Artist Highlight: Alan Davis (2012)
Some artists get recognized in the comic business by their consistence in his artwork, others by their capacity to deliver awesome work within a deadline. Alan Davis is one of those rare gems that actually deliver on both accounts. Alan Davis was born on 18 June 1956 and began his career in comics on an English fanzine. His first professional work was a strip called The Crusader in Frantic Magazine for Dez Skinn’s revamped Marvel UK line.Davis’s big break was drawing the revamped Captain Britain story in The Mighty World Of Marvel. As Davis never realised artists drew at a larger size than what was published, his art was drawn as the same size as it would be on publication.Afterwards, Alan Moore took over writing duties on Captain Britain. Davis and Moore, as creators, formed a close working partnership, also creating D.R. and Quinch for 2000AD. Later, Davis replaced Garry Leach on Marvelman in Warrior and yet again worked with Moore. He also drew the story, Harry Twenty on the High Rock in 2000AD.Davis later fell out with Moore over creative differences on Marvelman. The two also disagreed over whether their Captain Britain work should be reprinted by Marvel Comics in the United States.He drew 14 issues of the monthly Captain Britain title which was later reprinted in trade paperback.
With a style that jumps out of the page, Alan Davis has incredible skills both as a storyteller and to conceit emotions in every character he draws. His talent has been required by both Marvel and DC on tittles such as Batman and the Outsiders title where he began his work on american comics along writer Mike W. Barr. His work proved popular enough for him to be assigned artistic duties on Detective Comics, Batman’s main series, in 1986, again with Barr writing. During the Batman: Year Two storyline, however, Davis encountered difficulties with his editor and left after just the first chapter (his replacement was Todd McFarlane) during the storyline. In 1991, Davis returned reuniting with writer Barr to draw the sequel to Year Two, Batman: Full Circle.
In 1987 he jumped to Marvel Comics. Here he formed a new efficacious creative team with writer Chris Claremont and, after two New Mutants annuals and three popular episodes for Uncanny X-Men, the duo launched Excalibur, one of the most popular (and amusing) US comics of 1980s. The team featured Captain Britain and Meggan together with former X-Men members Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler and Rachel Summers. Much later he would go and have runs on both X-Men and Uncanny X-Men (predating the “Revolution” reboot). Davis’ artwork was enhanced at its best, when he started to have inks provided to his pencils by Paul Neary and Mark Farmer, with whom he has a longtime partnership.
To this day Alan Davis is synonymous with greatness delivered only by comics, he imprints every page with a great deal of feelings and every project he’s involved with is rock solid, be sure to be on the look out for his name, you’ll know you are getting quality delivered at you.(source)
