Jim Woodring was born in Los Angeles in 1952 and enjoyed a childhood made interesting by frequent hallucinations, apparitions, disembodied voices and other psychological malfunctions. Despite the generally frightening nature of his delusions he learned to accept them as part of life and was accordingly a reasonably cheerful and good-natured lad.
After barely graduating from high school Woodring got a job as a garbage man and lived in picturesque squalor as he set about the task of capturing his inner life in words and pictures. Some of these fledgling efforts were printed in various “underground” publications of the day: Two-Bit Comics (a weekly tabloid), the Los Angeles Free Press, and an early effort at self-publishing, The Little Swimmer. Gradually he developed a number of serviceable drawing styles and became a full-time freelance cartoonist, doing work primarily for advertising agencies and public relations companies but also working on whatever projects came his way, such as student films and other collaborative art.
In 1980 he self-published the first issue of his “illustrated autojournal”, JIM, containing comics, drawings and stories drawn from his indelible childhood experiences. Eventually Woodring landed a salaried job in an L.A. animation studio where he worked on some of the worst cartoons this degraded planet has ever seen. During the 80’s and 90’s his work has been featured in many publications that deal with comics and culture, from the high-brow Kenyon Review and World Art Magazine to Francis Coppola's Zoetrope, as well as the Frank comics. JIM was subsequently published as a 32-page magazine by Fantagraphics Books. Response was good enough to persuade Woodring to leave animation and embark on a career as a full-time cartoon artiste.
At present he is working on his next book, "Seeing Things,"to be published in 2005 by Fantagraphics Books. He lives in Seattle with his family and residual phenomena.
