Julian Lawrence is a Canadiancartoonist, 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.
Career
Born in Portsmouth, England, Lawrence immigrated as a child with his family to Québec in the mid-1960's, 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.
Artist
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 ; 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 . In the spring of 1999, Lawrence co-created the Drippy Gazette – a short-lived monthly two-color newspaper featuring comics from Vancouver artists, with each issue cover featuring an anthropomorphized raindrop named Drippy the Newsboy. From this, Lawrence subsequently won a grant from the Xeric Foundation in 2000 which he used to help publish Drippytown Comics, 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.
In 2007, Lawrence contributed artwork to The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, a graphic novel documenting the life of a once famous Chinesevaudeville performer. The book was named on the American Library Association's Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens and won the Doug Wright Award in 2008. Lawrence also worked on the animated film adaptation, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
The Adventures of Drippy the Newsboy
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. Conundrum Press published three volumes of The Adventures of Drippy the Newsboy: Volume I: Drippy's Mama ; Volume II: The Red Drip of Courage and Volume III: The Dripping Boat.
Researcher
Lawrence's academic work concentrates on the undercurrents of communication through gesture in the medium of comics. His research explores freehand narrative drawing and its impact on representations of artist identity. Investigations of these topics led him to combine theories of authorship with semiotic analysis of comics. This combination constitutes a large focus of his art/research/teaching practice. His most recent work includes contributions to the book The Bliss and Blisters of Early Career Teaching: A Pan-Canadian Perspective and SANE Journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education.
MA in art education
In May 2017, he completed a master's degree in art education at University of British Columbia. Much of his recent comics work concentrates on comics as research tool in pedagogy.
Teacher
Lawrence began his teaching career in the late 1990s as a guest artist in local Vancouver schools, where he would teach simple drawing techniques to students during art lessons. In 2009, he joined the roster of artists at , a government funded charitable organization that promotes integrating art into school curriculum. As a result, Lawrence began using comics as a tool for achieving multi-disciplinary learning outcomes. Between 2003-2018, Lawrence was an instructor at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where he designed and delivered courses on Graphic Novel narrative structures; expression and character; professional practices and autobiographic storytelling. In the summer of 2018, Lawrence relocated to Middlesbrough, UK, where he currently works as Senior Lecturer in the Comics and Graphic Novels B.A. Honours program at Teesside University.
