John Stokes

This article is about . For other uses of "John", see John (disambiguation)|The name or term "John" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see John (disambiguation).}}

This kindly looking old man drew the art for stories about a heroic fox, Arthurian derring-do, and that utterly bleak, hopeless story about a kid's shattered dreams.

John Stokes is a veteran British comic artist and also theatre painter.

In the 1980s, he was headhunted from [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}IPC Media|{{#if:||IPC Media}}]] for Marvel UK (as Marvel's Dez Skinn had been assistant editor on Buster) where he worked on The Transformers, Captain Britain, The Black Knight, and Doctor Who and Star Wars stories. He had a mentor relationship with young Transformers artist Barry Kitson, which led to Kitson getting him inking work for DC Comics in the 90s.<ref>Interiew in Judge Dredd Megazine #387</ref> This meant the old, traditional artist served as inker on the decidedly non-traditional [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}The Invisibles|{{#if:||The Invisibles}}]].

After his American inking work, he is most well known for his long work on Buster's adventure strips [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Fishboy (Comics)|{{#if:Fishboy: Denizen of the Deep|Fishboy: Denizen of the Deep|Fishboy (Comics)}}]], Marney the Fox (which Stokes considers his best work), and The War Children with writer Scott Goodall.

Marvel UK Transformers

• "Decepticon Dam-Busters!" (art)
• "And There Shall Come...a Leader!" (art)
• "Crisis of Command!" (art)
• "Second Generation!" (art)
• "The Return of the Transformers" (art)
• "The Man in the Machine!" (UK cover)
• "...Perchance to Dream" (art)
• Hunted! (art)

Notes

If it's good enough for Roy Lichtenstein, it's good enough for John Stokes.

• A summary section included in the The Titan Books reprint of "Fallen Angel" speculates that he is the likely illustrator of the uncredited stories "Missing in Action" and "Hunted!".
• Stokes did a few notable art swipes, ranging from copying some generic Transformers from #1 and the cartoon backdrops from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1" for "And There Shall Come...a Leader!", to entire poses for Optimus Prime in "Second Generation!" The answer for why he did that lies in a 2017 interview for Judge Dredd Megazine #387. Stokes talked about the "nightmare" of drawing licensed comics like Star Trek in the old days when your reference material would be exceedingly flimsy ("I used to comb through the Radio Times to get likenesses") and you'd have to resort to the same few pics over and over. If you wanted to know what pre-war Cybertron looked like, it was going to be there!
• He once drew a Darth Vader story written by Alan Moore (Dark Lord's Conscience) where the last page of the script had been lost in transit. Nobody noticed because they just thought it was Moore doing a highbrow ending.<ref>Vworp Vworp! #3 and Megazine again</ref>

References

<references />

External links

• [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}John Stokes (artist)|{{#if:John Stokes at Wikipedia|John Stokes at Wikipedia|John Stokes (artist)}}]]