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Before I was able to read I used to ask my father to read the sunday funnies outloud to me. I remember I would pick out which newspaper strip I wanted him to read. A Lot of times after he was done, I would say "That wasn't funny." He would try to explain it, but I was five or six. I wasn't old enough to realize cartoon strips are really for adults. I remember my dad would draw cartoons and I loved watching him do it. My mom drew a really good rose once around that same time. I remember feeling so frustrated that I couldn't draw it the same way. That was my first memory I can recall of wanting to do better at art.

From around that age of five I was drawing nonstop and then I began reading & writing nonstop as I got into my adolescent years. I got really in poetry writing, unicycling, & eventually added puppetry into the mix. It seemed no matter what I did, even into adulthood, I was always making something that revolved around drawing, comedy or writing. Caricature art is one of the fastest art vehicles I can still get into & cruise around in to scratch all three of those itches at the same time.

The only element I haven't mentioned yet which is all over my art is my obsession with animals since my earliest memories. It has informed my senses and perspective as a professional cartoonist. It's has leaked into everything I make, everything I love to ponder and create or make fun of.

When I turned 19 I started a work apprenticeship in Chicago as a caricature artist under Lothar Speer. A very pivotal moment in my life. I am forever grateful to him and the streak of luck I had to get to learn and work alongside him, Jason Seiler, Adam Belmares, Chuck Senties, Dave Curbis, Illario Silva, Sol Bovey, Ernest Posey, Andy Willis, Kenny Ivy, Richard Carper, Lance Gustafson. These guys all went out of their way to immerse into caricature art with me. Later on I would meet many more cartoonists I had always looked up, and get extra insight that fueled my passion. Ed Steckley, Tom Richmond, Stephan Pastis ( my favorite cartoon strip artist I got to meet!) And so many more!

It's quite possible we all originally were inspired first by the late great Gary Fasen. I met Gary, but didn't get the chance to work directly for him. But his influence is in all our work, and also in the spirit of how we all learned from each other and banded together to grow.

I have heard the newer generation of caricature artists out there don't do this so much as we did. They don't pour over People magazines and comment on facial structure and try to draw the same people together and compare art. But that was my school. Fellow cartoonists were my school. Airbrushing and drawing alongside other caricature artists at Navy Pier in Chicago was both my art & business school.

So go ahead & look up the work of all these guys. They are all Caricature royalty to me. The work they produce is still what I look up to all these years later. My work has little pieces of each of them woven in, if even only in the form of conversations I recall with them whenever I'm struggling through an element of artwork I'm working on. They are definitely in the success I have had. Without them taking the time to help me grow professionally there wouldn't be over twenty years of professional cartoon work I have now had the privilege of laughing over and sharing... one drawing at a time... with so many lovely people.