Who is he?
Andrew King is a well-known Ottawa artist and local historian.
What’s his background?
King was born in Kingston, Ont., and moved to Ottawa to study Industrial design at Carleton University in 1991. In addition to his studies, King pursued his art, especially his love of cartooning. That passion led to the Television Animation program at Algonquin College where he graduated with honours in 1997.
Today he works as a freelance animation designer as well as doing “conceptual design work for both live-action and video game productions” according to his website. He also continues to produce art from his studio in Manotick.
What’s he known for in Ottawa?
King is also a local history sleuth, often ferreting out little-known facts about the city. He has, for instance, written articles about hunting for a lost shipwreck in Ottawa, discovering evidence that Bytown might have been destined to become a fortress and detailing the deadly love triangle at the heart of Canada’s last fatal duel in Perth, south of the city.
He has written several fun and quirky historical mysteries about Ottawa. The most recent, Ottawa Rewind 3, was just published.
What do people say about him?
King’s books have been praised locally. One Goodreads reviewer called Ottawa Rewind: A Book of Curios and Mysteries a “great collection of local history stories.”
What’s a lesser-known fact about him?
“I have written five books on history. And I can fly a plane, pilot a boat, and collect classic cars,” King told Capital Current. As a child, he once dropped a Han Solo figurine into the wine chiller at an LCBO, pretending it was a carbon freeze chamber. “Probably why they got rid of them,” he said on X.
