Patrick Dean

Patrick Dean (April 5, 1976 – May 12, 2021) was an American cartoonist and illustrator from Rome, Georgia.

Biography Life and career Dean was born in Rome, Georgia on April 5, 1976. He developed an interest in drawing as a child, and both he and his brother Alan were fond of comics. When his brother left for college in the late 1980s, attending the nearby University of Georgia in Athens, he sent Dean copies of Flagpole Magazine, a local free alt-weekly showcasing the comics of artists like Larry Tenner, Jack Logan, and Jim Stacy.

Dean later followed his brother to Athens, graduating from the University of Georgia in 1998 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in graphic design with a focus on illustration. During these years, Dean focused on painting and drawing classes, but submitted his comics to Flagpole, where they began appearing weekly. Much of his body of work that ran in Flagpole is available online in the Georgia Historic Newspapers database.

Dean's style was primarily influenced by Hugo Pratt, Tomi Ungerer, Jim Flora, and Jack Davis, He lived and worked in Watkinsville, a town near Athens. Dean was the co-organizer, with Newsome, of FLUKE Mini-Comics & Zine Festival, a premier destination for alternative comics in the Southeastern United States. Dean was a frequent self-publisher, and published a long-running collection titled Big Deal Comics and Stories. Dean had developed the Eddie character during his time at Flagpole, and built the story for the novel over many years. The Georgia Museum of Art organized an exhibition of Dean's work, "The Monsters Are Due on Broad Street: Patrick Dean," which ran December 21, 2019, to March 29, 2020, and included an online version.

Illness and death As he entered middle age, Dean began having unusual symptoms, including slurred speech. In 2018, he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that affects one's motor neurons and impacts physical function. Dean rapidly lost his speech, and began to use a wheelchair. He continued to draw on pen and paper until December 2020, after which he continued to create illustrations utilizing eye-tracking technology. Dean's final illustrations were more fiercely political, with pieces centering on racial inequality and police violence. A GoFundMe page was set up to financially support his family when Dean transitioned to hospice care in April 2021; he later died on May 12. Dean was survived by his wife, the writer and poet Erin Josey, and his two children, Eloise and Julian.

In an interview the year before his death, Dean was asked about what drew him to comics. He replied: