Dan Goldman (born 1974 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American writer, artist and designer living in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for his pioneering work in digital mixed media illustration and online comics, and is a frequent speaker on both digital comic processes and online distribution.
Working with traditional media for most of his life, Goldman produced a single full-length brush-and-ink comic called Hairkut in 1999 before adopting digital processes in vector illustration and image editing in 2002 in order to create comics that blend the medium's narrative language with the design sensibilities more akin to magazine illustrations, album artwork and game design.
With his brother Steven he founded the boutique imprint FWDbooks in 2003 and self-published several titles, including Styx Taxi and Everyman: Be the People. Flying the banner "Manga con Corazón", FWDbooks' releases met with critical praise and distribution difficulties, caused in no small part by the comics distribution system of Diamond Comics. His jump to creating online was a direct result of this experience.
In 2006, Goldman was recruited by Dean Haspiel to help found the online comics anthology ACT-I-VATE. Originally a cabal of eight cartoonists serializing free online graphic novels, it was here Goldman began serializing his graphic novel "Kelly", a psychedelic psychodrama about jilted lover Max who takes emotional refuge with a total stranger he meets on NYC's Craigslist that quickly becomes a meditation on identity, interior landscapes and love. "Kelly" stands as Goldman's initial jump from vector illustration to digital mixed media, incorporating photographic elements and painted effects into his clean line art. As of this writing, "Kelly" is still being serialized at ACT-I-VATE.
Shortly after "Kelly"'s premiere, Goldman was enlisted to co-author Shooting War, an online comic collaboration with left-wing journalist Anthony Lappé. The comic was originally serialized on SMITH magazine, where it met with resounding critical acclaim, resulting in the story's purchase by Grand Central Publishing as a 200-page hardcover graphic novel. Before its print publication, Shooting War was nominated for the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic.
Goldman completed the nonfiction graphic novel 08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail, a collaboration with The New Republic editor Michael Crowley that tells the story of the 2008 presidential campaign in comics form. Crown Books released the book January 27, 2009, a week to the day after the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Also in observance of that historic date, Goldman's short psychedelic speculative fiction comic "Yes We Will" about the new president and the upcoming 2012 singularity prediction was released January 19, 2009, on Tor Books' website.
