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Artist Bio - Doug Allen


Doug Allen photoDoug Allen is best known as the creator of "STEVEN", the primitive comic strip whose special blend of irreverence, paranoia and hilarity have made it a popular feature in alternative newspapers across the country. "Steven" has been collected into a dozen volumes by Kitchen Sink Press and Fantagraphics Books, which comprises almost a year's worth of strips. In "Steven" Issue #1, Steven and everyone else in the strip gets buried alive, and a new character, Dumpy, is introduced amongst a bunch of cactus gags. In #2, Steven dreams he's a fisherman, Fifi Doodle takes drugs, Dumpy chases flies, and punk animals squat in Steven's apartment! Pop open a beer, eat some paste, and enjoy the idiocy!

Steven-inner page

"Steven" is being developed into an animated web series. Mr. Allen is also the co-creator of the criminally underappreciated lunacy that is "IDIOTLAND".

Allen has also been a successful freelance illustrator and contributes regularly to many magazines, including The New Yorker. He was influenced by M.K. Brown and Robert Crumb. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design with an illustration degree in 1978, Allen played bass in many rock bands, including "Rubber Rodeo" which recorded for Polygram Records. The band's line-up included his current collaborator, Gary Leib. Allen and Leib have created several gallery installations and comic books together, such as "Idiotland", published by Fantagraphics Books, and have worked together to bring some of their characters to life as animated shorts through Leib's company, Twinkle.

He wrote a personal homage to Robert Crumb in Monte Beauchamp's book 'The Life and Times of R. Crumb". In this text he expressed how thrilled he was when Crumb drew himself reading a copy of 'Steven' in the final panel of "R. Crumb Goes to the Academy Awards" (published in Premiere Magazine). 

Doug Allen at Comic Art Collective


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