John McCrea

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This article is about the comic book illustrator. For the lead singer of the band Cake, see John McCrea (musician).

John McCrea

Born	1966 Belfast, Northern Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Area(s)	Penciller

John McCrea (born 1966 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a comic book artist best known for his collaborations with writer Garth Ennis.

His earliest work was influenced by John Byrne and Alan Davis. In 1988, after a few years of drawing television and toy tie-ins, he illustrated Ennis's debut, the political series Troubled Souls, in Crisis, in a realistic style, using acrylic paints and mixed media, but its sequel, the farce For a Few Troubles More, showed him moving a more cartoony direction, a trend which continued with his occasional series Carla Allison in Deadline.

He broke into American comics in 1993, drawing Ennis's run on DC Comics's The Demon, followed by its spin-off, Hitman, from 1996 to 2001, on which McCrea developed a versatile drawing style equally at home with goofy humour, action, and subtle characterisation. Hitman issue 34 won the Eisner Award for best single issue in 1999. His wilder, more exaggerated cartooning found an outlet with Dicks, a miniseries spinning off from For a Few Troubles More into more outrageous dialect, sexual and toilet humour, published by Caliber in 1997, with a sequel, Dicks II, from Avatar in 2002.

Since Hitman finished he has drawn a variety of characters for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse Comics, 2000 AD and others.

[edit] Bibliography

Comics work includes:

Troubled Souls (1988)
Judge Dredd
Judge Death (in Judge Dredd Mega-Special #4, 1991 and again in the 2000AD/Placebo poster magazine 2005)
Middenface McNulty: "Wan Man an' His Dug" (with Alan Grant and Tony Luke, in Judge Dredd Megazine vol.1 #15-20, 1991-1992)
The Demon #40,42-48,50,52-60
Hitman
Jenny Sparks (5 issues, Wildstorm, 2000)
Dicks
Superboy #92-100
Sinister Dexter "Vircade" (with Dan Abnett, in 2000 AD #1431, 2005)
Spider-Man: "Get Kraven" (5 issues, Marvel)
Preacher Special; Tall in the Saddle (1 issue, with Steve Dillon, DC/Vertigo 1999)