“When I was a boy, I’d read the comics and the political cartoons in the newspaper. I was really inspired by Mike Peters and Milton Caniff and I decided that that was what I wanted to do,” said Sperry.
Sperry was born at Fort Belvoir, Va., but moved to Germany at a young age when his father was transferred by the U.S. Army. After two years, Sperry moved to Warren, Ohio, followed by a move to Centerville in 1968. He was a member of the football, baseball and basketball teams before graduating from Centerville High School in 1975.
“I was in the supervisory administrative management program for half a day in high school, but I also took a lot of art classes and all of the ceramic classes,” said Sperry, who met classmate and future wife, Julie, the daughter of Ron and Judy Kress, while in high school. “I studied business administration at Bowling Green (State University), because I wanted to be an accountant.”
Meanwhile, Julie studied chemistry and microbiology at BGSU. After graduating in 1980, the couple wed and moved to Florida, where Julie was trained for four months by American Hospital, a hospital supply company, before being moved to Phoenix and then Tempe. The couple returned to Centerville in 1983, and Dave worked at PK Home Center as a sales manager while Julie worked for LabComco until 1985 when they moved to Overland Park, Kansas. While in Kansas, Sperry earned a communications art degree and later worked as a graphic artist at Hattaway Design in Kansas City.
“I decided to commit to my artistic interests,” said Sperry, who collaborated with his younger brother, Andy, to create a group of websites called Sperry Brothers Ink. “My brother, Andy, and I have been creating art together since we were kids. Our favorite game was folding a piece of paper into thirds and taking turns drawing the head, torso and legs of crazy people and characters. We started writing children’s books together in the ’90s.”
In 1994, the Sperrys moved to Wrenthan, Mass. Julie worked for Lab Systems, while Dave created a comic for the Attleboro Sun Chronicle. The couple also were busy raising their three children: Megan, 20, who is currently a biomedical engineering student at Boston University; Kerrin, 18, a freshman on the women’s hockey team at Boston University; and Adam, 17, a junior in high school and a hockey player.
The Sperrys moved to Lake Grove on Long Island, N.Y., for two years and then moved to North Reading, Mass., where he earned a certificate in multimedia design from UMass Lowell in 2003 and created a comic strip that runs in the North Reading Transcript.
“Andy is a fourth and fifth-grade teacher in Dallas, Ga., but we collaborate on the website on a regular basis,” said Dave, whose brother, Andy, graduated from OSU and is married with two children. “He calls a couple of times a week and we talk.”
In addition to his cartoon career, Dave also volunteered as the videographer for his daughter, Kerrin’s, award-winning hockey team, The Assobet Valley Girl’s Hockey Team, that won six national championships.
Contact this columnist at (937) 432-9054 or jjbaer@aol.com.
About the Author