Dave Sheridan Biography

Dave Sheridan was the underground cartoonist who is best-known for his characters Dealer McDope and The Leather Nun. He was born and raised in the Cleveland, Ohio area and by the early 1970s had arrived in San Francisco, California.

There he collaborated with fellow midwesterner Fred Schrier on three issues of Mother's Oats Funnies and a one-shot title called The Balloon Vendor. These were all published by Rip Off Press, the pioneering underground comix publishers founded in San Francisco in 1969. He eventually settled in San Anselmo, California.
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In 1974 Dave began collaborating with Gilbert Shelton on Shelton's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers strips. These were offered through the Rip Off Comics Syndicate to alternative and college weeklies nationwide, and later collected into comix. His first issue of the Freak Brothers was Number 4, with a many-page story arc entitled "The Seventh Voyage of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers." Escaping the landlady and her demands for rent, the hirsute trio go to Mexico where they encounter far worse perils, including a Carlos Castaneda parody. Sheridan's detailed graphic style lent itself well to the fantastic imagery needed to lampoon Castaneda's drug-related Central American cum New Age sorcery.

Dave continued to collaborate on the Freak Brothers comix series through issues 5, 6 and 7. The team was joined by Paul Mavrides in 1978 for issue 6. He was a member of the Artista artists collective. He worked closely with Don Novello and drew the album cover for his Father Guido Sarducci comedy album. In 1981, a few months after his marriage to Dava Stone, Dave fell ill. Early in 1982 he was diagnosed with cancer, and he died of a brain hemorrhage in March of 1982 - just a week before the birth of his daughter Dorothy.

DAVE SHERIDAN PICTURES

DAVE SHERIDAN BIOGRAPHY