Lew Stringer

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Lew Stringer (born 22 March, 1959, England) is a freelance comic artist and scriptwriter. He began his career from the late 1970s with a series of fanzines, many featuring his popular Brickman character; these were read by several pro creators (including Kevin O'Neill, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) who encouraged Stringer to try comics as a profession. ^[1] He sold his first professional cartoon to Marvel UK (the British branch of Marvel Comics ) in 1983 where it appeared in The Daredevils comic. After which he worked for a short time as art assistant to the cartoonist Mike Higgs (creator of Moonbird and The Cloak). Since then Stringer has freelanced for numerous British comics for various companies and audiences; he has stated "I write and draw strips for all ages... and my criteria is always the same; keep to the stories own internal logic, and above all, make it entertaining." ^[2]

His best remembered creations are Tom Thug and Pete and His Pimple for Oink! comic (1986) which outlasted that comic and continued into Buster comic, and Combat Colin the halfwit hero who featured in Action Force and The Transformers comics. Prior to Colin joining Transformers, Stringer had written another, similarly slapstick, strip 'Robo-Capers' for that title. Robo-Capers was replaced by Combat Colin when the reprints of American G.I. Joe strips were added to the Transformers comic. Robo-Capers returned for a single story, which featured Colin and his sidekick, in Issue #200. After a change of editorial direction in 1991 Marvel UK handed the rights of Combat Colin to Lew Stringer and he has used him in small-press titles, such as the Combat Colin Special and Yampy Tales. (A scan of the Special is on scans_daily - Lew stated "risking copyright infringement, but I'll let him off ;-)" [1].

Stringer has also worked as a writer on CiTV Tellytots; one of the main writers on Sonic the Comic, where he created several fan-favourite characters and stories; and he has been a long time artist/writer for Viz comic and many other publications. He has written Toxic!'s Team TOXIC! strip since the first issue (and drawn it since issue 15); this proved popular enough with the readers to gain two pages an issue and lead to other comic strips being brought in. ^[3]

He broke into the international market in 1997 creating the Suburban Satanists for the Norwegian comic Geek. Since 1999 those characters have appeared in the Swedish/Norwegian comic Herman Hedning.

In April 2005, Active Images publishsed a collection - Brickman Begins - of all of Stringer's Brickman strips since 1979. In 2006 a brand new Brickman series began in the American comic book Elephantmen, published by Image Comics, and in 2007 Combat Colin became a guest star in the strip. Brickman seems to be Stringer's most enduring character.