About Josh
I was born in New York City in 1967 and have been drawing comics since
I was four years old. My earliest influences were Hergé's Tintin and Curt Swan & Murphy Anderson's Superman.
When I was little, I wanted to tell stories about superheroes — I wanted to be a superhero.
Now that I’m a bit older, it’s real stories that interest me most, and I try to use the comics form to explore "unconventional" subjects. Comics writers like Harvey Pekar and David Greenberger have strongly influenced me in that regard. Through them, I learned to treasure the strangeness of real life and appreciate the little details of daily existence. So it seemed natural to combine my love of the Tintin adventures with my own real-life travel experiences — particularly the "adventures" I shared with my then girlfriend (now wife), during the year we spent backpacking around the world. I relate those tales in my book, A Few Perfect Hours (and Other Stories From Southeast Asia & Central Europe), which I published through a 2004 grant from the Xeric Foundation.
My latest project is A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, a graphic novel(ization) of the stories of six real New Orleans residents and their encounters with Hurricane Katrina. A.D. is being serialized on SMITH magazine; new chapters are added monthly.
In late 2006, Alternative Comcs recently released the second issue of my solo title, The Vagabonds. Also in 2006, I self-published Katrina Came Calling, the story of my three weeks as a Red Cross volunteer following Hurricane Katrina. Working with journalist R. Walker, I illustrated Titans of Finance: True Tales of Money & Business. And with long-time friend Dean Haspiel, I co-created the two-man anthology, Keyhole. I've also have had the honor and intense pleasure of illustrating Harvey Pekar's stories in American Splendor and David Greenberger's stories in Duplex Planet Illustrated. As Pekar and Greenberger did for me, I hope to do for my readers — to help them appreciate their own experiences.
Besides being a Xeric Award recipient, I'm also an Ignatz Award nominee. In addition, I am a founding member of the online comix collective ACT-I-VATE. I have contributed to anthologies published by (among others) Vertigo, Fantagraphics, Dark Horse, Top Shelf, StripBurger, and SPX. My comics and strips have also appeared in daily newspapers, alternative weeklies, financial magazines, literary journals, museum exhibition catalogs, and many other venues.
I went to high school at Music & Art in New York City (now called LaGuardia), where I drew comics with a large group of aspiring cartoonists (including the aforementioned Dean Haspiel!). I earned my BA in Art History from Oberlin College. Though born in New York, I have lived in such American cities as San Diego; San Francisco; Chicago; Oberlin, Ohio; and Provincetown, Massachusetts; Canadian locales like Halifax and Vancouver; and European cities like London and Prague. I now live in Brooklyn, New York, and make a living mixing my comics work with freelance illustration and design. I'm married to the beautiful and brilliant Sari Wilson, and have a brand-new daughter named Phoebe.