Pat Mills, one of the most respected and influential writers Brit comics has produced remembers and celebrates the life and work of his friend, the remarkable artist John Hicklenton, who passed away this month aged only 42, after a long fight against MS. The Megazine will be publishing Pat’s tribute to Johnny in their next issue, but our friends at Rebellion and Pat have all kindly allowed us to also post it online; I hand you over to the eloquent words of Mr Mills:
Pat Mills looks back at the career of the extraordinarily talented John Hicklenton who sadly passed away on Friday 19th March 2010.
A year or so ago, I showed some of Johnny’s pages from Judge Dredd – The Tenth Circle to my co-creator on Requiem Vampire Knight, artist Olivier Ledroit. He looked at them in awe and exclaimed. “How does he sleep at night?!” If you’ve seen the Tenth Circle, you’ll know what Olivier means. Actually, I took it as a compliment as Requiem is also pretty dark .And Johnny slept very well . His art might be disturbing for some, but never for me , for reasons which I think 2000AD fan Jonathan Fisher has summed up best , “John’s work is subversive, sublime and perverse yet beautiful and intriguing.”
(John signing at Austin Books in Texas, photo borrowed from Wiki)
For me, Johnny is the Jimi Hendrix of comic artists. Easy viewing comic “muzak” he’s not. His grotesque images bear comparison with Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman and are not for the squeamish. Yet his elegant thin line work has much in common with Aubrey Beardsley. Internationally rated by artists such as Moebius, let me take you now on a brief tour of some of his creations.
Johnny’s first work was a future shock written by Neil Gaiman .(Curiously, the only story of Neil’s that 2000AD ever published). Johnny sent it to me and on the basis of this and other grotesqueries, I asked him to draw Nemesis. He at once brought a scary organic sensibility to the Warlock and a psychotic look to Torquemada . This psycho-look he recreated later in the Inspector Ryan stories from Third World War. The racist deranged Ryan was conceived by my co-writer Alan Mitchell and Alan brilliantly directed Johnny on the story, choosing Angela Kincaid to colour it which she did beautifully without destroying the artist’s black line, a common problem with colorists. Many regard the Inspector Ryan series as his finest work and certainly they did in Europe. It was reprinted in graphic album form in German, French and Dutch editions in an elite masterwork series. But never in the UK, alas, although I hope reader requests might persuade Rebellion to follow suit one day.
(Crisis’ Third World War: the World According to Ryan, art by John Hicklenton, image borrowed from Thrillpowered Thursday)
Then there was our Zombie World Tree of Death saga for Dark Horse USA – about a Satanic cabbalistic map based on the London Underground map which brings demons into our world. It was reprinted recently in the collection “Winter’s Dregs”. (Johnny is credited as Johnny Deadstock after the band he was a part of.) We went to the catacombs in Kensal Green Cemetery to research the story and had an enjoyable Goth day out wandering underground amongst the Victorian caskets wondering, “What if…?”. The black comedy results include exploding coffins with a zombie stuck to the ceiling. The demons featured are also brilliant – my favourite is a wolf with a huge distended belly elevated high above us on tripod-like legs.
The German publisher Extreme , backed by top German band Die Arzte, also loved Johnny’s work . They said they wanted extreme, so we produced the graphic novel Torturer for them set in Cathar France. This was a return to the demonic Inquisition world Johnny first captured in Nemesis. His range of demons seems inexhaustible. Many of them have appeared in his Judge Dredds and especially in The Tenth Circle when Dredd visits Dante’s Inferno. Reproduction problems may not have shown this story to best advantage but I think that’s being looked into now. And who else but Johnny could create man-mountain Hungry Jacko? X Face? Or Darcagis, the demon with stakes through his eyes? And the triple George Bush bleeding oil? I always regretted that Johnny never drew my recent Dredd story “Birthday Boy” about a villain with candles stuck in his face and body. If he had, it would have become as memorable as Pinhead.
(a screen cap from the award-winning Here’s Johnny documentary)
Johnny started a biographical novel based on his multi- award winning documentary about his fight against MS. It was great, but then he decided to write and draw a fantasy story instead as his final work : 100 months. He completed it just last week. More about 100 months , Pandora and two other Johnny classics – Bedlam and Fearteachers - another time, other than to say they are all fabulous and worth an article to themselves. Once again, it’s other countries that often seem to recognize his talent : 100 Months first sold to two countries in Europe, although I’ve just heard a UK publisher has also picked it up.
But 2000AD was always his first love. His wonderful partner Claire told me, “Please know that Johnny, my beautiful Johnny, was funny, wise and brave to the last – just as he was every other day of his war. The day before ‘D-day’ he wrote the afterword for Slaine and drew 2 wonderful sketches to sit alongside it.” Clint Langley and I intend to feature these sketches and words in a future Slaine volume dedicated to Johnny.
Sleep well, my dear friend.
Pat Mills March 23, 2010.
For those suffering from MS or their friends, family and other carers the MS Trust offers advice and support; their website can be found here.
March 25th, 2010 at 3:42 am
Thanks so much for this,Pat and FP. One of those utterly distinctive and instantly recognisable artists 2000 AD helped along the way. Let’s hope that some good comes out of this and his recent work gets published over here.
March 26th, 2010 at 3:00 am
What a remarkable talent; it is just a shame we got to share him for so little time. Thank you for this thoughtful piece, Pat.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I first saw Johnny’s work on The Two Torquemadas, and I immediately loved it. He was the first artist after Kevin O’Neill to bring his own vision to the strip and reinterpret Nemesis in his own way. Where O’Neill’s Nemesis was bony, sharp and full of odd angles, John Hicklenton made him disturbingly organic, frighteningly possible. Something about the way John drew anatomy made human body parts seem alien and twisted, whilst the anatomy of monsters and aliens looked disturbingly human. This is, for me, the essence of horror. Hicklenton came along at the same time as Simon Bisley, and of course Bisley got all the acclaim, because his work was more polished and accessible, especially when painted. I always used to have arguments with my best friend, because I would say John was better – and he thought I was just being perverse. I do think he had some artistic limitations – and I think he was more an illustrator than a comic artist in some ways – but for sheer originality and style, I think he was one of the best artists to come out of the 2000ad classic years.