Wednesday, February 25, 2015

RIP John Cooper

The death has occurred of John Cooper at 73. He was a British comic book artist from West Yorkshire that was most famous for his work in the '70's and '80's. Chances are if you read any British weekly comic books around that period, you'll likely have seen his work as he drew strips for Valiant, Action, Starlord, Tornado, Battle, Eagle and one of the first Judge Dredd strips for 2000AD.

While he's known for Johnny Red and One-Eyed Jack - what I'll remember him for is the hundreds of pages of Action Force which he drew for ICP's Battle: Action Force in the mid 80's featuring all the G.I.Joe characters from that period, long before anyone in this neck of the woods had ever heard of G.I.Joe.

As he wasn't bound as his American counterparts were by the Comics Code Authority, Cooper had free reign to draw everything from realistic bullet wounds to suicide bombers in a comic book based on a child's toy. - And it was fucking awesome! May he rest in peace.

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