Englishman Brian Bolland born on March 26th, 1951 has made a lasting impact as a comic book artist.
Although American comics didn’t actually appear in the UK until 1959, Bolland was instantly smitten by the medium. After starting out illustrating fanzines, Oz magazine and, the then-underground, London listings magazine Time Out, He landed his first comic work in 1972 on the comic titled Powerman. In 1977 Bolland snapped up a job at 2000AD working on various titles including Judge Dredd.
Due to the waves Bolland made on the comic book seen DC Comics gave him the opportunity to working on any of their characters. Choosing one of their flagship characters, Batman, he along with the poise penmanship of Alan Moore created a truly awesome piece of art, titled Batman:The Killing Joke. published in 1988 the book explores the Joker’s origin and is often held as the most controversial Batman story ever created. Bolland went on to collect a total of three Eisner awards and three Harvey awards.
After studying a copy of graphic novel The Killing Joke, Heath Ledger cited it as an influence on his Oscar-nominated portrayal of The Joker in the movie adaptation of BatmanThe Dark Knight.
Brian Bolland has a blog which he updates regularly, you can find it here.
