| Ron Smith | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1924 |
| Nationality | British |
| Area(s) | Penciller |
Ron Smith, born 1924, is a retired British comic artist whose career spanned almost almost fifty years, during which time he built a solid reputation as one of the most popular and well respected illustrators working in his field.
Primarily producing strips for the two main publishers, DC Thomson and IPC Magazines, Ron Smith is perhaps best known for drawing the hugely popular Judge Dredd for 2000 ad and the Daily Star, a character with which he excelled in portraying the bizarre and crazy side of the inhabitants of Judge Dredd's future city, Mega City One.
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After leaving the RAF, Ron Smith began his career in the industry working for GB Animation with other well known artists such as Mike Western and Eric Bradbury. After early work such as Deed-a-day Danny in 1949, Smith moved on to Amalgamated Press (a forerunner of IPC) in 1950, initially filling in for other artists on humour strips before moving on to the adventure stories for which he was perhaps best suited, such as The Flame and the Arrow.
From 1952 until 1979, Ron Smith worked almost exclusively for the Dundee based publisher D.C. Thomson, producing art for its full range of publications, including the humour comics Topper, Dandy and Beezer, girls comics such as Bunty and Judy and other titles such as Adventure and Victor.[1] From the mid 1970s Smith was a regular contributor on the successful new boy’s war comic Warlord, producing strips such as Drake of E-Boat Alley and the title strip, Codename Warlord. Around this time he also worked on the long running Hotspur, drawing Nick Jolly, a fantasy story about an eighteenth century highwayman brought forward in time by well-meaning aliens to fight the sinister arch-villain Simon Death on his robotic, jet-powered horse Bess. Smith also drew other strips for Hotspur such as the sports story the Cowboy Cricketer and King Cobra, a character that featured on the cover of Hotspur almost continuously from 1977 to 1980, even after he had begun to work for 2000 ad
In 1979 Ron Smith began working for IPC Magazines, drawing Judge Dredd for 2000 ad. In its early years, the comic employed a mixture of well established artists along with a range of exciting new talent, and during the early to mid 1980s, Ron Smith was by far the most prolific artist working on the character. He is arguably the only artist to have successfully adapted to the comic's anarchic and iconoclastic style, while his contemporaries' efforts were gradually phased out as a newer generation took prominence.
Along with Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon he contributed to two of the character's most popular epic-length stories, The Day the Law Died (AKA "Judge Cal" or "Judge Caligula") and The Judge Child. When Bolland and McMahon moved on to new projects, other artists such as Carlos Ezquerra, Ian Gibson and Steve Dillon took over illustrating duties alongside the ever-dependable Smith who now became the strips's definitive artist.
Amongst the more grotesque characters created by Smith was Otto Sump- Mega-City One's ugliest man, with Smith excelling himself in "The Otto Sump Ugly Clinic" depicting the horrific length citizens of the metropolis go to in making themselves look as physically repulsive as possible. Smith was responsible for the majority of ugly-spin-off stories including "Gunge", "Who Killed Pug Ugly?" about an ugly pop star and "The League of Fatties" about over-eaters gone to extremes (although the first Fatty story was actually drawn by McMahon in a previous Annual). The "Get Ugly!" 2000AD cover has been used at least twice as a T-Shirt design. Other Dredd stories which featured Smith at the peak of his powers were the Pat Mills scripted "Blood of Satanus" where he more than effectively depicted a man's transformation into a blood-thirsty Tyranosaurus Rex, "The Hot-Dog Run" featuring a group of cadet Judges on a training mission in the Cursed Earth and "The Graveyard Shift", an extended narrative covering one typically crime-filled night in Mega-City One. Ron Smith also co-created the anti-hero Chopper in "Unamerican Graffiti" and Dave the orang-utan who became Mayor of Mega-City One.
Smith also created some of the most memorable 2000 ad cover images, and produced a number of other strips produced for the comic, including Mean Team, Harlem Heroes, Rogue Trooper and Chronos Carnival. Smith went on to draw for other IPC titles, including MASK, Eagle, Wildcat and Toxic Crusaders before retiring in the 1990s.[2]
Ron Smith also helped bring Judge Dredd and his world to a whole new audience each weekend when he was chosen to illustrate a weekly Dredd strip for the Daily Star newspaper, each story a complete vignette offering a bizarre slice of life in the future city.
Smith's depiction of Dredd differed slightly from that of his contemporaries. While both Bolland and McMahon chose to draw features of the Judge's uniform such as his gloves, boots, shoulder armour and elbow and knee pads in quite an exaggerated over-size fashion, Smith's depiction of Dredd's pads were more modestly sized and understated in appearance. The chunky heavy-looking chain attached to Dredd's zip and name-badge was replaced by a thinner, lightweight chain and the badge itself was less prominent. His helmet too was smaller and tighter-fitting. The overall effect was to focus more on Dredd's actual figure which was seen to be lean and muscular whereas other artists tended towards obscuring his figure by overstating the body-protection. Dredd's lawgiver pistol was also smaller and sleeker than it usually appeared, especially in Smith's earlier work where it rarely resembled its usual self! Most significantly Smith usually drew Dredd with two boot holsters and two lawgivers, while others gave him just the one.
Another trademark feature was that Smith often drew a prominent picture of Dredd (normally just head and shoulders) at the start of the week's story, quite separate from the narrative itself; although not a technique exclusive to Smith, it was fairly uncommon in 2000AD at the time.
Despite the undoubted quality of his artwork and his standing in illustrating some of the most popular and influential Dredd stories, Smith has never received the same recognition amongst fans as his contemporaries. When Titan Books first started reprinting 2000AD stories in the early 80s, the Judge Dredd stories it focused were those created by Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon, artists who have always ranked at the top of fans' lists of favourite illustrators, awarding the pair volumes of their own work. Smith's work, on the other hand, was only seen as part of the extended storylines to which he contributed. Even Rebellion's current reprints of Dredd's stories feature brief descriptions of Smith on the biography pages, whereas other artists whose contribution and influence is not as great receive detailed paragraphs.
Comics work includes: