Brendan McCarthy

For the football player, see Brendan McCarthy (American football). For the film producer, see Brendan McCarthy (producer).

Brendan McCarthy
Brendan McCarthy by Steve Cook, Sept 2007
Born	London
Nationality	British
Area(s)	Writer, Penciller, Artist, Colourist

Brendan McCarthy is a British artist and designer best known for his work in comic books, film and television.

Biography

Brendan McCarthy, of Irish descent, was born in London. Brendan soon began painting and drawing his own home-made comics.

After leaving Chelsea art college in London, where he studied film and Fine Art, Brendan decided to become a full-time artist. He created the indy comic book Sometime Stories with art college pal Brett Ewins. His first paid commercial work was a one page strip Electrick Hoax in the British weekly music paper Sounds with another art school escapee, writer Peter Milligan in 1978. After this he started working for 2000 AD including Judge Dredd.

At the same time he was working on designs for his first television show - the unmade Dan Dare live-action television series for Lew Grade's ATV in the 1970s. It was to have been a stylish retro 50's take on the classic Eagle hero.

In 1980, inspired by the book The Razor's Edge, McCarthy decided to travel the globe on a futile and nonsensical metaphysical pilgrimage, ending up, via Egypt, India and the Himalayas, in Sydney, Australia. Deeply inspired by George Miller's punk masterwork, Mad Max 2, Brendan mulled over a post-apocalyptic surfing story, later written with Peter Milligan and called Freakwave.

In 1983 Brendan McCarthy returned to the UK and to drawing comics, working on Strange Days, an anthology title published by Eclipse Comics, once again collaborating with his friends Peter Milligan and Brett Ewins. He also drew a two issue series featuring his alternative media-brat superhero Paradax from Strange Days. Around this time, one of his best-loved characters was created with Pete Milligan: Mirkin The Mystic was a kind of laconic, psychedelic Ditko-esque, Oscar Wildean, inter-dimensional traveller.

Returning to the pages of 2000AD, he again drew Judge Dredd, redefining the look of the character in the process and creating the classic storylines featuring the Judda and Brit-Cit Judges.

1986 saw Milligan and McCarthy produce Sooner or Later for 2000 AD, a surreal, psychedelic strip which split fan opinion but was critically well received.

Around this time, Brendan designed and storyboarded the Arabian cel-animated TV series, New Babylon and also The Storyteller for Jim Henson's company.

Brendan designed the characters in Grant Morrison's Zenith strip which started in 1987 and on Morrison and Mark Millar's Marvel series Skrull Kill Krew. He also produced covers and character designs for Pete Milligan's revamp of Shade, the Changing Man. To this day McCarthy remains a huge Steve Ditko fan.

By now McCarthy was an influential figure in British comics. Over the next few years he worked for the 2000 AD spin off titles Crisis and Revolver.

Cover of the Rogan Gosh collected edition.

For Revolver McCarthy drew Rogan Gosh (later compiled into a single edition by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics), and for Crisis he drew Skin, the tale of a thalidomide skinhead in 1970s London , both books created with and written by Peter Milligan. Skin proved to be highly controversial, with Crisis refusing to release the story and their printers refusing to print it due to claims of it being "morbidly obscene". The story remained in legal limbo before eventually being released by Kevin Eastman's Tundra Publishing in 1992.

Brendan worked as designer on the films Highlander, the first live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, Lost In Space and The Borrowers. He also designed and contributed visual gags to the film Coneheads, working alongside SNL comedians like Dan Aykroyd, Adam Sandler, David Spade and Phil Hartman.

McCarthy spent much of the remainder of the 1990s working in film and television. Most notably as the designer of the CGI animated science fiction TV series ReBoot and character creator for War Planets. ReBoot was a worldwide success, and was the world's first long-form computer animated piece, predating both Pixar and Dreamworks' later movies. Computer games, toys and motion rides were developed from the series.

In 2003 he was asked to co-write and design Mad Max 4: Fury Road with director George Miller. Brendan also created, co-wrote and designed a surreal CGI animated feature, also for George Miller.

Brendan McCarthy in 2004 took a year sabbatical and hired Steve Cook to help him design Swimini Purpose, an illustrated visual autobiography of his original art and design work. This was released in 2005 in the UK, as a limited artist's edition, and sold out within weeks. This very rare book has become a serious collectors' holy grail.

Recently, McCarthy featured in the final issue of DC Comics' Solo. His comic had new takes on characters such as The Flash, Batman, and Johnny Sorrow, as well as introducing a new comics' cavalcade of homeless, insane and transgendered social outcasts.

He remains active as an artist and writer, working around the world in film, TV and animation and developing his own strange and wonderful ideas.

Recently, Brendan was commissioned by Marvel Comics to create a new take on Doctor Strange. The finished mini-series, Spider-Man: Fever, appeared in April 2010.

Bibliography

Comics work (art unless otherwise stated) includes:

• Walter the Wobot (with Gary Rice):
  • "The Insult That Made a Robot Out of 'Walt'" (in 2000 AD #82, September 1978)
  • "Meet Mekquake" (in 2000 AD #84-85, September-October 1978)

• Judge Dredd:
  • "Bring Me The Head of Judge Dredd!" (pencils, with John Wagner, as "John Howard", and inks by Brett Ewins, in 2000 AD #88, 1978)
  • "The Day the Law Died" (inks, with John Wagner, as "John Howard", and pencils by Brett Ewins, in 2000 AD #93 and 105, December 1978 and March 1978)
  • "New Year is Cancelled" (with John Wagner, as "John Howard", in 2000 AD #146, January 1980)
  • "Riders on the Storm" (with John Wagner/Alan Grant, as "T.B. Grover", and co-artist Tony Wright, as "Riot", in 2000 AD #472-473, May-June 1986)
  • "Atlantis" (with John Wagner/Alan Grant, as "T.B. Grover", in 2000 AD #485-488, August-September 1986)
  • "The Witness" (with John Wagner/Alan Grant and co-artist "Whittaker" (500), in 2000 AD #500-501, August-September 1986)
  • "Blood Donor" (with John Wagner/Alan Grant, in 2000 AD #519, April 1987)
  • "Oz" (with John Wagner/Alan Grant, with co-artist "Whitaker" (552), in 2000 AD #549, 551-552 and 558-560, November 1987, December 1987 and January-February 1988)
  • "Full Mental Jacket" (with John Wagner and co-artist Steve Parkhouse, in 2000 AD #581-582, July 1988)
  • "Spock's Mock Chocs" (with Alan Grant, in 2000 AD #614, February 1989)
  • "Doctor What?" (with Al Ewing, in 2000 AD #1712-1713, November-December 2010)
  • "The Walking Dredd" (with Rob Williams, in Judge Dredd Megazine #311, June 2011)
• ABC Warriors (with Pat Mills):
  • "The Retreat From Volgow" (in 2000 AD #120, July 1979)
  • "Steelhorn" (in 2000 AD #127-128, August-September 1979)
• Ro-Jaw's Robo-Tales: "Ye First Robote" (with Gary Rice, in 2000 AD #166, June 1980)
• Tharg's Future Shocks:
  • "The English/Phlondrutian Phrase Book" (with Alan Moore, in 2000 AD #214, May 1981)
  • "Sixty Hours that Shook the World" (with Peter Milligan, in 2000 AD #391, November 1984)
• Freakwave (script and art, with co-author Peter Milligan, in Vanguard Illustrated #1-3, Pacific Comics, November 1983 - March 1984)
• Strange Days (with Peter Miligan, Eclipse Comics, November 1984 - April 1985):
  • "Freakwave" (in Strange Days #1-3)
  • "Krazy Foam" (in Strange Days #1)
  • "Paradax!" (in Strange Days #1-3)
  • "3 Wise Men" (in Strange Days #2)
  • "Tales from Eutopia" (in Strange Days #3)
• Sooner or Later: "Sooner or Later" (with Peter Milligan, in 2000 AD #468-499, May-December 1986)
• Paradax #1-2 (with Peter Milligan, Vortex Comics, April-August 1987)
• Artoons (script and art, in Crisis #17 and 19-24, April and May-August 1989)
• The Hollow Circus (script and pencils, with inks by Peter Milligan, in A1 #1, Atomeka Press, October 1989, ISBN 1-871878-05-5)
• Rogan Gosh (with Peter Milligan, in Revolver #1-6, July-December 1990, tpb, 1994 Little, Brown, ISBN 1853862533, Vertigo, ISBN 1563891433)
• Shade, the Changing Man #22 (with Peter Milligan, ongoing series, Vertigo, April 1992)
• Skin (with Peter Milligan, graphic novel, Tundra Publishing, 1992, ISBN 1858090008)
• Solo #12 (script and art, DC Comics, October 2006)
• "The Incredibly Normal and Bourgeois Idea of Doctor America, Occult Operative of Liberty" (with writer Matt Fraction and co-artist Howard Hallis, in Captain America: Who Won't Wield the Shield?, one-shot, Marvel Comics, June 2010)
• Spider-Man: Fever (script and art, 3-issue mini-series, Marvel Comics, June-August 2010)
• House of Mystery #27 (with writer Matthew Sturges, Vertigo, September 2010)
• "Captain America: Man of God" (with Elliott Kalan, in Age of Heroes #4, 4-issue mini-series, Marvel Comics, October 2010)

Awards

• 1992 - nominated for Eisner Award for "Best Cover Artist", for Shade, the Changing Man
• 1993 - nominated for Eisner Award for "Best Cover Artist", for Shade, the Changing Man

References

• Brendan McCarthy at the Grand Comics Database
• Brendan McCarthy at the Comic Book DB
• Brendan McCarthy at Barney
• Bishop, David (2007) Thrill-Power Overload. Rebellion, 260 pages, ISBN 1-905437-22-6

External links

• The Strangeness of Brendan McCarthy, the official fansite
• Brendan McCarthy Showreel on YouTube
• Brendan McCarthy at the Internet Movie Database

Interviews

• Brendan McCarthy interviewed by 2000adreview.co.uk
• Brendan McCarthy interviewed for Dogmatika about SOLO #12