Published in The Journal August 2013
(Webster University's Student Newspaper)
By Holly Shanks
In 2009, the Webster Groves native and Webster University alumnus opened an entertainment-based company, Dyer Straits Productions (DSP). He and his business partner, Susan Koerkenmeier, developed CON-TAMINATION, a yearly horror and pop culture convention, the only one of its kind in the St. Louis area.
After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in graphic arts and illustration from Webster University in 1991, Dyer’s first job was as a graphic designer at a printing company. He then worked as a tattoo artist for over two decades. As an artist with a love of horror and science fiction, he was a natural at designing artwork for the genre.
The youngest of three brothers, Dyer doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t want to be an artist. In grade school, he created his own comics and comic book characters, which he printed on his father’s Xerox machine. He laughs as he recalls using up the toner ink to create copies, which he sold for five cents at school.
“I always drew. That’s just what I did because it comes from my family,” Dyer said. “My two older brothers were artists and my mom was the queen artist…and it just was natural that I would be an artist.”
Dyer’s oldest brother, Wilson Dyer, is a Hollywood sound editor that has won four Primetime Emmy Awards for “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and currently is a sound editor for the CBS television drama “NCIS: Los Angles.”
