David Gallaher

Summary

David Matthew Gallaher (born June 5, 1975) is an American video game writer, comics writer, podcaster and editor, known primarily for his work in comics and video games: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Vampire: The Masquerade, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, High Moon, Box 13, The Only Living Boy and 'The Only Living Girl'. His clients include Marvel Comics, the CBLDF, Harris Publications and McGraw-Hill.[1] He also helped create ad campaigns for the New York City Police Department.

David Gallaher
BornDavid Matthew Gallaher
(1975-06-05) June 5, 1975 (age 48)
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Area(s)Writer, Editor
Pseudonym(s)Dave Gallaher
Dr. Gallaher
(miscredited as Ken Wolak, David Gallagher)
Notable works
'Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint,Vampire: The Masquerade
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar
High Moon
Box 13
Hulk: Winter Guard
Awards2007 Creative Excellence in Advertising Award[citation needed]
Comic Foundry Breakout Creator of 08
2008 Creative Excellence in Advertising Award[citation needed]
2009 Creative Excellence in Advertising Award[citation needed]
2009 Harvey Award for High Moon
http://www.davidgallaher.com

Early life edit

Gallaher's family did not own a television until he was five years old. The first film he saw was the 1978 Superman movie. When his family finally obtained a television, he enjoyed Shazam!, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Super Friends, The Incredible Hulk and Batman. Shortly after, he read his first comic Power Man and Iron Fist. When he was 7, his mother bought a book for Gallaher which featured superhero designs one could trace.[2]

During Boy Scout summer camp in '88, Gallaher and became an avid reader of Captain America, Fantastic Four, West Coast Avengers, and Speedball. Gallaher cites John Byrne's "Vision Quest" storyline in West Coast Avengers as a story that had significant influence on him. He became a fan of Byrne's, particularly his work on Namor.[2]

A graduate of Frederick High School, Gallaher attended Hood College in Maryland, double-majoring in both Special Education and Psychology. During his junior year, despite his love for teaching, he felt compelled to write. He switched to Goddard College on learning that David Mamet, William H. Macy, and Piers Anthony studied there. The school allowed him to create his own curriculum to major in Comics. He also taught a comics class to seniors and juniors with the work of Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis included as part of the curriculum.[2]

Career edit

After graduating from Goddard, Gallaher drew a crude version of his résumé as a six-panel comic strip and faxed it to Marvel Comics. The next day, he received a call to work at Marvel as an intern for the Interactive and Marketing department. After a week, he was hired as the department production editor, editing digital comics, training interns, researching material, writing character biographies and developing websites.[2]

His work as a creator at Marvel includes Hulk: Winter Guard[3] and Darkstar and the Winter Guard.[4][5][6]

In late 2001, Gallaher met Joe Gentile of Moonstone Books at the Detroit Motor City Comic Con. Gentile encouraged Gallahar to submit for the Moonstone Noir Line and was hired to write Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar.[citation needed] He wrote single issues of comics for Annex (Chalk Outline Studios), Immortals Gods and Heroes (Archaia), Deadlands (IDW and Image Comics), More Fund Comics (Sky Dog Press), and Vampirella #8-10 (Harris). He also wrote articles for Marvel Comics and Visual Opinions Magazine.

In advertising, Gallaher worked on several successful campaigns for the New York Police Department including a multimedia presentation CD Rom which won the 2007 CEA Award, and the 2008 "My NYPD" and "Only in NY, Only in The NYPD" campaigns which also won CEA Awards in 2008 and 2009.[7] He also worked on books about marketing and computers, such as Introduction to Web Databases and Networking Tools 2.0.

In 2008, Gallaher was named as a 'Breakout Creator' by Comic Foundry magazine.[8] In October 2009, Gallaher earned a Harvey Award for his work on the series High Moon.[9]

In July 2011, Gallaher worked as consulting editor on a broad range of titles for Kodansha including Sailor Moon, Gon, Negima and Arisa.[10] In July 2012, he and artist Steve Ellis formed Bottled Lightning Studios to self-publish their comics. Gallaher wrote 2 issues of Green Lantern Corps for DC Comics during the "Convergence" storyline.

In 2018, Papercutz announced it would publish the spin-off series to The Only Living Boy, The Only Living Girl with David Gallaher and Steve Ellis resuming their young-adult children's adventure series.[11]

In February 2019, Gallaher became the co-host of the For The Love Of Comics podcast with Adam Vermillion.[12] In June 2019, it was announced that David Gallaher would be one of the writers on Ubisoft's Ghost Recon series.[13]

In October 2019, Gallaher and his studio were hired by the Children's Tumor Foundation to release a series of comic strips to promote the awareness of neurofibromatosis.[14]

Awards edit

  • Gallaher's creation High Moon (with collaborator Steve Ellis and Scott O. Brown) won the "Best Online Comic" and was nominated for a ‘Best New Series’ Harvey Award for 2009.[15]
  • Gallaher's was again nominated for a 2010 Harvey Award for "Best Online Comic" for High Moon[16]
  • Gallaher (with collaborator Steve Ellis and Scott O. Brown) was nominated for a 2014 Harvey Award for "The Only Living Boy" in the "Best Graphic Publication for Young Readers" category[17]
  • Gallaher was nominated for a 2016 Harvey Award for "The Only Living Boy" in the "Best Graphic Publication for Young Readers" category[18]
  • Gallaher's work The Only Living Boy Omnibus received a nomination for "Best Presentation in Design" category[19]
  • Gallaher's (and his team's work) on Ghost Recon: Breakpoint received the 'Best PC Game' in the Gamescom Awards 2019.[20]

Personal life edit

Gallaher has epilepsy.[21][22] He is divorced[citation needed] (having been previously married to comics writer/editor Valerie D'Orazio)[23] and lives in Paris, France.[citation needed]

Bibliography edit

Amazon Studios edit

  • It Came In The Mail storyboards with artist Steve Ellis

Archaia edit

  • Immortals: Gods & Heroes with artist Kevin Colden

Bottled Lightning edit

  • The Altern80s with artist Kevin Colden

comiXology edit

  • Box 13 (with artist and co-creator Steve Ellis)
  • Box 13: The Pandora Process (with artist and co-creator Steve Ellis)

DC Comics edit

Image Comics edit

  • Deadlands: The Devil's Six Gun (with artist and co-creator Steve Ellis)

Marvel Comics edit

Moonstone Books edit

  • Vampire: The Masquerade Blood and Shadows
  • Yours Truly, Jonny Dollar: The Brief Candle Matter
  • Moonstone Monsters: Ghosts (incorrectly credited as Ken Wolak)[24]

Papercutz edit

  • The Only Living Boy (with artist and co-creator Steve Ellis)
  • The Only Living Girl (with artist and co-creator Steve Ellis)

Skydog Press edit

  • More Fund Comics

Ubisoft edit

  • Ghost Recon: Wildlands
  • Ghost Recon: Breakpoint

Notes edit

  1. ^ Kean, Benjamin Ong Pang (November 19, 2003). "Gallaher's November Vampires - Tremere". Newsarama. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007.
  2. ^ a b c d Lien-Cooper, Barb. "Shadow Man: David Gallaher". Sequential Tart. Retrieved September 30, 2015.
  3. ^ Beard, Jim (November 4, 2009). "Winter Guard: Cold Warriors". Marvel.com. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
  4. ^ Gourley, Jim (April 20, 2010). "The Sword and Script Interview: David Gallaher". Sword and Script. Archived from the original on May 21, 2010. Retrieved May 19, 2010.
  5. ^ Mahadeo, Kevin (May 21, 2010). "Gallaher Thaws Out the Winter Guard". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved May 21, 2010.
  6. ^ Rogers, Vaneta (May 25, 2010). "From High Moon to DARKSTAR: Zuda Alums Talk Russian Heroes". Newsarama. Retrieved June 10, 2010.
  7. ^ Group, Bernard Hodes. "Bernard Hodes Group Takes Top Honors at EMA's Creative Excellence Awards Competition". www.prnewswire.com.
  8. ^ Leong, Tim. "Comic Foundry Issue 2 Preview - 8 Breakout Creators of 2008" Archived 2011-10-03 at the Wayback Machine. Comic Foundry. March 28, 2008
  9. ^ Brady, Matt (October 24, 2007). "Zuda Announces First Wave". Newsarama. Archived from the original on October 26, 2007.
  10. ^ McDonald, Heidi (July 24, 2011). "David Gallaher to consult for Kodansha". The Beat.
  11. ^ Arnold, Brandon (September 4, 2018). "Papercutz Announces Spin-Off Series The Only Living Girl". multiversity.
  12. ^ Vermillion, Adam (February 22, 2019). "Introducing: David Gallaher". fancypantsgangster.
  13. ^ Blitz, Stephan (July 1, 2019). "FOG! Chats With 'The Only Living Girl' Co-Creators Steve Ellis and David Gallaher!". Forces of Geek.
  14. ^ Blitz, Stephan (October 3, 2019). "Moxie and Sparx Explain NF1 . . . at New York Comic Con!'". Children Tumor Foundation.
  15. ^ "2009 Harvey Award Nominees". Newsarama. June 30, 2009. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
  16. ^ "2010 Harvey Award Winners (BOLD)". Newsarama. Retrieved October 2, 2011.
  17. ^ "Announcing the 2014 Harvey Award Final Ballot! | Harvey Awards". www.harveyawards.org. Archived from the original on 20 July 2014. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  18. ^ Cavna, Michael (5 July 2016). "'Bloom County' and 'Bloodshot Reborn' are among the multiple 2016 Harvey Award nominees". Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  19. ^ MacDonald, Heidi (22 August 2019). "'2019 Ringo Awards nominations are announced". comicsbeat.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  20. ^ Soft, Ubi (22 August 2019). "'Tactical victory secured!". twitter.com. Retrieved 26 January 2018.
  21. ^ Gallaher, David (March 8, 2016). "How a Brush With Death Inspired The Only Living Boy". gizmodo.
  22. ^ Parkin, JK (October 9, 2009). "Gallaher and Ellis on What’s Inside 'Box 13'". Comic Book Resources.
  23. ^ MacDonald, Heidi (April 25, 2011). "Congrats to Valerie D'Orazio and David Gallaher". The Beat.
  24. ^ Gallaher, David. "NUMBER EIGHT IS MISSING!" Archived 2011-06-15 at the Wayback Machine. Topica. August 19, 2003

References edit

External links edit

  • David Gallaher at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
  • Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar graphic novel illustrated by Eric Theriault, written by David Gallaher

Interviews edit

  • Interview at 2008's New York Comic Con with comiXology
  • Podcast interview with David at comiXology
  • CBEM: Interview With David Gallaher