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Artist/designer: The Science Service; Dare; 2000 AD; Soho Dives, Soho Divas Attending: Saturday & Sunday MUCH in demand today as a designer, Rian Hughes began his comics career in 1983, producing his own small press minicomics before becoming a regular contributor to Escape Magazine, where his work continued to be featured until 1989. His first graphic novel, The Science Service was published in Belgium by Magic Strip in 1987 but by 1990 he was becoming well-known as a cover designer. Even so he continued to pursue his storytelling, most notably with the Grant Morrison-written Dare. A controversial reimagining of Dan Dare (the archetypal Pilot of the Future from the 1950s Eagle), the strip was serialised between 1990 and 1991 across the first seven issues of Revolver and Crisis #55-56. After it came a series of Tales from Beyond Science, which featured in various issues of 2000 AD between 1992 and 1994. Since then the artist has concentrated almost exclusively on his advertising work although his presence is still to be seen on the design of myriad comicbook covers and logos as well as a variety of lettering fonts. Hughes, whose impact on the look of the comics industry has been phenomenal, occasionally still returns to storytelling, contributing to such anthologies as Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe the Graphic Novel (iBooks; 2003), Project: Romantic(Adhouse Books; 2006) and Nelson (2011; Blank Slate Books). More recently he provided strips for 2014 issues of Batman: Black and White for DC and for DC/Vertigo's Vertigo Quarterly CMYK. Soho Dives, Soho Divas, a 2013 book of his illustrations, showcases the retro influence of much of Hughes' art. However, he is also an innovator as exemplified byOn the Line. The pioneering strip, which he created using Adobe Illustrator, ran inThe Guardian newspaper for two years from 2005.