Comics

Geoff has had a long and illustrious career in the comics world. Although best known for his seminal work on the Transformers title, he has also worked on many others for Marvel, 2000AD and more. Recently he made a return to the form with online strip, To The Death.

It all started back in the early 80s , I was with 'Temple Art Agency' based in London. At that time I was still living in Cumbria which meant work was posted down to the capital (as opposed to emailing these days!) Pat and Tony Kelleher were great guys to work for and they got me my early work. One of my first notable commissions was illustrating the Fighting Fantasy book Space Assassin. Pat and Tony continued to get me bits and pieces of work including Dracula for Scream comic plus a few Future Shocks and a chunk of Harlem's Heroes for 2000AD.

Though work was slowly dripping through that continuous 'gig' on a strip was elusive. Pat and Tony informed me that Marvel UK didn't deal with agents but they were happy for me to check out Marvel as a sole agent. I met Ian Rimmer who was editor on Transformers and he leafed through my portfolio of work. He obviously saw some potential there and asked if I was aware of Transformers - which I wasn't at the time. After a brief chat in which he showed some American comics of the genre he asked if I'd like to try a sample page. Of course I said 'yes!'

That's where comics really began for me and my association and friendship with writer Simon Furman. I worked on Transformers for a few years with Simon during which we created Deaths Head and Dragons Claws. Zoids also came along with Action Force and a little Dr Who. I even did an odd issue of Thundercats although I was taken off as my interpretation was deemed 'too violent'!

Another good 'punch up' comic wise was Battletide where I met up with Liam Sharp and recall having many beers together! Judge Dredd: Lawman of the future came along around 1995 which was another title I really enjoyed working on, I also coloured the pages which was fun. After a little more work on Transformers for Marvel US I drifted toward advertising storyboarding. I'd been living in London for several years by then. I worked for Helicopter Grafix studio in soho which had a great vibe between the artists and, again, much time spent in the pub!

After around 15 years away from comics it's been time to get back to the 'fun stuff'. I recently completed To The Death with Simon Furman. It's a ripping action adventure in the vein of Deaths Head and Dragons Claws. The approach was to read as a movie 'shooting board' which works perfectly for the web. We're also reformatting for print in the near future!

People often inquire about my original artwork. I'm sorry to say I have very little in my possession as much was never returned from publishers or has been lost through the years!