British artist Ian Gibson, best known for his work on 2000AD classics such as Judge Dredd and The Ballad of Halo Jones as well as DC’s Mister Miracle, died on December 11, 2023, at the age of 79.

Gibson was born in 1946.  He started out as a writer but quickly transitioned to drawing other writers’ work for British and Swedish girls’ comics, The Pocket Chiller Library, and House of Hammer, a UK magazine that featured comics and articles about the horror and sci-fi films produced by Hammer Film Productions.

In 1975 he collaborated with writer and editor John Wagner on the story “Death Wish” for the British boys’ comic Valiant.  Wagner went on to become one of the co-founders of 2000AD, where Gibson did much of his best-known work, including Judge Dredd, Robo-Hunter, and The Ballad of Halo Jones, which was written by Alan Moore (see “Rebellion’s U.S. Launch”).

In the late 1980s, Gibson began working for American publishers as the artist for several issues of Green Lantern Corps, as well as Mister Miracle and some of Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics; he also collaborated with writer Stefan Petrucha on the sci-fi story Meta 4, which was published by First Comics but was cut short when the publisher went out of business.  He was the inker for DC’s eight-issue event Millennium.  Other work from this period includes three issues of Steed and Mrs. Peel for Eclipse Comics.

Gibson eventually returned to 2000AD but left the magazine in 2007.  In 2013 he caused a bit of controversy when he drew a topless woman as a charity commission; the woman resembled Halo Jones, although Gibson said it was just a joke he had done for a friend.  The Guardian reported that he referred to the kerfuffle as a "storm in a D-cup."

In his later years, Gibson concentrated on his own work, including Lifeboat, which was published in early 2023; UK publisher The77 Publications also plans to reprint his newspaper strip Annie Droid.