About Life on the Fourth Floor

Life on the Fourth Floor is about... life. On the fourth floor. Of a block of flats somewhere in England. The comic explores themes such as creativity and the imagination, sex and relationships, the differences between men and women and, recently, adorable purple cats. Mostly it's about idiots getting hurt or falling down and smarter people making fun of them. I'm 25% kidding.

About the Cartoonist

My name is David J. Bishop, the writer and illustrator of Life on the Fourth Floor. I'm 21 and live in Leeds, England. I work full time as a student. I speak with a combination of English accents as a result of moving around a lot as a child and having parents who moved around as children. I don't sound like the English people on American TV and I don't behave like them either, which is to say I don't wear a monocle or maintain an air of staunch imperialism.

I've been a writer since I started primary school and they set those little creative writing tasks and I ended up writing novellas. And I've been a cartoonist since I picked up a wax crayon and began drawing childish scribbles but, unlike a well-adjusted person, I never grew out of it. So drawing and writing my own comic strip on-line seemed like a good move - only I've recently discovered I need to do this in order to be happy. I actually get depressed when I stop updating. It's quite sad, really.

I'm generally an up-beat and happy person but I have a cynical side that borders on bitter which rears its ugly head whenever something annoys me and this is the side you will see quite often on the home page - mainly because cynical ranting is a good way to annoy your friends in real life but when written down magically becomes entertaining. At least theoretically.

I read a lot of books because I like the stories and I've learnt a lot of big words from reading those books. However, as cool as that makes me look sitting in Starbucks, I'm actually quite stupid. And stubborn. And a little arrogant. But generally a good person. But I never use big words for their own sake, only when appropriate. And I'm not the sort of person you could describe as 'nice' or 'pleasant', normally because of the cynical side lurking beneath the surface and the stupidity which makes me say the first thing that pops into my head.

I've noticed an almost uncanny similarity between myself and Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother. Like Ted, I'm obsessed with relationships, I over-think everything, I've taken to wearing shirts over the top of other shirts and I fluctuate between having a beard and not having one. Right now I have one and I think it's awesome.

I like my coffee cold, I like my steak rare and I like my tea with five sugars. I was born on Hallowe'en. I share a birthday with my sister. I've had a broken toe, a hernia and appendicitis. When I was seventeen I had a kind of migraine which made my brain forget how to balance and which showed all the hallmarks of a brain tumor. My favourite book is Catch-22 and my favourite author is Terry Pratchett. My favourite poem is 'Beowulf' and my favourite poet is Philip Larkin. I'm the middle child of three. The song I feel best describes my mental state is 'Till My Head Falls Off' by They Might Be Giants.

And that's all there is to know about me. Allow me to resume my persona of Strident Asshole. You big jerks.

All content in this website is the property of David J. Bishop and Copyright ©David J. Bishop 2004-2008

Unauthorized use of any Life on the Fourth Floor materials including characters, images, animations and texts is strictly prohibited.

Life on the Fourth Floor is hosted on Comic Genesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.

Sincerest thanks to BlamBot.com for their fonts.