Dave McKean was born on 29 December, 1963 in Taplow, Berkshire (United Kingdom). From 1982 until 1986, he studied design, illustration and film at the "Berkshire College of Art and Design". After his studies, he illustrates several prize-winning comic strips, such as the eco-thriller Black Orchid (1988) and the Batman-graphic novel Arkham Asylum (1989). In both comic strips, McKean uses baroque painting techniques. In 1986, he meets the author Neil Gaiman. This encounter results in a still continuing cooperation.

 McKean designs the covers for the Sandman-comics, written by collaborator Gaiman, since 1987. Soon after, these covers were collected in the Sandman Dust Covers. Besides this, McKean illustrated more personal stories from Gaiman like Violent Cases (1987) in which reflections on the human memory are explained, Signal to Noise (1992) that recounts the death of a movie director and Mr Punch (1994), telling more about the childhood imagination. Furthermore, McKean illustrated 3 children’s books written by Gaiman: The day I swapped my dad for 2 goldfish (1997), Coraline (2002) and The wolves in the wall (still to appear).


 The strip novel Cages (1998) is a turning point in McKean’s comic oeuvre. With Cages he abandons the special effects of crow’s sculls and fog layers, utilised in his previous work to create overwhelming, gothic effects. Cages is a reflection of McKean’s vision on art and life. The strip novel contemplates belief, creativity and cats. The artist uses no more than 2 colours and 1 efficient brush stroke to tell the story. Only sporadically, his colour trademark is present to visualize key moments in the tale. Cages makes the transition from the dedicated graphic artist, who seems bounded by technical limitations, to the thoughtful, self-conscious artist who is aware that further exploration of his talents may result in a masterpiece.
 Although McKean’s roots are founded in the comic strip, he has expanded his universe towards the art world, commercial orders, photo-illustrations, moviemaking and graphic design.
Hence, he invents and photographs over 150 CD-covers (Assembly, Toad the wet sprocket, The Counting Crows, Tori Amos, Dream Theater, Alice Cooper, Machine Head), he drafts images and designs for advertising campaigns (Nike, Kodak, British Telecom, Eurostar, 3dfx, Voodoo, Smirnoff, BMW Mini) and contributes on a regular basis in magazines (New Yorker, Mojo, Playboy, Penthouse and Blur).
Furthermore, McKean manages the record label Feral Records to which top-saxophonist Iain Ballamy belongs, he directs various short films and video projects (The week before, N(eon), Lowcraft, Izzy, Raindance, Buckethead, BBC Sonnet 138) and works on movie- and book projects with Iain Sinclair, John Cale, The Rolling Stones, Jonathan Caroll and Stephen King. McKean also contributes in designing the movies Alien 4 and Blade.
McKean exhibited in the USA and Europe: solo exhibitions at the Four Colour Gallery in New York, the museum of contemporary art of Madrid and the maritime museum in Carlisle.
Today, Dave McKean resides on the Isle of Oxney in the United Kingdom.