Illustrator and script-writer.
Born in New Zealand, de Vries emigrated to Melbourne with his parents when he was still young. After studying painting at RMIT, he began working as a cartoonist and illustrator for such publications as OzComics, Phantastique, MAD Magazine, and Penthouse. In 1985, he and colleagues Gary Chaloner, Glenn Lumsden, and Tad Pietrzykowski established Cyclone Comics, as a means of publishing their characters while also retaining control of them.
De Vries's first entry into the American graphic-novel industry came via The Southern Squadron, a superhero team established by the Australian government in 1982. Originally one of four ongoing stories published in Australian superhero anthology magazine Cyclone! (along with Pietrzykowski's 'The Dark Nebula', Pietrzykowski and Lumsden's 'The Golden Age Southern Cross', and Chaloner's 'The Jackaroo'), The Southern Squadron become the magazine's sole narrative from issue nine. The Southern Squadron was published in two four-issue mini-series by American graphic-novel publishers Eternity Comics from 1990: the series both reprinted stories from the original Australian publication and published new material.
Since then, de Vries and Lumsden have worked as illustrators on such established American graphic-novel series as The Phantom (Marvel Comics), Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and Star Trek (DC Comics), The Eternal Warrior (Valiant Comics), The Puppet Master (Eternity Comics), and Planet of the Apes and erotic spoof Flesh Gordon (Malibu Comics).
As a writer, de Vries has worked on projects including The Thing from Another World (First Comics) and Black Lightning and Green Lantern (DC Comics). With American graphic novelist John Ostrander, he rewrote the origin story of The Flash's arch-nemesis Captain Boomerang (in an issue of Suicide Squad).
De Vries first worked as a television script-writer with an episode of the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) live-action superhero series Legacy of the Silver Shadow (2002).
In 2010, he wrote Carmilla Hyde, a modern version of Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The film has won a number of awards, including Best Feature (South Australian Screen Awards), Best Guerilla Feature and Best Supporting Actress (Melbourne Underground Film Festival), Best International feature (Swansea Bay Film Festival), Best International Feature (International Film Festival, South Africa), Best Australian Feature (Sexy International Film Festival), and Best Foreign Film (Minneapolis Underground Film Festival).
Since then, de Vries has written and directed two short thrillers: Sally Ann Watkins (2010), in which a kidnapped housewife has to convince a hitman that she is not the crime boss's cheating girlfriend that he thinks she is, and Parting Shot (2012), in which a hitman, preparing to kill his mentor, ponders the functioning of reincarnation.
