ABOUT RICHARD
Richard Torrey was born in Los Angeles, CA. where he began doodling as soon as he could hold a crayon.
In third grade, Richard showed a picture of a horse he had drawn to the legendary comic strip creator, Charles Schulz.
Schulz drew Snoopy on the back of the picture, inspiring Richard to follow a similar career path.
After graduating from Allegheny College with a BA in Psychology, Torrey created the first of two successful syndicated comic strips; Hartland (King Features), followed with a sports strip, PETE and CLETE (Creators Syndicate), both of which appeared in hundreds of newspapers around
the world.
Since then, Richard has been an author, illustrator, and editorial cartoonist. His
list of clients includes Highlights Magazine, KidCity (a Sesame Street publication),
The National, and Inside Sports. For the better part of two decades, he has been
the
creator of a top-selling line of greeting cards for Recycled Paper
Greetings Inc.
More recently, Richard’s interests have turned to children’s books. He has written and illustrated seven books, including the popular BEANS BAKER series for Random House, and the three book series: ALMOST, WHY?, and BECAUSE, for HarperCollins Publishers. He has also illustrated dozens of books for Simon & Schuster, Golden Books, McGraw-Hill, and Scholastic.
Richard is on the faculty and has taught classes at the Art League of Long Island for the past two decades. He teaches cartooning, children's book and Anime/Manga classes.
The son of Hockey Hall-of-Famer, Bill Torrey, Richard lives in Long Island, New York, with his wife and two children. His preferred medium is Peanut butter and Jelly and failing that, Watercolor/Pen and ink and acrylic.