Career
The series includes the books "Like Flies To A Corpse" later renamed Shoofly Pie (2003), Chop Shop (2004), First the Dead (2007), Less Than Dead (2008), Ends of the Earth (2009), as well as, a new release entitled Nick of Time (2011). In addition, Downs is the author of the novels, Plague Maker (2006), Head Game (2007) and Wonders Never Cease (2010). Although not a "Bug Manitoba" novel, Plague Maker featured a cameo by Doctor Polchak.
Downs is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Indiana University.
While attending college, he created a comic strip, "Downstown", which was printed in numerous college newspapers from 1974 through 1979, even after Downs" graduation in 1976. Three collections of "Downstown" were published by the Indiana Daily Student: This is Winning? (1977).
With Love, Chuck (1978). And Get in There and Quit (1978).
On March 24, 1980, the strip entered syndication with Universal Press Syndicate.
lieutenant appeared in more than a hundred major newspapers worldwide until Downs discontinued the strip on February 1, 1986. Downs self-published one retrospective collection of the series, The Laylo Papers: The Complete Guide to Relationships (1989), which remains in print.
