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Alan Davis

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For other uses, see Alan Davis (disambiguation).
Alan Davis
NationalityEnglish
Area(s)Writer, Penciller, Inker

Alan Davis (born 1956) is an English writer and artist of comic books.

Biography

UK work

Amazing Heroes cover by Alan Davis.

Alan Davis was born on 18 June[1], 1956, and began his career in comics onto an English fanzine. His first professional work was a strip called The Crusader in Frantic Magazine for Dez Skinn's revamped Marvel UK line.

Davis’s big break was drawing the revamped Captain Britain story in The Mighty World Of Marvel. Curiously, as Davis never realised artists drew at a larger size than what was published, his art was drawn as the same size as it would be on publication.

Davis's work proved highly popular but scored greater success when Alan Moore took over writing duties on Captain Britain. Davis and Moore found their feet as creators and formed a close working partnership, also creating D.R. and Quinch for 2000AD. Later Davis replaced Garry Leach on Marvelman in Warrior and yet again worked with Moore. He also drew the story, Harry Twenty on the High Rock in 2000AD.

Davis later fell out with Moore over creative differences on Marvelman. The two also disagreed over whether their Captain Britain work should be reprinted by Marvel Comics in the U.S.

He drew 14 issues of the monthly Captain Britain title which was later reprinted in trade paperback.

American work

In 1985 Davis was hired by DC Comics to draw their Batman and the Outsiders title, written by Mike W. Barr. His work proved popular enough for him to be assigned artistic duties on Detective Comics, Batman's main series, in 1986, again with Barr writing. During the Batman: Year Two storyline, however, Davis encountered difficulties with his editor and left (his replacement was Todd McFarlane) midway during the storyline.

In 1987 he therefore jumped to Marvel Comics. Here he formed a new efficacious creative team with writer Chris Claremont and, after two New Mutants annuals and three popular episodes for Uncanny X-Men, the duo launched Excalibur, one of the most popular (and amusing) US comics of 1980s. The team featured Captain Britain and Meggan together with former X-Men members Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler and Rachel Summers. The stories, set in England, pivoted mainly on cross-dimensional capers (including several Lewis Carroll-ish stories featuring the Crazy Gang and the bizarre team called the Technet) based on Moore's Captain Britain stories of early 1980s. Davis' artwork showed at its best on this series, thanks to effective inks provided by Paul Neary and, later, Mark Farmer.

Davis left with #24, but returned with issue #42, this time also as writer, showing a passion for creating new, pleasant characters of his own, which included Feron, Cerise, Micromax and Kylun. Davis confirmed this in creating a complete new series of characters maintaining some of the English-mythology related Excalibur themes, the unlucky ClanDestine team of 1994. Created for Marvel UK and written and drawn by Davis, it ended with N°12 (last four numbers not by Davis) but was briefly revamped by Davis for a cross-over with X-Men.

Davis created ClanDestine for Marvel UK, but the series achieved little success despite critical praise.

During much of the 1990s Davis drew many of Marvel and DC Comics major characters and titles including JLA: The Nail, The Avengers and Killraven. He was also commissioned to write both main X-Men series in 1999 (providing art for X-Men as well), but he left the following year.

Starting in October 2002 he wrote and drew for Marvel a six-issues miniseries revamping a famous comics character of 1970s, Killraven. After a return to Uncanny X-Men, working again with Claremont, Davis wrote and drew in 2006-2007 a six-issue Fantastic Four: The End limited series for Marvel Comics, not to be confused with a similar one-shot written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Jr. In February 2008, Davis wrote and pencilled a new ClanDestine 5-parts series and "Truth of History" a Thor one-shot for Marvel.[2]

Bibliography

Comics work includes:

  • Captain Britain:
    • Marvel Superheroes #377-388 (Marvel UK, 1981–1982)
    • The Daredevils #1-11 (Marvel UK, 1983)
    • Mighty World of Marvel #7-16
    • Captain Britain Monthly #1-14
  • D.R. and Quinch:
    • "D.R. and Quinch Go Straight" (with Alan Moore, in 2000 AD #350-351, 1984)
    • "D.R. and Quinch Go Girl Crazy" (with Alan Moore, in 2000 AD #352-354, 1984)
    • "D.R. and Quinch Get Drafted" (with Alan Moore, in 2000 AD #355-359, 1984)
    • "D.R. and Quinch Go to Hollywood" (with Alan Moore, in 2000 AD #363-367, 1984)
    • "D.R. and Quinch Get Back to Nature" (with Alan Moore, in 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1985)
    • "D.R. and Quinch's Agony Page" (pencils and co-writtern with Jamie Delano, with inks by Mark Farmer, in 2000 AD #525-534, 1987)
  • Batman and the Outsiders #22-36 (DC Comics, 1985–1986)
  • New Mutants Annual #2-3 (1986–1987)
  • Detective Comics #569-575 (DC Comics, 1986–1987)
  • Uncanny X-Men #213 & 215 (Marvel Comics, 1987)
  • Uncanny X-Men Annual #11 (Marvel Comics, 1987)
  • Tharg's Future Shocks: "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World" (with Mike Collins, in 2000 AD #509, 1987)
  • Excalibur Special Edition (Marvel Comics, 1987)
  • Judge Dredd: "Bat Mugger" (with John Wagner, in 2000 AD #585, 1988)
  • Excalibur (vol. 1) #1-7, 9, 12-17, 23-24, 42-52, 54-58, 61-67 (Marvel Comics, 1988–1993)
  • Wolverine: Bloodlust (graphic novel, Marvel Comics, 1990)
  • Batman: Full Circle (graphic novel, DC Comics, 1991)
  • The ClanDestine #1-8 (Marvel Comics, 1994, tpb, Clandestine Classic Premiere, collects ClanDestine #1-8, Marvel Comics Presents #158 and X-Men & ClanDestine #1-2, hardcover, 312 pages, February 2008, ISBN 0-7851-2742-9)
  • X-Men/ClanDestine #1-2 (Marvel Comics, 1996)
  • Gen13: Bootleg #1-2 (Image Comics, 1996)
  • Legion of Superheroes #100 & Annual 5 (DC Comics, 1998)
  • Fantastic Four (vol. 3) #1-3 (Marvel Comics, 1998)
  • Uncanny X-Men #360-380 (as writer only, Marvel Comics, 1999–2000)
  • X-Men #85-99 (#91-92, 95 & 99 as writer only, Marvel Comics, 1999–2000)
  • X-Men Annual 1999 (writer, Marvel Comics)
  • Superboy's Legion #1-2 (DC Comics, 2001)
  • Avengers (vol. 3) #38-43 & 63 (Marvel Comics, 2001–2003)
  • Spider-Man: The Official Movie Adaptation (Marvel Comics, 2002)
  • Killraven (script and art, 6-issue limited series, Marvel Comics, 2002, hardcover, June 2007, ISBN 0-7851-2538-8, softcover, December 2008, ISBN 0-7851-2841-7)
  • Uncanny X-Men #444-447, 450-451, 455-459, 462-463 (Marvel Comics, 2004)
  • Fantastic Four: The End (script and pencils, inks by Mark Farmer, 6-issue limited series, Marvel Comics, 2007)
  • ClanDestine (writer & artist, inks by Mark Farmer, 5-issue limited series, Marvel Comics, 2008, tpb, ClanDestine: Blood Relative Premiere, hardcover, 120 pages, October 2008, ISBN 0-7851-2740-2)
  • Young Avengers Presents #6 (artist, Marvel Comics, 2008)
  • Thor: Truth of History #1 (writer & artist, Marvel Comics, 2008)
  • Dark Reign - The List: Uncanny X-Men (artist, Marvel Comics, 2009)

The other "Alan Davis"

There is a French author that goes by the name of Jean Pailler [4], who created mainly mildly erotic comics, that used the pseudonym of "Alan Davis"[5] to sign some of his works. His choice of pseudonym aside, he is not related to the Welsh author

Notes

  1. ^ The Fred Hembeck Show #72: THe Mark Gruenwald Show. Accessed March 20, 2008
  2. ^ Alan Davis on Thor: Truth of History, Newsarama, August 29, 2008
  3. ^ DC profile for The Nail
  4. ^ List of the authors of the magazine BedèAdult From the french wikipedia
  5. ^ The french, erotic "Alan Davis"

References

Preceded by Excalibur writer
1991–1993 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Uncanny X-Men writer
1999–2000 		Succeeded by
Preceded by X-Men (vol. 2) writer
1999–2000 		Succeeded by
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