David Phipps
About
Dave Phipps has been drawing about the same time he could walk. Born in a small town in Iowa, the first injection of creativity was in 1977 when his dad took him and his brother to a little-known movie called “Star Wars”. From then on, he drew characters, comics, and storylines.
Dave graduated and accepted a Theater Grant to Minnesota State University, majoring in Fine Arts. There, he created his first published comic strip entitled “Student Bodies” for the college newspaper, and he was hooked. Still trying to figure out what to do to fill that creative void, he moved to California, accepting a job as a Caricature Artist at Magic Mt. and also worked as a movie extra on the side in several very big-budget films doing caricatures and cartoons of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Chevy Chase on set. Finally settling back in Minnesota, he continued his dream of becoming a syndicated cartoonist, sending out dozens of different strip concepts to every syndicate with no luck. Dave took a step back and took his mother’s advice, who is also a writer and decided to write about something closer to home — literally.
His father, Gerald (whom his main character is named after), spent most of his childhood being looked after on a farm. Free of most modern-day conveniences and technology kids have nowadays he had to find other ways to entertain himself. Thus, “Amber Waves” was born. Dave wanted to capture not only the comedic situations of day-to-day life as a kid growing up in rural America, along with the challenges parenting brings but ALSO the goofy perspective of the various livestock on the farm when the humans are not in earshot.
After having some publication luck with this strip, Hagar the Horrible’s Chris Browne noticed Amber Waves and liked and enjoyed it enough to reach out to Dave and suggest submitting this one to King Features Weekly. They agreed, and Amber Waves has been going strong for over 25 years with Hearst Entertainment.