David Lloyd

Few images in comics are as instantly recognizable as the sly, smiling Guy Fawkes mask worn by V — and it exists because of David Lloyd. The British artist designed the look of the anarchist protagonist of V for Vendetta, the dystopian thriller he created with Alan Moore in the pages of Dez Skinn’s Warrior magazine in 1982, and his stark black-and-white art — all deep shadow and cinematic contrast — gave the story its unforgettable visual identity. Perfect for fans of Alan Moore’s dense political epics, the grim future histories of 2000 AD, and the moody ink-and-noir work of Jim Steranko and Will Eisner.

Born in Enfield, London in 1950, Lloyd broke into comics in the late 1970s drawing for Halls of Horror, TV Comic and Marvel UK, where he created the celebrated pulp vigilante Night Raven with writer Steve Parkhouse. When Dez Skinn launched Warrior and asked Lloyd for a new strip, he recruited Alan Moore, and together they built V for Vendetta — a future-fascist Britain, a masked rebel who rejects the state’s every claim to his freedom, and a costume decision that changed the world. It was Lloyd who suggested V resurrect the persona of Guy Fawkes, and Lloyd who suggested the story drop captions, thought balloons and sound effects, forcing the art to carry the mood. The series was completed by DC Comics in colour in 1988–89, adapted into the acclaimed 2005 film, and the mask Lloyd designed went on to become a global symbol of resistance — adopted by the hacktivist collective Anonymous, Occupy Wall Street, and protest movements from the Arab Spring to Mr. Robot, as documented on his Wikipedia entry.

Lloyd’s style is rooted in bold black-and-white and near-photographic realism — his deep, single-source lighting earned the V for Vendetta work comparisons to chiaroscuro cinema, and he is celebrated for it across his official site. He applied that precision to everything from Hellblazer (with Grant Morrison and Jamie Delano) and Warren Ellis’s Global Frequency to his own acclaimed crime-noir graphic novel Kickback. In 2012 he founded Aces Weekly, an online comics anthology he still edits and publishes, giving a platform to creators including Mark Wheatley, John McCrea and Phil Hester.

Lloyd brought the same brooding intensity to war comics, partnering with Garth Ennis on the War Stories brand — first at Vertigo and later at Avatar Press. His stories include “Nightingale,” a Royal Navy Arctic-convoy tale, and “J for Jenny,” an RAF Lancaster bomber drama he also coloured in a restricted palette of black, yellow and russet that turned the night skies into a perpetual twilight. The Slings & Arrows Graphic Novel Guide singled out “Lloyd’s precision” in the latter, noting how his art captured the cramped horror of a bomber crew’s nightly raids. Few artists in British comics can claim a career that spans the medium’s most political graphic novel, a protest icon adopted worldwide, and some of the most quietly devastating war comics ever drawn.