2000 AD shares that British comic book artist Garry Leach has passed away, aged just 67. He died on Saturday, March 26, from unknown causes. Leach was a 2000 AD veteran, and the first artist to draw Alan Moore’s seminal “Miracleman” (then known as “Marvelman”) revival in 1982. He was also known for his work on American titles like “Hitman,” “Monarchy,” and “Global Frequency,” as well as J. Michael Straczynski & Chris Weston’s “The Twelve.”
Leach was born on September 19, 1954, and studied art at Central St Martin’s College in London. He began his career at “2000 AD” magazine inking Dan Dare strips in 1978, and worked on Judge Dredd stories like ‘The Day the Law Died’ and ‘Night of the Bloodbeast’ the following year. In 1981, he became the artist on the newly launched Warrior magazine’s revival of “Marvelman,” after he proved to be the only one interested in the project. Leach was soon replaced by Alan Davis, when his perfectionistic manner of drawing caused with difficulty with deadlines. Leach would ink Davis’s early stories to ease him into the role, and Davis himself was quoted as saying Leach set the template for his work, stating, “My ‘style’ on the series was simply a bargain-basement attempt to imitate what Garry had done.”
Leach soon reunited with Moore on the Warrior strip “Warpsmith,” a series that would be eventually folded into the “Marvelman” universe. He also continued to provide sequential art and covers for 2000 AD until the late ’80s. In 1988, he and Dave Elliott established the imprint Atomeka Press, whose first title was the anthology A1, which included new “Warpsmith” comics by Moore and Leach. Atomeka eventually ceased publishing by 1997, and Leach began working in advertising.
He returned to comics as inker on Garth Ennis & John McCrea’s DC series “Hitman” in 1998, a gig that would continue until its 60th and final issue in 2001. He returned to 2000 AD to produce cover art for “Judge Dredd Megazine” in 2004, and relaunched Atomeka Press with Dave Elliott, and Ross Richie, that year. The relaunch, which published a mixture of reprints and new titles overseen by Richie, didn’t last long, as Richie soon left to form BOOM! Studios with Andrew Cosby. Atomeka would be revived briefly one more time at Titan Books in 2013, with a new volume of “A1,” and the anthology “Monster Massacre.”
2000 AD commented, “Although he never had his own signature series in our pages, Garry was one of the artists who helped define 2000 AD’s first golden age. His imagination and talent leapt from every page and brought a confident dynamism to series such as ‘The V.C.s’ and ‘Judge Dredd.’ His generosity in complementing, supporting and mentoring other artists cannot be ignored and the comics industry owes him a deep debt for both his work and his friendship, and he will be sorely missed.”
