Coverly left the education system for a couple of years to become an art director for a PR company. During the same time, he gained skills as an editorial cartoonist for the Battle Creek Enquirer. In 1990, Dave moved to Indiana to become The Herald-Times editorial cartoonist in Bloomington. He took up freelance cartooning and was published in The New York Times, the Saturday Evening Post, Redbook and several more. He returned to graduate school at Indiana University, and earned his Master's Degree in Creative Writing in 1992.
Speed Bump was picked up for syndication in 1994 by Creator's Syndicate, and within a year, appeared in nearly 100 newspapers. Dave said in an interview in 1999 on a National Cartoonists Society web chat that he "actually had a real break. I won a contest with a Comics magazine. And, the reward was a special showing to the syndicate." Speed Bump now appears in more than 200 newspapers world-wide.
Coverly's fans are a faithful and determined group. A few years ago when the Washington Post dropped his panel, the newspaper received hundreds of calls and emails demanding a return of the cartoon. Speed Bump was returned to the comics page, much to the relief of Dave Coverly.
The National Cartoonists Society awarded Dave Coverly and Speed Bump a Reuben for Best Newspaper Panel in 1995. The panel was again nominated in 1997 and 2001. Dave received a second Reuben in 1998 for Best Greeting Cards and earned a second nomination in this category in 1999. Speed Bump also won a Retail Excellence Award from the National Drugstore Industry in November, 2000.
With no specific theme or characters, Dave is free to draw whatever strikes him as humourous. He said the fun of cartooning is creating new characters every day and not drawing the same thing twice. To come up with cartoon ideas, Dave sits in his studio in the attic of his home with lots of coffee and lets his mind wander. The chuckles readers get from the Speed Bump panel prove his method is successful.
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