Celebrating Kevin O'Neill
Plus, win a copy of Alan Moore's new book!
Damn, what a rough week for lovers of comics.
Brian here, and as I’ve been working on this dispatch about the recently departed Kevin O’Neill, we’ve also lost gifted artist Carlos Pacheco and now beloved Batman voice actor (and writer of one of my favorite DC stories ever) Kevin Conroy.
I’m filled with gratitude for all of their work, and I hope you’ll join me in celebrating the lives of these amazing creators by making something beautiful this weekend, even if it’s just dinner plans with an old friend.
Legendary co-creator of Marshall Law and Nemesis the Warlock Kevin O’Neill was and still is one of my all-time favorite artists, and when I started collecting original comic art again, one of the first things I sought out was a page from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, his epic collaboration with writer Alan Moore.
It’s the clarity of not just his storytelling, but also his characters’ emotions. You can always feel exactly what someone in an O’Neill drawing is experiencing.
But even if there was nothing in a scene but the Invisible Man and a few mollusk-like Martians, Kevin O’Neill could craft memorable moments that were hilarious, terrifying, or both.
Graphic fiction at its finest. I wonder if it was Moore or O’Neill’s idea to have Griffin give his stick figure a much longer penis than his fellow earthling?
Either way, Alan and Kevin routinely brought out the best in each other, and I’m extremely fortunate I once got to witness their clearly genuine friendship in person, courtesy a dinner set up by my longtime Elf War collaborator Garth Ennis (who worked with Kevin on some of his final projects, including their masterpiece “Kids Rule OK!” story in the recent Battle Action Special).
This short tribute poem Alan Moore wrote about his mate and shared to his official Facebook page (??) is a real heartbreaker:
The best story in Moore’s highly recommended new book Illuminations is a tale about the comic industry called “What We Can Know About Thunderman,” and it’s telling that Alan dedicated it to Kevin.
He was an absolute giant, and our medium is richer because of all that Kevin O’Neill did for it.
If you haven’t picked up your own copy of Illuminations yet, I’ll be giving one away to you generous paid subscribers in The Tower after our regularly scheduled paywall, beyond which I’ll also be sharing some deeper cut examples of Alan Moore collaborations from my my weird collection of original art in another edition of Come Up and See My Etchings.
And I’ll see the rest of you back here on Monday for some more Spectators spectacle from the great Niko Henrichon…