Latest Comic Guest Announcement - ALAN DAVIS

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Latest Comic Guest Announcement - Alan Davis

 

Attending: Saturday & Sunday

 

Writer/Artist: Excalibur; Captain Britain; The ClanDestine: JLA: The Nail: Killraven: Fantastic Four: The End

 

ALTHOUGH his first published work was providing illustrations to British fanzines it wasn't very long before Alan Davis made his professional debut. That was drawing The Crusader, which appeared in Frantic, a Marvel UK title, in 1981.

From there he immediately leaped to the strip that was to make his name... Captain Britain. He drew the British superhero's exploits across a variety of Marvel UK titles from 1981 until 1986. Along the way he also became a regular contributor to 2000 AD (1982-88) and Warrior (1982-84).

His US career kicked off in 1985, when DC hired him as series penciller for Batman and the Outsiders (subsequently Adventures of the Outsiders). He drew that title until 1986 when he left it for an abortive run on Detective Comics.

In the middle of that he produced his first work for Marvel itself, Uncanny X-Men #213. That 1987 fill-in issue skyrocketed his already growing popularity, which he further boosted with another one-off [#215] alongside New Mutants Annual #2 and 3 and Uncanny X-Men Annual #11. But all of that was merely a lead up to the series that really thrust him into the top rank of comicbook superstardom.

Launched in 1988 with the Excalibur Special Edition one-shot, Excalibur introduced a team of mutants based in Britain and led by Captain Britain, with whom Davis has remained firmly associated down the years. It was a huge hit with Davis illustrating 17 of the first 24 issues, returning to the comic just over a year after he left to draw and write another 18 issues between 1991 and 1993.

In between his two stints on Excalibur Davis wrote and drew 1990's Wolverine: Bloodlust one-shot and then illustrated the following year's Batman: Full Circle one-shot for DC before focussing his attention on cover work, primarily for DC.

Then, in 1994, he launched The ClanDestine, which introduced a new family of superheroes into the Marvel Universe. After eight issues the British writer/artist once again too to concentrating on covers and pin-ups (although he occasionally contributed a story to an anthology by one publisher or another) until 1996 when he produced the X-Men: ClanDestine two-parter.

Two years later he relaunched Fantastic Four although he only pencilled the first three issues before moving across to DC to write and draw JLA: The Nail, a three-parter for which he produced a three-issue sequel – JLA: Another Nail – in 2004.

Increasingly in demand as a cover artist and despite now preferring to script and illustrate his own projects, in 1999 Davis began drawing X-Men, working on two short runs while also authoring a 15-issue run on Uncanny X-Men.

Those took him into 2000 and then, in 2001, he pencilled Superboy's Legion, a DC two-parter written by his regular inker, Mark Farmer. After that came a brief flurry of issues of Avengers for Marvel for which he next illustrated the following year's Spider-Man: The Movie Adaptation.

Also in 2002 came Killraven, a six-issue series written and drawn by Davis following which he drew a three-part 2003 crossover that ran through Thor, Iron Man and Avengers. A year later he returned to Uncanny X-Men for a bunch of issues that took him into 2005.

His next major project teamed Davis up with Stan Lee, the legendary Marvel Universe co-creator as the pair collaborated on Stan Lee meets Dr Strange. After that 2006 one-shot he moved on to write and draw the six issues of 2007's Fantastic Four: The End and then ClanDestine, a 2008 five-parter.

In 2008 he also scripted and illustrated the Thor: Truth of History one-shot but it would be another two years before his output again included anything other than covers and the sporadic fill-in. He drew the five issues of 2010's Avengers Prime and five of Captain America two years later.

Then, in 2013, he relaunched Wolverine but drew only 10 of the first 13 issues of the title before moving on to write and pencil the first four of 2014's Savage Hulk.

His most recent significant projects were in 2015 when he illustrated three Ultron Forever one-shots, one each for Avengers, New Avengers and Uncanny Avengers, and then the two issues of Captain Britain & the Mighty Defenders.

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great artist