ANDREW DODD entered the comic book market professionally as adult humour comics became all the rage during the nineties.
His many cartoons were to be seen regularly in newsstand sold titles such as Ziggy and Pulp (both published by Big Mags Ltd) and Sweet F.A. His work also appeared in the children's comic Triffik (from Communications Innovations Ltd).
As the bubble burst on those humour comics' sales and newsstand comics were sidelined to make way for ever more copies of O.K.and Hello! - resulting in poor distribution and one of the reasons a mega-sales publishing industry all but died.
Andrew cannily diversified and quite literally took his work direct to the people by becoming a caricaturist.
The cartoonist drew funny pictures of the great unwashed British public at various functions and promotional venues and working direct for the likes of the Scania Coach Company, K.P. Nuts, the South Yorkshire Police and South Yorkshire County Council.
Continuing to diversify, he also did educational promotion material as an animator for Huddersfield University. In fact, he is also now studying there too, as he delves further into multimedia.
Since the launch of the British Internal Comics Show (BICS) punters have noticed Andrew has also returned to the world of comics.
As one half of the publishing team on Time Bomb Comics, he and Steve Tanner released the one-shot Ragamuffins that was launched at BIC’s debut show at The Custard Factory. The collaborative have appeared at subsequent shows and began producing books such as Dick Turpin and the Restless Dead, The Furies and Mother's Milk.
He and Steve also did the First Kill strip that appeared in Accent UK's Predators anthology, and working with writer Jim Alexander he was artist for 2012: Final Prayer on Manchester, and he also produced Bum Run for Giovanni Spinella's anthology title Atrox.
Paul H Birch spotted his digital colouring work, showed it to his daughter who gave it her editorial approval, and invited Andrew to work on Carter's Column, a comic strip that can be seen every Sunday at The Birmingham Mail newspaper’s online comic section, Speech Balloons. Following on from that he digitally coloured a Dr Phibes story for Vincent Price Presents, published in the USA by Bluewater Comics.
Now back in the saddle, so to speak, he has decided to stop with the fanzines and push for the paid work.
Take advantage before the price goes up.