
Letterer at Marvel Entertainment, Owner of Artmonkeys Studios
Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida Area

Letterer at Marvel Entertainment, Owner of Artmonkeys Studios
Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida Area
I have a 23-year career strongly rooted in elemental storytelling, ranging through newspaper illustration, award-winning editorial cartooning, comic book illustration, industry-praised comic book production, award-winning digital lettering, best-selling font creation, storyboard art, art directing, and recently, freelance production arts, and talent coordination for many media outlets. I continue to seek situations to employ and improve my storytelling and illustration crafts, and to evangelize on sequential art's power and eloquence.
Talent coordination, technical print production, pre-press troubleshooting, expert vector illustration, expert hand-lettering skills, expert font manipulation, expert font creation, expert knowledge of software Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe InDesign, Font Lab Studio, Macromedia Fontographer.
(Public Company; 201-500 employees; MVL; Motion Pictures and Film industry)
December 2004 — Present (3 years 8 months)
(Motion Pictures and Film industry)
September 2003 — Present (4 years 11 months)
For press or web:
•freelance talent assembly and coordination
•art direction
•publication design & production
•illustration
•logo design
•typography design
•pre-press publication assembly & pre-flighting
•Clients including Marvel Entertainment, Disney Publishing, DC Comics, WildStorm/CMX, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, Viz/Shojo International, Metron Press/ABS, Zondervan, and many other studios and publishers.
(Public Company; Publishing industry)
1991 — Present (17 years)
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Publishing industry)
December 1999 — June 2004 (4 years 7 months)
Responsibilities included supervising and creating digital production art for story and editorial content for monthly periodicals; design and creation of promotional, advertising, and internal collateral material with Production Department; coordinating production schedules of book teams for pre-press delivery; internal pre-proofing of all editorial material with rotating proofing team; coordinated the print production conversion for Comics on the Web with IT/programming team; developed customized fonts; developed logo designs; supervised Lettering and Design Departments; consistently recognized in the comic industry for excellence. Ruffled feathers with an editorial cartoon about the comics industry from 2000-2004 titled Crossing The Line.
(Public Company; 51-200 employees; Animation industry)
January 1999 — September 1999 (9 months)
freelanced for studios -- highlights included Sony Studios on PBS' Dragon Tales under supervision of director Tim Eldred; freelanced for Hallmark Studios on Maxine's Christmas Carol; various live action PSA projects.
(Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Graphic Design industry)
May 1994 — February 1999 (4 years 10 months)
Responsibilities included lettering monthly periodicals for Marvel, DC, Image Central, WildStorm, Todd McFarlane Productions, Extreme, Awesome!, Chaos, and many other leading publishers; coordinated teams to tackle projects in seamless style; supervised up to 13 employees in visual style, timeliness, and overall coordination with each publisher's editorial pipeline; consistently recognized in the industry for excellence. Simultaneously hand-lettered projects for Chaos! Comics, Malibu Comics, Claypool Comics, and Techno Comics. References include Brian Pulido, Mark Paniccia (now at Marvel), and Richard Howell.
Developed fonts that are currently available by searching "Dave Lanphear" at www.myfonts.com.
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Publishing industry)
May 1993 — May 1994 (1 year 1 month)
Responsibilities included hand-lettering monthly periodicals, assistant art direction of jr. graphic designers in Art Department, coordinated materials in Editorial pipeline to Art Department, provided spot illustrations for Ultraverse storyline Bible, inked two Robotech series freelance. Worked under Editors Mark Paniccia (now at Marvel) and Hank Kanalz (now at Wildstorm), and Art Department Head Tim Eldred.
Completion, Storyboard Production, 1998 — 1999
Associate of Fine Arts, Fine Arts, 1985 — 1987
graphic design, font design, lettering, sequential art, comic books, graphic novels, comic strips, history of comic strips in American media, cartoons, cartoonists, editorial cartooning, satire, farce, vector art, iconography, media icons, international comic book arts, manga, manwha, Tintin, Pogo, Asterix, Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, Charles Schulz, Bill Watterson, Hergé, René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo, Daan Jippes, Carl Barks, Walt Kelly, Giorgio Cavazzano
1st place - Editorial Cartooning - California Press Assocation
1st place - Editorial Cartooning - Northern California Cartoonist & Humorist Association
3rd place - Editorial Cartooning - California Intercollegiate Press Association
Numerous nominations and awards since 1994 for comic book lettering from Wizard Fan Awards, Comic Buyers Guide Fan Awards, Silver Bullet Online, and many more