Tim Downs

Tim Downs (born 1954) is an American comic artist and author best known for his Downstown comic strip and the Bug Man series of Christian mystery novels. While in 7th grade at Parkway Junior High School. Downs came in first place for an oratory contest sponsored by the Des Peres Optimist Club, later coming in third place in the regional contest sponsored by the Optimist Clubs of St. Louis.

In high school, Downs began to doodle single-panel comics, influenced by Charles Schultz's Peanuts, often drawing on paper towels at the can factory where he worked as an evening janitor. He attended the Indiana University at Bloomington, becoming a Phi Beta Kappa and graduating in 1976 with B.A. in fine arts, with an emphasis in graphic design. Downs said, "I went to college to be a sculptor and a painter. In my freshman year, I became a Christian and soon my attitude began to change toward a career in the fine arts. The problem was that sculpting and painting were intensely personal, almost like therapy, and I had things I wanted to communicate. That led me to graphic design, then comic strips…."

Downstown featured a group of friends in a college setting. Through syndication, Downstown appeared in more than a hundred major newspapers worldwide, including Chicago Sun-Times, Edmonton Journal, Miami News, Los Angeles Times, and New York Post.

In February 1985, Downs decided to use Downstown to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. His series of satirical comic strips depicting a starving Ethiopian child alongside overfed and insensitive Americans were considered offensive by many readers. Yet, Downs continued to cover this topic for six days, leading The Detroit News to cancel Downstown.

Downs ended Downstown with a week-long farewell party visited by characters from other comics, including Charlie Brown, Duke from Doonesbury, Cathy, Little Orphan Annie, Garfield, and Spider-Man. Downs says, "I feel that the Downstown characters will always be floating in the margins of the newspaper somewhere."

Bug Man series In 2003, Downs published Like Flies to a Corpse (later renamed Shoofly Pie), the first book in his Christian murder mystery series, Bug Man. The six-volume series features forensic entomologist Dr. Nick Polchak who uses the insects he finds on murder victims to solve crimes. The series includes: Shoofly Pie (2003), Chop Shop (2004), First the Dead (2008), Less than Dead (2009), Ends of the Earth (2009), and Nick of Time (2011). To ensure scientific accuracy, Downs attended a forensic entomology seminar for crime scene investigators and coroners.

Shoofly Pie received a Silver Angel Award, for works with moral or ethical impact, from Excellence in Media. First the Dead was given a starred review from Publishers Weekly for its "taut writing and well-developed characters."

Other novels Downs also wrote three stand-alone novels, all published by Thomas Nelson: Plague Maker (2006), Head Game (2007), and Wonders Never Cease (2010). Plague Maker received a Christy Award for best suspense book in 2007. Publishers Weekly said, "This is Downs's best book to date."

Downs also collaborated with Ted Dekker and Davis Bunn for The Christian Fiction Collection for Men (2003), also published by Thomas Nelson. Although aimed at the Christian market, reviewers indicated that this book could have a broader reach. Finding Common Ground: How to Communicate with those Outside the Christian Community (1999) received the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association in 2000.

Personal Downs lives in Cary, North Carolina, with his wife, and has three adult children. He is the founder of the Communication Center, a training and consulting ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ which he has worked for since 1979. In addition to lecturing on college campuses, he and his wife present A Weekend to Remember, a marriage and parenting conference held across the United States.