Jonathon Dalton (born September 16, 1977) is a Canadian artist specializing in

comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

and webcomics. Dalton created the webcomics ''A Mad Tea-Party'' and ''Lords of Death and Life'', and co-founded the Vancouver-based comics society Cloudscape Comics.

Beginnings

Dalton was inspired to create comics at an early age. He earned a

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

from the University of Victoria.

Almost as soon as I started reading comic books I decided that making them was what I wanted to do for a living. The trouble was, I was determined to draw my own strange stories in my own style rather than learn the style preferred by the Big Two. Periodic rejection letters over the years failed to convince me to change my ways. When web comics started to multiply on the internet I threw myself wholeheartedly into that world.

In 2003 Dalton began writing his weekly science fiction webcomic ''A Mad Tea-Party''. He teaches elementary school in the town of Mission on the outskirts of Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the director of communications and co-founder of the Vancouver-based comics society entitled Cloudscape Comics.

Achievements

In 2010 Dalton won the

Xeric Grant Deserts and xeric shrublands are a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Deserts and xeric (ancient Greek xērós, “dry") shrublands form the largest terrestrial biome, covering 19% of Earth's land surface area. Ecoregions in this h ...

for his book ''Lords of Death and Life''. ''Lords of Death and Life'' was also nominated for Outstanding Environment Design in the 2007

Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCA) were annual awards in which established webcartoonists nominated and selected outstanding webcomics. The awards were held between 2001 and 2008, were mentioned in a ''The New York Times'' column on webcom ...

. The following year, in

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, he was presented with the award for Outstanding Long Form Comic. Dalton's work has been published in ''Cloudscape'' anthologies and the 2008 ''Fablewood'' anthology from

Ape Entertainment Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

. His 2009 short story "Lil' Ulysses in Chicago" was listed as a Notable Comic in the 2010 edition of

Best American Comics ''The Best American Comics'' was a yearly anthology of comics in the United States published by Houghton Mifflin from 2006 to 2019 as part of ''The Best American Series''. Stories were chosen using the same procedure as the other Best American t ...

. In 2010, he was described by interviewees in the ''

National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with M ...

'' as one of Canada's "most under-appreciated comic artists working today".

References

External links

Jonathon Dalton Comics

Video interview with Jonathon Dalton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dalton, Jonathon Canadian comics writers Canadian webcomic creators Canadian schoolteachers Living people People from Mission, British Columbia 1977 births