Rob Davis is a British comics artist, writer, and editorial illustrator located in

Blandford Forum Blandford Forum ( ), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour about northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this was abolished and it ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of ...

. He has contributed to ''

Roy of the Rovers ''Roy of the Rovers'' is a British comic strip about the life and times of a fictional footballer and later manager named Roy Race, who played for Melchester Rovers. The strip first appeared in the '' Tiger'' in 1954, before giving its name t ...

'', ''

Judge Dredd Judge Joseph Dredd is a fictional character created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra. He first appeared in the second issue of '' 2000 AD'' (1977), which is a British weekly anthology comic. He is the magazine's longest-running c ...

'', ''

Doctor Who Magazine ''Doctor Who Magazine'' (abbreviated as ''DWM'') is a magazine devoted to the long-running British science fiction television series '' Doctor Who''. Launched in 1979 as ''Doctor Who Weekly'', the magazine became a monthly publication the follo ...

'' and '' Doctor Who Adventures''. He has also created the graphic novels ''Don Quixote'' (based on Cervantes' novel of the same name) and a trilogy of original graphic

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s, beginning with ''The Motherless Oven''.

Profile

In the late 1970s, Davis contributed comic strips to the

fanzine A fanzine (blend of '' fan'' and ''magazine'' or ''-zine'') is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share t ...

'' BEM''. Davis' next strips were seen in the self-published ''Slang'' comic, which he published with Sean Longcroft in the period 1989–1992. Davis' first professional work was on the

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is t ...

comic ''

'', when it was relaunched by

Fleetway Publications Fleetway Publications was a magazine publishing company based in London. It was founded in 1959 when the Mirror Group acquired the Amalgamated Press, then based at Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London. It was one of the companies that mer ...

as a monthly title in 1993. (The original title had concluded in March 1993 with Roy Race having crashed his private helicopter; readers were left not knowing if he was alive or dead.) In September 1993, Roy awoke from a coma to find his famous left foot amputated after the crash. The new Roy was 'Delroy' of the Rovers, Paul "Delroy" Ntende, a ragamuffin who played for Nigeria. The new approach by Davis and editor Stuart Green was committed to the Kick Racism Out of Football Campaign. Davis also designed posters for the campaign featuring Delroy and Rocky. The strip itself dealt with issues of racism in the game, among other subjects. Green and Davis introduced many other innovations. Among these, he split the history of Roy Race into three generations of Race: grandfather, father, and son. In addition to the monthly stories in ''Roy of the Rovers'', Davis drew another Roy strip in ''

Shoot In botany, a plant shoot consists of any plant stem together with its appendages, leaves and lateral buds, flowering stems, and flower buds. The new growth from seed germination that grows upward is a shoot where leaves will develop. In the sp ...

'' magazine as a two-page spread every week. Many of the changes made during Green and Davis' tenure on the strip were dropped in later revamps of the magazine. Davis went to work for '' 2000 AD'', drawing ''Judge Dredd Lawman of the Future'', a child-friendly

spin-off based on the 1995 film. Davis then became disenchanted with comics, pursuing a career as an illustrator, before returning as a comics writer on "Bus Stop", "The Woman Who Sold the World" and "The Widow's Curse", published in ''

''. He worked on a number of other stories for ''Doctor Who Magazine'' solely as an artist, rather than a writer. Davis submitted a four-page comic strip to a 2010 graphic short story competition sponsored by ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...

''. Although the submission, entitled "How I Built My Father," failed to win, it generated interest and Davis returned to comics with another short strip for the anthology ''Solipsistic Pop''. In 2011, Davis conceived of the idea of a collaborative graphic novel that would showcase the talent of the UK comics scene, made up of chapters by many creators. The result was ''Nelson'', co-edited with

Woodrow Phoenix Woodrow Phoenix is a British comics artist, writer, editorial illustrator, graphic designer, font designer and author of children's books. Phoenix is best known for ''Rumble Strip'', published in 2008, a non-fiction look at the difficult social ...

. Phoenix and Davis guided a team of 54 creators to produce 54 chapters of a single story about a woman named Nell. As a storytelling experiment, it won huge critical acclaim. ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' newspaper awarded it its Graphic Novel of The Month for November 2011. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'' newspaper awarded it Best Graphic Novel of 2011, it was nominated for an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

and was voted Book of The Year in the British Comic Awards 2012. Davis then began work on a graphic novel adaptation of ''

Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Wester ...

'', which he made in two parts. The first volume was published in 2011 by

SelfMadeHero SelfMadeHero is an independent publishing house which specialises in adapting works of literature, as well as producing ground-breaking original fiction in the graphic novel medium. SelfMadeHero's books are distributed in the U.S. by Abrams Boo ...

and was featured in many best-of-the-year lists. Davis released the second volume in 2013. ''The Complete Don Quixote'' () contains both parts. The collection was nominated for two

Eisner Awards The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

in 2014. ''The Motherless Oven'', a surreal coming-of-age story based on "How I Built My Father", was published by SelfMadeHero in 2014. It won the

British Comic Award The British Comic Awards (BCA) were a set of British awards for achievement in comic books. Winners were selected by a judging committee; the awards were given out on an annual basis from 2012 to 2016 for comics made by United Kingdom creators publ ...

for best book and was nominated for the Best Graphic Album – New

. A sequel, entitled ''The Can Opener's Daughter'', was published in December 2016, while a third volume, ''The Book of Forks'', was published in October 2018.

Comics Bibliography

Self-published

* ''SLANG Comic'' (with Sean Longcroft, self-published, three issues 1989–92)

Short comics and serials

* ''Roy of The Rovers Monthly'' (art, script co-written with Stuart Green) (

Fleetway Editions Fleetway Publications was a magazine publishing company based in London. It was founded in 1959 when the Mirror Group acquired the Amalgamated Press, then based at Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London. It was one of the companies that mer ...

19 issues, 1993–95) * "Roy of The Rovers" (art only, scripts by Stuart Green) ( Shoot Magazine weekly,

IPC IPC may refer to: Computing * Infrastructure protection centre or information security operations center * Instructions per cycle or instructions per clock, an aspect of central-processing performance * Inter-process communication, the sharin ...

1994–95) * ''Judge Dredd: Lawman of the Future’’

Fleetway Fleetway Publications was a magazine publishing company based in London. It was founded in 1959 when the Mirror Group acquired the Amalgamated Press, then based at Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London. It was one of the companies that mer ...

1995–96) (contributing artist) * "The Woman Who Sold the World" (script only, art by Mike Collins, ''

'', Panini Comics, #381–384, 2007) * "Bus Stop" (script only, art by John Ross, ''Doctor Who Magazine'' #385, 2007) * "The Widow's Curse" (script only, ''Doctor Who Magazine'' #395-398, 2008) * "The Time of My life" (art only, script by Jonathan Morris, ''Doctor Who Magazine'' #399, 2008) * "The Deep Hereafter" (art only, script by Dan McDaid, ''Doctor Who Magazine'' #412, 2008) * "The Immortal Emperor" (art only, script by Jonathan Morris, ''Doctor Who Storybook'', 2009, Panini UK) * "The Professor, the Queen and the Bookshop" (art only, script by Jonathan Morris, #429, 2010) * ''The Dunwich Horror" (script only, art by INJ Culbarb, adapted from the

novelette Novelette may also refer to: * ''Novelette'' (ballet), a solo modern dance work choreographed by Martha Graham * Novelette (music), a short piece of lyrical music * Novelette (literature), a work of narrative prose fiction that is longer than a ...

by H. P. Lovecraft, ''The Lovecraft Anthology'', SelfMade Hero 2011) * "The Torturer's Garden" (''Solipsistic Pop'' #3) * "My Family and Other Gypsies" (''Respect – International Comics'')

Graphic novels

* ''Don Quixote'' (based on the novel by

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best know ...

) (Volume 1)(SelfMadeHero, 2011) * ''Nelson'' (conceived of, contributed to and, with Woodrow Phoenix, edited, collaborative graphic novel) (Blank Slate Books, 2011) * ''Don Quixote'' (Volume 2) (based on the novel by Cervantes) (SelfMadeHero, 2013) *''The Complete Don Quixote''(Harry N. Abrams, 2013) *''The Motherless Oven'' (SelfMadeHero, 2014) *''The Can Opener's Daughter'' (SelfMadeHero, 2016) *''The Book of Forks'' (SelfMadeHero, 2018)

References

Notes

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Rob English comics artists English comics writers British graphic novelists Comic book editors Living people People from Blandford Forum Year of birth missing (living people)