John Deering's childhood was almost as unusual as his character Zack's. His father was mayor and fire chief of Cammack Village, a small suburb of Little Rock, Ark. John and his family lived in an apartment adjacent to the Cammack Fire Station and City Hall. It was a unique small-town existence punctuated by the occasional house fire or town hall meeting. Living there gave John some early insight into a cross-section of Americana. John started going to fires and other emergencies with his older brother at the age of 13.
John's family encouraged his early displays of artistic talent, and he decided to pursue a career in art. He studied painting with portrait artist Truman Alston and majored in Fine Art at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
In 1981, John landed a job at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, where his cartooning ability developed in the paper's editorial art department.
He was promoted to chief editorial cartoonist in 1988. Numerous regional and national awards soon followed, as John won the John Fischetti Cartooning Award from Columbia College, Chicago, in 1993 and the Berryman Award from the National Press Foundation in 1997.
John's cartoons and paintings are included in the collection of former President Bill Clinton. His work has been published in Time magazine, as well as in Newsweek and USA Today. John's cartoons have been featured on the ABC Evening News, MSNBC and C-SPAN.
John is also a sculptor. In 1987, he sculpted the centerpiece for the Arkansas Vietnam Veterans' Memorial on the State Capitol grounds in Little Rock. This was followed in 2000 by a sculpture he created for the capitol's Medal of Honor monument. John is currently working on a life-size monument of The Little Rock Nine, who integrated Little Rock's Central High School in 1957.
John lives in Little Rock with his wife, Kathy, and their sons, Will and Matthew, who provide real-life inspiration for Zack Hill. Their daughter, Liz, is married and teaches public school art in Little Rock.
John's editorial cartoons and a comic panel, Strange Brew, are also distributed nationally by Creators Syndicate.
John's cartooning philosophy has been summed up well by fellow Democrat-Gazette cartoonist Steve Scallion: "Until we better understand reality, we should not dabble in it."
John Newcombe wrote and directed the award-winning independent feature film Best Man in Grass Creek. The film was presented in over 10 film festivals, such as the Montreal Film Festival. It won three awards, including the Bronze Award at the Flagstaff Film Festival, and Best Comedy at the Santa Clarita Film Festival in Los Angeles. It was also a favorite at the Cairo Film Festival in Egypt and India's International Film Festival in New Delhi. It played in select theaters in the Midwest before being released on video/DVD to rave reviews. Jeffery Lyons of NBC in New York called it, "Whimsical and delightful … One of the nicest surprises I've had in a long time."
John writes the nationally syndicated comic strip Zack Hill, which he created with award-winning editorial cartoonist John Deering. The comic appears in over 20 major newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, the Seattle Times, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Buffalo News. Zack Hill is currently being developed into an animated TV show by TV writer Will Schifrin (Fraser) and producer Prudence Fenton (Pee Wee's Funhouse). Zack Hill is also being adapted into a musical by Werner Trieschmann and Tom Tierny (Eleanor). Zack Hill can be seen every day on seattletimes.com or Comics.com.
John's experience as a comic strip writer began years ago when he wrote for Archie Comics Inc. John worked with famed Archie artist Dan DeCarlo, creator of Josie and the Pussycats, writing the Archie comic strip, which ran in over 250 newspapers around the world.
Before making his first feature film, John was the VP of Development for Morgan Freeman's production company, Revelations Entertainment in Santa Monica, Calif. He also assisted talent manager Beverlee Dean, who has represented such talent as Reese Witherspoon, Kevin Sorbo and Jim Caviezel.
While attending film school, John made the award-winning short comedy Lovestruck, which won an Academy Award for Student Films in the Mid-Atlantic region and The Judges Award at Vanderbilt's Sinking Creek Film Festival. Lovestruck was also highlighted at the Virginia Film Festival and the Chicago Film Festival, where it was featured among the Best of Short Films.
John trained as an actor at the famed Goodman School of Drama in Chicago, where he performed in several productions at the Goodman Theater, including the title role in Sir Gawain and as an acrobatic clown in the smash hit Center Ring Circus. He has also performed in several productions at Hollywood's Crossley Theater, including the lead in Horton Foote's 1918 and Checkov's The Brute.
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