Kevin O'Neill (comics)

Kevin O'Neill
O'Neill at the Big Apple Summer Sizzler in Manhattan, 13 June 2009.
Born	1953
Nationality	English
Area(s)	Artist
Notable works	Nemesis the Warlock Marshal Law The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Kevin O'Neill (born 1953) is an English comic book illustrator best known as the co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock, Marshal Law (with writer Pat Mills), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (with Alan Moore).

O'Neill began working for the publishing company IPC at the age of 16 as an office boy for Buster, which was a children's humour title. By 1976 he was working as a colourist on Disney comics reprints and British children's comics such as Monster Fun and Whizzer and Chips.

Tired of working on children's humour titles, he heard that a new science fiction title was being put together at IPC and went to see Pat Mills and asked to be transferred to the new comic which was to be called 2000 AD.

O'Neill initially provided art for pin-ups and covers, including the centre image of Tharg on the cover of the first issue of 2000AD. After a period of being nurtured by Mills, he eventually started branching out drawing short Tharg the Mighty strips, Future Shocks and various humorous short stories. However it was not until he started work on Ro-Busters (with Pat Mills as writer) in 2000AD issue 88 that O'Neill started work on his first major ongoing strip for the title. O'Neill's quirky and unusual work on Ro-Busters proved popular and helped establish him as a major 2000AD creator, as well as establishing what would become a long series of collaborations with writer Pat Mills.

Mills and O'Neill's next major work was a one-off story called Terror Tube in issue 167 which was said to be inspired by the song Going Underground by The Jam. However the story was a reaction against IPC objecting to a long chase sequence in Ro-Busters, so the pair created a six-page story which consisted entirely of an extended chase sequence between the hordes of the villainous Torquemada and a mysterious character called Nemesis.