And that became a character.' He describes the character as 'an idiot who doesn't know what I'm doing. About his alter ego, Murray said 'I wanted to have a sad-sack cartoonist persona that lives in his mom's basement, paints figurines for money, has restraining orders against him. In 2000, Murray created Chip Zdarsky as a pseudonym and alter ego for his persona as a comic book writer and illustrator, developing his own independent projects, such as Prison Funnies and Monster Cops (which can be read online or in print) as well as collaborating on a variety of projects, including Dark Horse Comics titles Fierce and Rumble Royale. Murray has illustrated for such clients as The Globe and Mail, New York magazine, CBC and Canadian Business. Steve Murray was born in Edmonton, Alberta and raised in Barrie, Ontario. Comics attributed to him include Howard the Duck, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Daredevil, Spider-Man: Life Story and Spider-Man: Spider's Shadow for Marvel Comics, Batman for DC Comics and Jughead for Archie Comics. He uses the Zdarsky pseudonym for comics-related work, using it to create Prison Funnies and Monster Cops and as artist and co-creator of Sex Criminals with writer Matt Fraction. He worked for National Post for over a decade, until 2014, as an illustrator and humorist (as Steve Murray) and wrote and illustrated a column called 'Extremely Bad Advice' for the paper as well as The Ampersand, the newspaper's pop culture section's online edition. He has also used the pseudonym Todd Diamonte.

Steve Murray (born December 21, 1975), known by the pen-name Chip Zdarsky, is a Canadian comic book artist and writer, journalist, illustrator and designer.

Spider-Man by Chip Zdarsky