor of Carlos!).

Music has always been as important a facet in my life as my writing and drawing. I've been playing guitar since the mid-1970's and in the 90's built a recording studio in my home. In 1999, I started producing recording sessions for Terry Strongheart, a very talented Cherokee singer and songwriter. Terry and I enjoyed the sessions so much that we decided to put together a band. Calling in my friends guitarist Mike Diehm, bass player Chip Ames, and drummer Jeff Chambers, as well as Terry's daughter, singer Erin Frederick Strongheart, we created the TERRY STRONGHEART BAND. Our first CD with the band, TEARS, has received airplay on various NPR and Native American radio stations and has earned rave reviews, most recently at the popular independant music site, RAMBLES.NET http://www.rambles.net . We have just finished recording tracks for our followup CD, INDIAN SCHOOL. The TERRY STRONGHEART BAND is now going stronger than ever, playing concerts, outdoor music festivals, and Native American pow wows as well as museum and benefit events throughout the northeastern US.

OTHER PROJECTS:
Besides comics and music related projects, I've worked with publishers in several other fields: creating trading cards for Topps (STAR WARS and MARS ATTACKS), Sheltone (the ELECTRIFIED! blues guitarist card set with my buddy, writer and historian Michael H. Price) and Fantasy Flight (GEORGE R. R. MARTIN'S GAME OF THRONES fantasy card game); animation (character designs and Native American culture consultant for Universal Cartoon Studios); book illustration (Bantam Books' and Byron Priess' iBooks WILD CARDS series and collections of stories by authors George R. R. MArtin, Joe R. Lansdale, and others for Subterranean Press); portfolios (most notably the VISIONS OF ARZACH Mobius tribute series for Starwatcher Graphics); and a return to the role playing game illustration (with White wolf Publishing and Paladium Books), a venue that I enjoy tremendously (sword and sorcery/fantasy has always been my favorite genre to work in!).

PLEASE COME BACK TO MY SITE FREQUENTLY FOR UPDATES ABOUT CURRENT AND FUTURE ILLUSTRATION, WRITING, AND MUSIC PROJECTS!