Kevin O'Neill (comics)

Kevin O'Neill, born in London in 1953, is a British comics illustrator best known as the co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock and Marshal Law (with writer Pat Mills), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (with Alan Moore).

Biography

Early career

O'Neill began working for the publishing company IPC at the age of 16 as an office boy for Buster, which was a children's humour title. By 1976 he was working as a colourist on Disney comics reprints and British children's comics such as Monster Fun and Whizzer and Chips. Tired of working on children's humour titles, he heard that a new science fiction title was being put together at IPC and went to see Pat Mills and asked to be transferred to the new comic which was to be called 2000 AD.

2000 AD

O'Neill initially provided art for pin-ups and covers, including the centre image of Tharg on the cover of the first issue of 2000AD. After a period of being nurtured by Mills, he eventually started branching out drawing short Tharg the Mighty strips, Future Shocks and various humourous short stories. However it wasn't until he started work on Ro-Busters (with Pat Mills as writer) in 2000AD issue 88 that O'Neill started work on his first major ongoing strip for the title. O'Neill's quirky and unusual work on Ro-Busters proved popular and helped establish him as a major 2000AD creator, as well as establishing what would become a long series of collaborations with writer Pat Mills.

Mills and O'Neill's next major work was a one-off story called Terror Tube in issue 167 which was said to be inspired by the song Going Underground by The Jam. However the story was a reaction against IPC objecting to a long chase sequence in Ro-Busters. So the pair created a six page story which consisted entirely of an extended chase sequence between the hordes of the villainous Torquemada and a mysterious character called Nemesis.

The story proved popular and the pair followed Terror Tube up with a two part story featuring Nemesis called Killer Watt. This proved to be even more popular and by now O'Neill's grotesque style was winning over more and more fans who also wanted to see more of Nemesis. In issue 222 they would get their wish with the first book of an ongoing Nemesis the Warlock series. The strip would eventually rival Judge Dredd in terms of popularity but O'Neill's art would get him into trouble with IPC's censors who considered his work too violent and disturbing. However O'Neill was one of 2000AD's most popular artists and would not only continue working on Nemesis the Warlock, but would provide art for The ABC Warriors and even Judge Dredd.

It was with Nemesis the Warlock that O'Neill would spend most of his time working on for much of the early 1980s, but O'Neill was suffering from financial difficulties and decided to take offers of work from DC Comics. This meant stopping work upon Nemesis and becoming freelance, although he would return for the occasional one-off episode of Nemesis and provide other work for 2000AD.

DC Comics and controversy

O'Neill had drawn several fill-in issues and short stories for titles such as The Omega Men, but his first major work for DC was a story written by Alan Moore for the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual#2 in 1986. This proved to be instantly controversial as the Comics Code Authority objected to O'Neill's art. When DC asked what was wrong and if anything could be changed (the story featured scenes of a crucifixion)to get approval, the Authority replied that it was O'Neill's entire style they found objectionable. DC pointed out that his art had been passed previously but the Authority stuck by their decision. DC decided to print the comic without the Comics Code Authority stamp but O'Neill's work would never again appear in a mainstream DC title.

1986 also saw the release of the graphic novel Metalzoic by the team of Mills and O'Neill. This was highly acclaimed and one of the first creator owned stories published by DC. The story would later be reprinted in 2000AD.

Marshal Law

Mills and O'Neill created a six issue mini-series for Epic Comics called Marshal Law which would be their take on superheroes. However this was a vicious satire of the superhero genre (both Mills and O'Neill hated the genre)which was controversial not only for the scenes of sex and violence, but O'Neill's art was again criticised for being too disturbing. Although the series sold well, Epic received several complaints about the art, as well as forcing Mills and O'Neill to change the characters in the Marshal Law Takes Manhattan one-shot from the familiar Marvel Comics characters as they intended to use to thinly disguised duplicates of heroes such as Captain America, Spider-Man and The Punisher.

The pair decided to take Marshal Law from Epic to the newly formed Apocalypse Comics for a one-off special (featuring a satire on the Batman character) before launching a new weekly comic titled Toxic! with Marshal Law as its flagship character. Toxic! was an attempt to take on and even rival 2000AD but although the title initially sold well, it suffered from stories missing issues, including Marshal Law which was left incomplete during a story. After 31 issues the title was cancelled and Apocalypse Comics went bankrupt shortly afterward.

After this Mills and O'Neill took Marshal Law to Dark Horse Comics where the story started in Toxic! was completed. Dark Horse also published several mini-series featuring Marshal Law, and Epic Comics published a two issue series pitting the character against Clive Barker's Pinhead character. The character then appeared on the CoolBeansWorld website in a series of illustrated novellas, but since the site closed in 2002, Marshal Law has been in limbo since with the exception of one appearance in 2000AD.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

In 1999 O'Neill teamed up with Alan Moore for a six issue series for America's Best Comics called The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This teamed up various characters in Victorian literature such as Captain Nemo, Allan Quatermain and Dr. Jekyll. The title was a huge success and was followed by a second six issue series followed which again proved successful but issue five was recalled by Paul Levitz due to a real advert for a Victorian 'Marvel Douche' ^*due to him not wishing to offend Marvel Comics .

The situation was made worse when the film version of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was released in 2003. The film was critically mauled and both Moore and O'Neill disowned the film. After a legal dispute where it was alleged the story was plagiarized by Moore,the pair have taken the third volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to Knockabout Comics and Top Shelf Productions due mainly to Moore feeling insulted by the lack of support from 20th Century Fox and DC comics.

Present day work

O'Neill drew the final Nemesis the Warlock story in the special Prog 2000 millennium edition of 2000AD in 1999. Apart from this and his work on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he has worked on short strips for Negative Burn published by Caliber Comics. His next major work is the third volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which is due in 2006.

Bibliography

Comics work includes

Bonjo from Beyond the Stars (in ''2000 AD #41-49)
MACH Zero (in 2000 AD 1978 Sci-Fi Special)
Ro-Busters (in 2000 AD #88-92 & 103-115, 1978-79)
The ABC Warriors (in 2000 AD #119 & 123, 1979)
Captain Klep (in occasional issues of 2000 AD between #127-155, 1979-1980)
Ro-Jaws' Robo-Tales (in 2000 AD #144, 1979)
Shok! (in Judge Dredd 1981 Annual, 1980)
Dash Decent (in 2000 AD, 1980-81)
Nemesis the Warlock (in 2000 AD #167, 178-79, 1981 Sci-Fi Special, 222-233, 238-240, 243-44, 1983 Annual, 1984 Annual, 335-349, 387-389 & 430, 1980-85)
Metalzoic (DC Graphic Novel, 1986)
Judge Dredd (in 2000 AD #474-475 & 503, 1986-87)
Marshal Law
Torquemada the God (in 2000 AD #520-524, 1987)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999-2000, 2002-03)
Nemesis the Warlock (in 2000 AD prog 2000, 1999)

External links

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