Chris Webster

Infobox comics creator
name = Chris Webster

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birthdate = 1961
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nationality = British
area = Writer, artist
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Chris Webster (born 1961) is a British comics writer and artist. His work is notable for combining an art brut style reminiscent of Jean Dubuffet with the comic strip energies of Jack Kirby and Ted McKeever. He is best known for his book "Malus", described as 'too weird to be mainstream and too mainstream to be underground'.

Biography

Webster studied Fine Art Foundation at Grimsby College in 1982 and gained a BA in painting at Camberwell College in 1984. He then combined his fine art activities with his interest in comics and began writing and self-publishing. A meeting with Paul Gravett led to him joining the Detonator studio in 1993 where he worked alongside Geoff Coupland, Woodrow Phoenix, Carl Flint, Ed 'Ilya' Hillyer and Garry Marshall, until 1999.

During this period Webster worked on comics for British and Japanese comic publishers. He wrote the critical success "Rockdrill" for UK's Deadline Magazine; drawn by Garry Marshall, it was the story of an epileptic boy who tried to become a superhero. With Woodrow Phoenix, he worked on a strip for Fleetway editions Sonic the Comic featuring Ecco the Dolphin. He was among the first western comics creators to appear in Kodansha's weekly manga anthology "Comics Morning" magazine in Japan, producing a strip called "Mr Pillow" in 1993.

However, Webster is best known for his series of self-published work, including "Neversedge" (1989), "Malus" (1995) and "Wormwood" (2001). "Malus" is a four issue tour-de-force of science fiction cyberpunk themes. It told the story of a group of men unknowingly selected for experiments and then destroying the company who tries to exploit them. Webster's most sustained and acclaimed work, it was widely reviewed at the time and in 2005 a Portuguese publishing house reprinted "Malus" as a hardback deluxe graphic novel. They describe it as "an original cocktail of best of all the schools of BD: the European, the American and the Japanese. Webster constructs in absolute visual schizophrenia and narrative; "Malus" is a reference work for the apocalypse."

Chris Webster has also worked as a storyboard artist for film companies in the UK. In 2005 Webster exhibited drawings at the Tate and contributed a skateboard deck design to the Cherryvale Skateboard Company based in Cherryvale, Kansas.

Bibliography

* "Malus" (MMMNNNRRRG , 2005)
* "Wormwood" (3 issues, 2001)
* "Malus" (4 issues, 1995)
* "Neversedge" (4 issues, 1989)

Other comics work:

* "Frozen" with Carl Flint, artist. In "It's Dark In London (A Mask Noir Title)" (Edited by Oscar Zarate) (Serpent's Tail, 1997) ISBN 1-85242-535-0
* "Rockdrill" with Garry Marshall, artist. Six episodes for Deadline magazine 1994-95
* "Ecco the Dolphin" with Woodrow Phoenix, writer. In "Sonic the Comic" (Fleetway Editions, 1993)
* "Mr Pillow" 5 episodes for "Comics Morning" magazine, Kodansha Japan 1993-94

References

* [http://lambiek.net/artists/w/webster_chris.htm Chris Webster] at Lambiek's Comiclopedia

External links

* [http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/drawingfromturner/artists/webster.htm Tate gallery]
* [http://www.gentebruta.pt.vu/ MMMNNNRRRG - publishers]
* [http://www.cherryvale.blogspot.com/ cherryvale skateboards]