Animation Judge
Ever since he was a young boy, David Leach has had a passion for comics and
animation. He grew up on a diet of cartoon shows and devoured every comic
book he could lay his hands on.
From watching cartoons like Marine Boy, Tom & Jerry, Wacky Races, and The
Flintstones, to reading comic books like The Dandy, Giles, Superman, Tintin and
2000AD, he knew the only thing he ever wanted to do was draw comics.
“The thrill I felt on seeing my first comic strip published in a real comic was
matched by the first time I saw a drawing of mine come to life in animation,”
he recalls.
His says his favourite animated films are Laputa, Spirited Away, Transformers:
The Movie, Wall-E, The Incredibles, Time Masters, Fantastic Planet, Pinocchio,
the works of Windsor McCay, Ralph Bakshi, Bill Plympton and Bruce Bickford.
In a long and very successful career, David has worked as a cartoonist, writer,
colourist, letterer, 3D animator, storyboard artist, and concept artist. He is
currently Senior Creative Editor at Titan Comics.
His training as an animator began by working as a ‘ghost artist’ for the
legendary animator Bob Godfrey, drawing Henry’s Cat comic strips for Buttons
comic, The News of the World, and Halifax Young Savers magazine.
He left to pursue his life-long dream of drawing comics, and went on to work
as a cartoonist, writer, and editor. He drew comic strips for the likes of Oink!
and Toxic! (where he created Psycho Gran and The Driver respectively) and
worked for Gas, Brain Damage and UT, also writing and drawing The Toxic
Crusaders for Marvel US.
In 1993, he became an editor at Marvel UK and spent the next seven years
working as a comic book editor and writing for Rugrats, Beavis and Butthead, Action Man, Casper the Friendly Ghost, as well as Ren & Stimpy and the
Spider-Man UK newspaper strip for titles such as The Telegraph and The
Sunday Times.
In 2000, he returned to college to study 2D animation at St. Martin’s, leaving
with a distinction, and landed a job as a 3D animator at Codemasters, where he
worked on several games including LMA Football Manager and Club Football.
In 2007, David worked for London based animation studio Chase Animation as
a storyboard artist and writer, before becoming their Development Producer.
In 2008, he joined Titan Publishing and is now Senior Creative Editor for Titan
Comics, where he edits books such as Blade Runner, Dan Dare, The Prisoner,
and Rivers of London, Peanuts, Flash Gordon, Betty Boop, Hagar the Horrible,
and Mandrake The Magician, SpongeBob SquarePants and Adventure Time.
He edited the critically praised Phantom of the Opera and The Man Who Fell to
Earth adaptations and is currently working on a new graphic novel starring Jimi
Hendrix.
In 2023, David wrote a new six-issue series called NOUNS: NOUNTOWN which
was published by Titan Comics. He also wrote the Wallace and Gromit
newspaper strip for The Sun and has written gags for Private Eye.
David also writes and draws his own range of comic books published by the
Aylesbury comic shop, Dead Universe, including his latest entitled Monolith.
Outside comics, David won the TV show Come Dine With Me in 2013.