Steve Dillon (1962[1]-22 October 2016[2]) was a comic artist on several Doctor Who Magazine comic stories. In Doctor Who circles, he is best known as the co-creator of Abslom Daak. He was mainly the artist on the non-Doctor backup strips in the earliest issues of Doctor Who Weekly. However, he was also importantly the artist on the final Fifth Doctor comic story, which portrayed the death of comic companion, Gus.
Despite a relatively small amount of material contributed to the Doctor Who comic universe, a high percentage of the characters he created proved popular enough to justify return engagements, either in later Doctor Who comic strips or other media.
Backup strips
His art debuted in a backup story in Doctor Who Weekly #5, in which he co-created the character of Kroton with writer Steve Moore. He remained the principal backup strip artist through issue #29, by which time he had helped to create the most frequently-recurring character of the backup strips, Abslom Daak. He also created Plutar, a somewhat bumbling Time Lord student, and Gnork a hyper-intelligent Ogron.
Fifth Doctor adventures
After he had become established as major comic book artist, he was lured back to DWM. About four years after his final Abslom Daak story, he draw the Fifth Doctor's last adventure, The Moderator. In the story, he helped to create the character of Josiah W. Dogbolter, who is one of the few Doctor Who comic characters to appear in the broader Marvel Comics universe.
His contributions to the world of Fifth Doctor Doctor Who comics has been chronicled in the "Stripped for Action" documentary on the DVD release of Black Orchid.
Career overview
The backup strips for DWW were his first regular job in comics and almost the very first things Dillon ever published. Following his six month stint at Doctor Who Weekly, he followed departing DWW editor Dez Skinn to the comic anthology, Warrior, and several other projects. At the same time, he enjoyed a run on 2000 AD and Judge Dredd. In the 1990s, he made the move to the American comic industry. He then worked extensively for DC and Vertigo, where he notably had a long run on Preacher. More recently, he has switched over to Marvel, where he was the main artist on Wolverine: Origins since its first issue in 2006. He later worked on Thunderbolts and The Punisher for them, the latter he was still working on when he died.
Credits as artist
- Throwback: The Soul of a Cyberman
- The Stolen TARDIS
- Warlord of the Ogrons
- Abslom Daak... Dalek Killer
- Ship of Fools
- Star Tigers
- The Moderator