Fred Noland's specialty is visual storytelling, whether in animation, comics, or illustration. Noland’s comics have appeared in The New Yorker, Popula, and the East Bay Express. His illustrations have appeared in LA Weekly, Nickelodeon Jr., Xbox Magazine, Revolver, Canoe & Kayak, and more. He was the chief artist on the animated short series “Priced Out” which has been shown world-wide. In the year 2000 he was awarded a Xeric Grant for his one-man anthology Shpilkes. He is currently working on his first graphic novel, Major Taylor, for Drawn & Quarterly. This biography tells the story of Marshall “Major” Taylor, the first Black World Champion in road cycling, who became one of the first international sports stars.

The youngest of three and the literal son of a preacher man, Fred Noland was raised in a very southern, very religious household. He spent his formative years in the Houston exurbs before returning to his birthplace in Ventura, California, a beach suburb just north of Los Angeles. There was a half dozen other black kids in a graduating class of three hundred. So…yeah…He discovered and embraced Underground Comics and found a sense of belonging in that community. He has produced a steady stream of his own esoteric, punk-flavored, minicomics and haunted the margins of the indie scene for decades. 

Fred lives in Oakland, California, where he is an avid but unremarkable cyclist and a proud poppa.