Julian Lawrence is an award-winning cartoonist and educator specializing in comic books. Born in England and raised bilingual English-French in Québec, his work has been published and displayed internationally by Fantagraphics Books, Les Editions des Plaines, Conundrum Press, National Film Board of Canada, Penguin Books, Cartoon Network and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Julian has an MA in Art Education from the University of British Columbia and lives in Middlesbrough, UK where he works as a Senior Lecturer at Teesside University’s BA (Hons) Comics and Graphic Novels Programme.
Julian’s 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 Julian’s art/research/teaching practice. His most recent work includes the publication of two graphic novels: Drippy’s Mama and The Red Drip of Courage, as well as academic contributions to the book The Bliss and Blisters of Early Career Teaching: A Pan-Canadian Perspective and SANE Journal: Sequential Art Narrative in Education.