David McKean (born 29 December 1963) is an English artist. His work incorporates drawing, painting, photography, collage, found objects, digital art, and sculpture. McKean has illustrated works by authors such as S.F. Said, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Heston Blumenthal, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. He has also directed three feature films.
McKean first showed his work to editors at Marvel Comics, DC Comics, and Continuity Comics when visiting New York City in 1986. There, he met Neil Gaiman and the pair collaborated on the graphic novel Violent Cases, which was published in 1987. This was followed in 1988 by a Black Orchid miniseries and Hellblazer covers for DC Comics.
In 1989, McKean illustrated the Batman graphic novel, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, with writer Grant Morrison. The book was a commercial success, selling over 260,000 copies in hardcover and paperback. From 1989 to 1997, McKean created the covers for Gaiman's series The Sandman and many of its spin-offs. In 1998, the cover images from The Sandman were released in one volume titled Dustcovers: The Collected Sandman Covers. Further collaborations with Gaiman produced the graphic novels Signal to Noise and The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch. In 1995 McKean wrote and illustrated a book for The Rolling Stones called Voodoo Lounge to tie in with the release of their album of the same name.
Between 1990 and 1996, McKean wrote and drew the ten issues of Cages, a graphic novel about artists and creativity.
McKean's collections of short comics Pictures That Tick, and Pictures That Tick 2: Exhibition were published by Dark Horse Comics in 2009 and 2015. Pictures That Tick won the Victoria and Albert Museum Illustrated Book of the Year award.
McKean created a wordless erotic graphic novel called Celluloid for Delcourt, which was published in the United States by Fantagraphics.
Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash, which was commissioned by the 14-18 Now Foundation, The Imperial War Museum and The Lakes International Comic art Festival, was published in October 2016 by Dark Horse Comics as an oversized hardback and regular paperback.
Raptor was released in 2021 by Dark Horse Books and is the first of a proposed series of books featuring the character Sokol.
McKean designed the posters for the Raindance Film Festival for five consecutive years between 1996 and 2000. In 1997 he wrote, directed and edited a 90-second trailer for the festival. In 2005, McKean designed the poster for the 32nd Telluride Film Festival. In 2006, he designed projections, sets and directed film clips for the Broadway musical Lestat.
McKean has also released picture books that include pictures from his trips. Examples include Postcards from Vienna, Postcards from Barcelona, Postcards from Paris (2008), Postcards from Brussels (2009), Postcards from Perugia (2011), Postcards from Bilbao (2012). He created another book of 200 pages called Squink (éditions BdArtist(e)) that gathered a number of drawings in 15 chapters.
McKean has created album covers for many artists, including My Dying Bride, Counting Crows, Alice Cooper, Testament, Altan, Tori Amos, Download, Fear Factory, Front Line Assembly, Paradise Lost, Dream Theater, Stabbing Westward, Skinny Puppy, Suicide Silence, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Steve Walsh, and Delerium.
Bill Bruford's Earthworks commissioned McKean artworks for six of their albums from 1994 to 2004, as well as additional images for the 2019 Complete box set.
McKean has also made book covers for Jonathan Carroll, Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore.
McKean has published five books of photography:
A Small Book of Black and White Lies (1995)
The Particle Tarot: The Major Arcana (2000)
The Particle Tarot: The Minor Arcana (2006)
Prompt: Conversations with Artificial Intelligence (2022)