Born with a pencil in hand, Dirk is a driven, creative maniac. A perpetually wired artist, he spends too much of his time in his studio over-exposing himself to the carcinogenic rays of desktop CRTs. As comfortable with pencil, ink and paper as he is with a mouse or tablet, he draws freehand and uses Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to finish and enhance his artwork.

Initially smitten by graphic and interactive storytelling in high school, Dirk has been obsessed with comics, manga, role-playing, video games, movies and anime ever since. Characters and worlds surged forth from his fertile imagination. In high school, these first took on a life of their own by populating comics, some of which became the early kernels from which Paradigm Shift eventually evolved. Early American comic influences included Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Dave Sim, Ben Dunn and James O'Barr.

Although pros at a 1993 comic book convention dashed his early dreams of becoming a comics star, Dirk’s preliminary work gained him access to the graphic design program at Millikin University, where he sharpened his hand (and pencil) at life drawing and delved into computer art. It was there he was first exposed to manga giants Masamune Shirow, Kenichi Sonada, Kosuke Fujishima and Hayao Miyazaki, whose work planted a seed in his brain.

Dirk began work on Paradigm Shift in the fall of 1998, first writing the initial script, then taking several trips around the city to photograph reference material. Drawing commenced that winter. The following spring Dirk founded dynamanga.net as an online home for the burgeoning graphic novel. The following two years saw improvements, revisions, and setbacks, but now the end of the first installment is in sight — Part One will be completed by the end of the year.

Dirk I. Tiede currently resides in Chicago and works as a freelance graphic designer in order to make ends meet (otherwise Part One would have been completed much sooner!)