Before I had the pleasure of building and running an Oklahoma City design firm, I used to draw and write a nationally-syndicated comic strip. The strip was called DAVE (go figure). The DAVE strip chronicled the life a 20-something single guy. The strip ran from September 1992 through April of 1999 and was syndicated by Tribune Media Services. The daily strip focused on relationships, work and pop culture – and ran in over 180 newspapers worldwide. From the Chicago Tribune to the San Francisco Examiner – from the Dallas Morning News to the Orlando Sentinel.
I wish I could say that I got out of the business because I saw the demise of newspaper publishing industry, but truth is – I got burned out. After nearly 8 years and thousands of cartoons, I said everything I needed to say. For those who have read my blog posts before, you’d probably agree. All in all, it was a great run. I got to do something I always wanted to do…draw little people and make up stuff for them to say.
Some DAVE cartoon strip career highlights (besides squeezing a weeks worth of work into a day and a half for 400 straight weeks) include:
- Got to be in a parade in Ohio
- Interviewed on TV … it was cable … cable in Rhode Island – still counts
- Had a cartoon published in both of Howard Stern’s Books and attended his Private Parts book release party – that could be a whole other blog
- DAVE coffee mugs
- Breakfast with Charles Schultz
- A legitimate 8 year excuse to be a constant wise a**
I am working on a DAVE website. I’ll blog about it when I get the website up and running.
> View some DAVE comic strips