Gary Northfield is a British comic artist and writer, most famous for his comic character, Derek the Sheep published in DC Thomson's The Beano and BeanoMAX[1]
Gary graduated from Harrow College University of Westminster with a degree in Illustration in 1992.[2] He joined the British small press comics[3] community in 1999, creating various titles such as "Great!", "Little Box of Comics" and "Stupidmonsters".[4] In 2002, he acquired the position of in-house illustrator at Eaglemoss Publications, where he worked for five years on projects such as Horrible Histories, Horrible Science and The Magical World Of Roald Dahl.[5]
Derek the Sheep began appearing in The Beano from February 2004 and is unique in that it is The Beano's first and only creator-owned character.[6][7][8] Derek the Sheep has a collection of early stories published by Bloomsbury Publishing in September 2008 and in France by Actes Sud/Editions De L'an2,[9] reprinting the first thirteen strips in The Beano.
He has since authored comics for various prominent children's magazines, such as The Dandy, National Geographic Kids and The DFC, as well as illustrating the children's books "Henry VIII Has To Choose" and "Sleeping Beauty: 100 Years Later" for Franklin Watts.[10]