Okay, here we go, gang, biography lite. I was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1947. After graduating from Kent State University in 1969 with a BFA and a certificate in education, I taught art in Elyria, Ohio at Eastern Heights Jr. High.

   In 1970, while I was teaching, I began drawing a panel for the teen page of the Elyria Chronicle-Telegram. Those strips led to the creation of Funky Winkerbean in 1972. Funky is syndicated by King features Syndicate to more than 400 newspapers nationwide. I skipped over a lot of hard work in the middle there, but that’s basically the gist of it for those of you doing term papers.

   In 1979. I launched John Darling into syndication working with Tom Armstrong, Gerry Shamray, and Bob Vojtko in that order. Great artists all. John Darling was a talk show host who first saw the light of day in Funky, and who was quite literally killed off when his strip ended.

   Another character from Funky, Ed Crankshaft, soloed in his own strip in 1987, for which the inimitable and talented Chuck Ayers has been the artist from the git go.

   Like I said, biography lite. I’m saving the rest for my tell-all memoir. If you just can’t live without knowing more, head over to the Funky web site and check out the interviews section.

I’m generally out of bed at the crack of noon sharp. This is usually followed by a quick brunch because I can’t wait to get up to my studio before it gets dark. Once I’m in my studio, the first thing I do is go through my CD’s to see what music I want to listen to during the day following which I alphabetize the books on the book shelf. After which  alphabetize my CD’s.Then I spend about an hour looking for a book I know I have but can’t find while finding several others that are interesting that I’ve forgotten about. Then I check my emails on the computer followed by checking them on my iPad to see if they’re the same. They generally are.

And now the part we all came for, it’s time to get down to work. I like to work on large slabs of cold rolled sheet steel two inches thick with black lipstick. I prefer brushed and not anodized steel. It’s a bear to mail, but it will just crush my copier if I try to scan it onto the computer. After I’ve outlined the panels with the lipstick, it’s time to take a break and order that book I was looking for from Amazon, along with a couple of additional things that other customers have ordered as well.

I check my emails again and decide that there’s nothing there that can’t wait a month or so. I’ll check my website and see that I haven’t put up a blog post in sixth months so I’ll write another post about how I intend to post more. Then it’s off to the comic book shop to see if  Volume Two of The Complete Alex Raymond Flash Gordon Sundays with the Jungle Jim toppers is in yet. On the way home I’ll stop by the steel mill (yeah, like there actually is one in Ohio anymore) to pick up some more art supplies. Once I’m back home, it’s really too late to get started on anything new so I call it a day and go see what’s for supper.

For the OCD gang out there:

• Faber-Castell pens (collect ‘em all, kids)
• Canson Vidalon paper
• Manga Studio EX when I’m on the computer