Julian Lawrence | |
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![]() Lawrence in 2019 | |
Born | |
Citizenship | Canadian/British |
Alma mater | University of British Columbia |
Occupation(s) | Senior Lecturer in Comics and Graphic Novels |
Employer | Teesside University |
Julian Lawrence is a Canadian cartoonist, educator and comics scholar. A longtime member of Vancouver's DIY independent art scene, Lawrence is also an arts educator and researcher, with a specialization in using hand drawn comics as a tool to improve literacy, develop storytelling techniques and form identity. He currently resides in Middlesbrough, England, where he is a Senior Lecturer in the Comics and Graphic Novels B.A. Honours program at Teesside University.[1]
Born in Portsmouth, England, Lawrence immigrated as a child with his family to Québec in the mid-1960s, during an era of intense anti-English sentiment in that Province. To cope with the social rejection from his Francophone classmates, Lawrence turned to reading and writing comics for both entertainment and as a tool for improving his French language literacy.[2]
In 1989, Lawrence moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he worked as an independent artist on a variety of projects, including: writer/illustrator for Fantagraphics (three issues of “Crucial Fiction”,[3] a historical biography comic series);[4] storyboard artist for the a.k.a. Cartoon animated series Ed, Edd n Eddy; character designer for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network animated series Artie the Ant and Senior Editor at Zeros2Heroes Media[5].[citation needed]
In the spring of 1999, Lawrence co-created (along with Robert Dayton) the Drippy Gazette[6] – a short-lived (12 issues) monthly two-color newspaper featuring comics from Vancouver artists, with each issue cover featuring an anthropomorphized raindrop named Drippy the Newsboy.[7] From this, Lawrence subsequently won a grant from the Xeric Foundation in 2000 [8] which he used to help publish Drippytown Comics,[9] an anthology series which grew out from the Gazette and served to showcase the work of each contributing artist. Notable artists included Colin Upton and Jason Turner.[10]
In 2007, Lawrence contributed artwork to The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, a graphic novel documenting the life of a once famous Chinese vaudeville performer. The book was named on the American Library Association's Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens[11] and won the Doug Wright Award in 2008. Lawrence also worked on the animated film adaptation, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
In 2014, Lawrence re-purposed his character Drippy the Newsboy as the protagonist for a comic book trilogy based on the writings of American author Stephen Crane. Lawrence emulated Crane's literary narrative style by contrasting exceptionally detailed artwork with slang-filled dialogue.[4] Conundrum Press published three volumes of The Adventures of Drippy the Newsboy: Volume I: Drippy's Mama (2015); Volume II: The Red Drip of Courage (2015) and Volume III: The Dripping Boat (2020).
Lawrence was a founding member of Vancouver avant garde musical collective July Fourth Toilet.[12][13]