Farewell Kevin O'Neill
Back in the early 90s, I was an editor for Dark Horse Comics. I edited a weird variety of comics, but one of my favorites was Marshal Law by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill. Their collaboration was an ultra-violent superhero parody. Marshall Law was a anti-hero whose antagonists were other superheroes. As someone who had outgrown superhero comics by the time I was 15, it appealed to me. Mills and O’Neill seemed to have a real chip on their shoulders towards the genre—it was not a loving parody, produced by overgrown fanboys. O’Neill’s art was psychedelic. I loved getting his original pages in the mail because he colored the work by soaking his pages with brightly colored magic marker. Like most comic artists, he drew Marshall Law on bristol board, a kind of smooth, heavy duty paper. The markers soaked all the way through it—you could see his design from the back of the page.
In 1994, I took a job as editor in chief for Roger Corman’s new comic book line, called Cosmic Comics. My brief was to create new comics out of old Corman properties, starting with Little Shop of Horrors, Death Race 2000 and Bram Stoker’s Burial of the Rats. Since year 2000 was just around the corner, I thought the title would have to be updated, so we called it Death Race 2020. (And it turned out that as a predictor of life in 2020, Mills and O’Neill were right on the money!) The original movie, in which there was a cross-country car race where the racers got points for running people over, starred David Carradine as the death racer Frankenstein. In the end, he joins an underground resistance movement to overthrow the fascist government. So we decided to set the comic to a period after the revolution, by which point Frankenstein has become President. But popular demand brings the death race back. Pat Mills was well-known for writing super-violent comics in Britain, including the controversial Action, which seemed to be aimed at teenage thugs. (It was published around the same time Elton John sang “Saturday Night’s Alright (for Fighting)” which had the same vibe as Action—a celebration of “aggro.” Kids rule OK!) Because Action was so controversial, it was folded and a new title was created to replace it, 2000 AD. It featured an ultra-violent future lawman, Judge Dredd, for whom Pat Mills wrote some classic stories. But 2000 AD was an anthology title, and Kevin O’Neill was there from the start. He and Mills collaborated on Judge Dredd, but O’Neill is better know for such series within 2000 AD like Nemesis the Warlock and Ro-Busters. I have never seen those comics, though. I really didn’t become aware of O’Neill’s work until he drew Marshal Law.
This cover shows some of O’Neill’s standard tropes: the characters look less like super-heroes than leather daddies, and they have writing on them that is halfway between graffiti and the kind of endorsements one sees on race cars.
So naturally I wanted Mills and O’Neill on Death Race 2020.
I love that president Frankenstein’s death-dealing car has “President” in mirror writing on its front like an ambulance.
In this issue, one of the death racers, Spyda, is about to be executed for assassinating Frankenstein’s wife. Look at the label on the executioner’s costume.
Both O’Neill and Mills were delightful to work with. Mills was always asking me if some idea of his went “too far”—I guess since he wrote Action, he has had to keep this in mind. I always said, “Do it!” And O’Neill and Mills did.
After Cosmic Comics folded due to its abject failure in the comics market (I really did not have my fingers on the pulse of what comic fans wanted), the only O’Neill work I saw was his long collaboration with Alan Moore, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. While the art was stylish and excellent, Moore’s method of working didn’t permit O’Neill the unbridled creativity he could employ in Marshal Law and, if I may say, Death Race 2020.
But that’s my opinion—I’m sure there are fans who like his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen artwork the most.
It is reported that O’Neill died last week at the age of 69 after a long illness. Long live Kevin O’Neill!
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