David Collier may very well be the only cartoonist to have had the unlikely experience of serving in the Canadian Army. During this period, he drew comic strips for the army newspapers. Collier's first professional comic strip was published in 1986 in the Crumb-edited magazine Weirdo, and throughout the years, his work has appeared in numerous comic anthologies, including Drawn & Quarterly, The Comics Journal, and Zero Zero. Most of this material was collected in 'Just The Facts' (1998), a comprehensive look back at a decade-worth of his "comic strip essays".
Other comics by David Collier include four issues of the aptly-titled series 'Collier', from the early 1990's, and 'Humphry Osmond; Psychedelic Pioneer', from 1998. Since 1990, Collier has also done comics and illustrations for Canadian newspapers such as The Globe and Mail and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
Collier's story 'Surviving Saskatoon', documented the true story of David Milgaard, a man who spent nearly 25 years in prison after he was wrongfully accused of the brutal rape and murder of a nurse in 1969. It was published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2000. 2002 saw the publication of Collier's sketchbooks, titled 'The Hamilton Sketchbook', in which he drew about moving with his family from Saskatchewan to Hamilton, Ontario. Collier's 'The Frank Ritza Papers' was published by D&Q in 2004.
David Collier at Drawn & Quarterly
drawing of Lambiek during Collier's visit to Amsterdam,
August 2011