Kevin O'Neill (comics)

Kevin O'Neill ( – 3 November 2022) was an English comic book illustrator who was the co-creator of '' Nemesis the Warlock'', '' Marshal Law'' (both with writer Pat Mills), and '' The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' (with Alan Moore).

Early life

O'Neill was born in London on 22 August 1953, the son of a contractor father and a homemaker mother.

Career

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. In 1972 he published two issues of the fanzine ''World of Comics''. In 1975 he started publishing, as a personal side project, the fanzine ''Just Imagine: The Journal of Film and Television Special Effects'' which lasted five regular issues and one special issue through 1978. 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'', bodging and introducing creator credits. After a period of being nurtured by Mills, he eventually started branching out drawing short '' Tharg the Mighty'' strips, ''Future Shocks'' and various humorous short stories. However it was not 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 ''2000ADs 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''.

The story "Shok!" (created with Steve MacManus for ''Judge Dredd Annual 1981'') was involved in controversy when it was realised that it was the basis of Richard Stanley's 1990 film '' Hardware''. Only after a court case, which Stanley lost, were the two given writing credits on the film. ''Hardware'' is now considered the first ''2000 AD'' story to be adapted into film.

DC Comics and the Comics Code Authority

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'' No. 2 in 1986. 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. The short story has established continuity points in the DC Universe on which the 2009 storyline " Blackest Night" was based.

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 was reprinted in ''2000AD'' later the same year.

''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. 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 Cool Beans World 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''. In 2008, Top Shelf Productions announced plans to publish a complete ''Marshal Law Omnibus'' in 2009.

''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 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 film version of ''League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' was released in 2003. The film was critically mauled and both Moore and O'Neill disowned it. After a legal dispute where it was alleged the film was plagiarised by 20th Century Fox and that Fox solicited the idea for Moore and O'Neill's comic as a smokescreen, the pair have taken the third volume of ''League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' and its ''Nemo'' spinoffs to Knockabout Comics and Top Shelf Productions due both to Moore feeling insulted by the lack of support from 20th Century Fox and DC comics in the lawsuit, and also Warner Bros.' failure to retract false claims of Moore's endorsement of the ''V for Vendetta'' film adaptation.

Later 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 worked on short strips for ''Negative Burn'' published by Caliber Comics.

The DVD of the 2003 documentary feature film ''The Mindscape of Alan Moore

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