 | This article has multiple issues. Please helpimprove it or discuss these issues on thetalk page.(Learn how and when to remove these messages) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
|
| Richard Starkings | |
|---|---|
 Starkings at the 2011New York Comic Con | |
| Born | Richard Alan Starkings 27 January 1962 (1962-01-27) (age 63) Liverpool, England, UK |
| Nationality | British |
| Area(s) | Letterer, editor, writer |
| Pseudonym(s) | Richard Alan, Zed |
Notable works | Hip Flask Elephantmen |
| Awards | Inkpot Award (2015) |
| www | |
Richard Starkings (born 27 January 1962) is a Britishfont designer and comic bookletterer, editor and writer. He was one of the early pioneers of computer-based comic-book lettering, and is one of the most prolific creators in that industry.
Starkings' lettering style was originally inspired by British comic strip letterersBill Nuttall andTom Frame. Starkings' UK career began with lettering jobs in2000 AD'sFuture Shocks and variousstrips inWarrior. From there he moved toMarvel UK where he lettered Zoids inSpider-Man Weekly andTransformers before becoming an editor for the company in the late 1980s. Titles he edited includedDeath's Head andDragon's Claws. However, by the beginning of the 1990s he devoted himself exclusively to lettering, finding work in the much larger comic-book industry in the United States.
His work in theWhoniverse has been mostly confined to two periods. He was variously a writer, editor and letterer during the Sixth and early Seventh Doctors' eras in the pages ofDoctor Who Magazine. At this time, he also served in the staff position of "picture consultant" for a number of issues. Two decades later, he returned to the newly created American centre of Whoniverse publishing at IDW Publishing, working on several issues involving the Tenth Doctor.
Starkings editedRedemption!,Culture Shock!,Nemesis of the Daleks andFollow That TARDIS!. Usually under his pseudonym ofRichard Alan orZed, he wrote or co-wroteTime and Tide, the aforementionedNemesis of the Daleks andUp Above the Gods. He lettered or co-letteredFrobisher's Story,The Gift,The World Shapers andUp Above the Gods.
For the BBC Wales era of the Whoniverse, Starkings co-wroteCold-Blooded War under his own name. It was also a story he lettered, along withThe Whispering Gallery and most issues ofThe Forgotten. He was also one of the letterers onRift War!
Beginning in 2014, he andComicraft's Jimmy Betancourt lettered all of Titan Comics'Doctor Who comic book series.
In 1992 Starkings foundedComicraft, a studio which trains and employs letterers and designers and provides "Unique Design and Fine Lettering" services for comic books from many different publishers. In the mid-1990s Comicraft, online as comicbookfonts.com began to sell their Font designs as software applications through theirActive Images publishing company.
Originally Starkings had intended that the advertisements for these fonts would featureMarvel andDC Comics' characters, however when he failed to receive the authorisation to do that, Starkings created his own character to illustrate the ads –Hip Flask ananthropomorphichippopotamus "Information Agent". Hip Flask has since graduated to his own series ofone-shot comic books, published by Active Images. Starkings plotted the first two issues with artistLadrönn and enlisted the assistance ofJoe Casey to co-script.Mystery City and all subsequent issues are plotted and scripted by Starkings. In 2006 Image Comics launched an ongoing prequel series toHip Flask,Elephantmen, written by Starkings and illustrated by Axel Medellin, Justin "Moritat" Norman, Marian Churchland,Tom Scioli,Henry Flint,Chris Bachalo andChris Burnham.
In 2001 the character's similarities with an Australian comic book character calledHairbutt (a bumbling anthropomorphic hippopotamus private detective) led Hairbutt co-creator Bodine Amerikah and Darren Close of OzComics to accuse Hip Flask creator Starkings ofplagiarism. Starkings replied that he created Hip Flask without any knowledge of Hairbutt, and that their similarities were a bizarre coincidence.[1]
Elephantmen is an Americanongoing monthlycomic book published byImage Comics and written by Richard Starkings with art byMoritat and a number of other artists. Issue #1 was released in July 2006.
