Hi I’m Dave Franks. I’m a British/Italian London based illustrator, a veteran of Advertising & Marketing comic strips. I’ve worked as a full time illustrator since 1984, after studying illustration at Carmarthen College of Art. I was a natural draftsman with an eye for design even as a tiddler, with drawings of Viking ships and Newts taking up more and more space in my History and Biology homework; I was also a naturalist, cataloguing, collecting and studying the natural world around me; nothing then, would have tied me to a desk. This outdoor, wild inclination, would eventually cause my academic work to suffer, but I had gained a lot from the experience of just observing the natural world and learning how to see and feel. One of my first commissions, was a try-out for DC Thompson who asked me to draw two pages of Desperate Dan from the Dandy Comic. I was Desperate Dan in those days…Later, I did some NDA character development stories for them which I’d love to tell you about but…..I then joined forces with leading comics artist Frank Langford to help with his overflow work, and the rest as they say is history. Outside my commercial work, I exhibit widely in contemporary art, and have exhibited/curated at the Coningsby Gallery, London W1, (Growing Stars Under Glass) and the White Wall Gallery UEL amongst others.