Biography: Stephen R. Bennett IV

Steve was born at Tachikawa Air Force Base in Tokyo, Japan. He grew up in a military family--his mom is from Japan and his dad was US Army. He lived in many places growing up--Alaska, Colorado, Washington State, Germany, as well as Japan.

When Steve was a teenager his father got stationed in Korea and his mother moved Steve and his four brothers back to Tokyo to stay with family. While he was there, he was lucky enough to land a part-time job working with Noburu Furusei (New Dominion Tank Police, Lupin III, etc.) at Studio Aoehyma. Steve worked on series like Only You and Yamamoto, and learned as much as he could before the family returned to the States.

In 1994, Steve attended his first US convention--Katsucon 1. Since then, he's become a regular at conventions, as well as doing guest speaker gigs at institutions such as the Iowa Museum of Art, the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and Loyola University.

From 1997 to 2004, Steve's company (Studio Ironcat) published several manga titles in English. After Studio Ironcat closed, Steve continued freelancing and got into web comics, such as The Angel of St. Thomas, Shakespeare Rodeo, Life With Steve, and Aliens of Extraordinary Ability.

In December, 2008, Steve and his wife Nikki moved back to Japan to the little city of Iwakuni (south of Hiroshima.) where Steve began work as a Production Artist for the Marine Corps Air Station at Iwakuni.

In early 2012, Steve decided that it was time to focus more on the production of his own artwork and changed jobs at the Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni to one that would give him more free time. You can see this on his website (SteveBennettArt.com).