Born in
Portsmouth, England, Lawrence immigrated as a child with his family to
Québec in the mid-1960s, during an era of intense anti-English sentiment in that Province. To cope with the
social rejection from his Francophone classmates, Lawrence turned to reading and writing comics for both entertainment and as a tool for improving his French language literacy.
Artist In 1989, Lawrence moved to
Vancouver,
British Columbia, where he worked as an independent artist on a variety of projects, including: writer/illustrator for
Fantagraphics (three issues of "Crucial Fiction", a historical biography comic series); storyboard artist for the
a.k.a. Cartoon animated series
Ed, Edd n Eddy; character designer for the
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network animated series
Artie the Ant and Senior Editor at Zeros2Heroes Media. In the spring of 1999, Lawrence co-created (along with Robert Dayton) the
Drippy Gazette – a short-lived (12 issues) monthly
two-color newspaper featuring comics from Vancouver artists, with each issue cover featuring an anthropomorphized raindrop named Drippy the Newsboy. From this, Lawrence subsequently won a grant from the
Xeric Foundation in 2000 which he used to help publish
Drippytown Comics, an anthology series which grew out from the Gazette and served to showcase the work of each contributing artist. Notable artists included
Colin Upton and
Jason Turner.
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam In 2007, Lawrence contributed artwork to
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, a graphic novel documenting the life of a once famous
Chinese vaudeville performer. The book was named on the
American Library Association's
Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens and won the
Doug Wright Award in 2008. Lawrence also worked on the animated film adaptation, produced by the
National Film Board of Canada.
The Adventures of Drippy the Newsboy In 2014, Lawrence re-purposed his character Drippy the Newsboy as the protagonist for a comic book trilogy based on the writings of
American author
Stephen Crane. Lawrence emulated Crane's literary narrative style by contrasting exceptionally detailed artwork with
slang-filled dialogue.
Conundrum Press published three volumes of
The Adventures of Drippy the Newsboy: ''Volume I: Drippy's Mama
(2015); Volume II: The Red Drip of Courage
(2015) and Volume III: The Dripping Boat'' (2020). ==Music==