David Heatley (born October 17, 1974) is an American cartoonist, illustrator, graphic designer, and musician.

Biography

Education

Born in Teaneck, New Jersey, Heatley graduated from Teaneck High School in 1993. He graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2000.

Comics

Though he studied painting and filmmaking at Oberlin College, Heatley started drawing comics regularly in the late 1990s. Since then, his comics and illustrations have appeared on the cover of The New Yorker, in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Mome, and Kramers Ergot, among others. He has been featured three times in the Best American Comics series. Fantagraphics has published two issues of his solo comic book series, Deadpan, and Pantheon Books released his first full-length book, My Brain is Hanging Upside Down, in September 2008.

Music

Heatley's high school band Velvet Cactus Society released two albums on Shimmy Disc in the early 1990s. In 2008, he recorded (under his own name) a soundtrack to his graphic novel "My Brain is Hanging Upside Down", featuring a cover of The Ramones song by the same name. The soundtrack was released on WonderSound records.

Personal life

Heatley lives in Jackson Heights, NY, with his wife Rebecca Gopoian (an agnostic, Jewish-Armenian poet) and their two children, Maya and Samuel Heatley.

Inspiration

Heatley lists among his influences Daniel Clowes, Gary Panter, Fort Thunder, and Paper Rad.

Selected works

Books

Solo Comics

Collaborative Comics

Anthology appearances