Arthur James Ranson (born 3 June 1939; Hornchurch, Essex, UK)
Arthur Ranson is a prolific English illustrator and comic strip co-creator whose fine line penwork and attention to visual detail has led to the misapplied epithet 'photo-realistic'.

Ranson attended the South West Essex Technical College and School of Art in Walthamstow, Essex, where he studied painting and printmaking. Trained initially as an "apprentice stamp and banknote designer" in the 1960s, learning "to translate photographs into watercolour... in stamp size." A "rare ability at the time," he would later use this skill as a "selling point" when pursuing a career "as an illustrator in advertising and publishing."

Ranson first brought the precise techniques he had evolved through his apprenticeship to the UK TV comic Look-in, working first on portrait covers, and later alongside other major comics artists such as John M. Burns, Martin Asbury, Harry North, Colin Wyatt, John Bolton, Jim Baikie, Phil Gascoine, Barry Mitchell, and Bill Titcombe.

After some time drawing "funnies", Ranson drew on his skill in translating pictures across mediums (generally using a Grant Projector, which "projects an image up onto a glass plate, on which one places tracing paper"), and brought his talents to bear for Look-in by creating strips based on such popular TV series as Sapphire and Steel and Danger Mouse, all written by Angus Allan. Since these works were based on specific TV shows, he says that "it seemed important that the characters looked as much like the actors as possible", and thus "used the methods I knew" to achieve the accurate likenesses that typify his work.

Ranson has been appearing in British comics since the early 1970s. Amongst many accomplishments, his works include Anderson: Psi Division, Button Man, Mazeworld and other 2000AD strips.

Ranson also produced a series of comic-strip biographies of well-known music stars and bands, including ABBA (1977), Elvis Presley (1981), The Beatles (1981-2), Haircut 100 (1983) and The Sex Pistols (1983).

Arthur has also contributed to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight and X-Men and TV-based strips such as Sapphire and Steel, Dangermouse, Worzel Gummidge, Michael Bentine's Potty Time and Duckula.

Aside from his Look-in and (later) 2000AD comics work, Ranson also produced illustrations for Fiesta and some "advertising work through an agent, including some All-Bran adverts." He produced some assorted work for various other IPC magazines in addition to 2000AD, and was glad of the "more challenging" work to be found in comics, branding himself "too sensitive a plant to get on in advertising despite the high fees."

Ranson stresses the influence of his peers - particularly Brian Bolland - on his own evolution as an artist, moving from being burdened by the "British way of drawing adventure comics... dependable, professional, craftsmanlike and worthy," to seeing and being influenced by work that "looked as though the artist, particularly Bolland, really cared about it."

In 1989, Ranson followed in Bolland—and others'—footsteps, and moved to major British sci-fi comic 2000 AD, where he has remained ever since, with rare forays into the world of American comics, including Batman and the X-Men. He counts himself lucky that this career path has, in his decades-long comics career seen him work primarily with just three writers.

In 1990, 2000 AD stalwarts Kevin O'Neill, Pat Mills, John Wagner, Alan Grant and Mike McMahon were invited by Geoff Fry to begin work on a publication for Neptune Distribution. Neptune had acquired premiere British fanzine Fantasy Advertiser in 1988, and sold-out an issue featuring Mills & O'Neill's Marshal Law, prompting the move towards creating a line of comics spearheaded by that character.

Having formed an imprint – Apocalypse Ltd – the publish the new anthology title, Pat Mills found himself de facto editor of the in-preparation title, now called Toxic!. Amid some turmoil, the initial five creators began to splinter, with Wagner in particular feeling that his "style, the way I write, had itself been deemed un-Toxic!" The strip he had spent some time working on was vetoed by Mills, who felt that it was "far too close to 2000 AD in style." It eventually fell to the new editor - Dan Abnett, head-hunted from Marvel UK - to inform Wagner. He recalls that "by that stage Arthur Ranson had drawn an awful lot of it."

The strip – called Button Man – was shelved half-finished. Toxic! was cancelled in October, 1991 after 31 issues.

In the spring of 1992, as part of a promotion called "the Mega-Blast," Button Man was resurrected and launched in Prog 780.[16] Ultra-violent and one of the first non-science fictional strips to appear in the comic's 15-year history, Button Man was one of the very few creator-owned strips to appear in 2000 AD.

In 1997, Ranson provided the artwork for a one-shot prestige-format single issue for DC Comics, Batman/Phantom Stranger. Written by one of Ranson's frequent collaborators, Alan Grant (a mainstay at 2000 AD, and also a major contributor to the Batman mythos), the story saw the two characters team-up to "solve the mystery of a missing civilization." Grant and Ranson had previously produced "an outline of a Phantom Stranger story [Ranson] wanted to draw," but were rebuffed. Indeed, Ranson recalls that Grant was asked to write in Batman/Phantom Stranger a Stranger who "must do nothing spooky."

Ranson has a son, Jonas, who is also an artist, and daughter, Cassandra.

In 2007, Prion Books reprinted a selection of material from Look-in, and included a three-part Sapphire & Steel story on pages 132-133, 136-137 and 140-141.
Source: Illustration Art Gallery; Wikipedia