I was born and raised in Southern California. After graduating from Ramona Convent High School, I spent a fair amount of my time being a Goth in Hollywood even though the prevailing music at the time was Metal-Hair-Bands. Remember Rocket From the Crypt, Lita Ford and Poison?

When I realized the futility of this gesture, I moved up to San Francisco to study art. After three years at the Academy of Art College (pre-animation, computer and video departments), I was struggling to find steady work.

It was at this point that longtime "X-Men" and "Spawn" letterer Tom Orzechowski had asked me if I knew Pagemaker. Lucky for me I spent one semester learning Pagemaker 3.0. I began my lettering career by helping Tom on "Barefoot Gen" by Keiji Nakazawa for Project Gen. I did the preliminary typesetting and pasting body copy onto photostats of original art. From there I was put into service to help complete the lettering and retouch on the last issue of Masamune Shirow's "Orion", where I did my first bits of retouch and had my first experience with screen tone (which wasn't entirely successful).

The manga lettering and retouch work has been abundant and rewarding and, if nothing else, I certainly acquired the discipline to finish projects (something that I couldn't say I had learned at art school). Hopefully soon, I can apply that discipline to other creative endeavors...like finishing this website!