insideKENT Magazine Issue 37 - April 2015 | Page 20

ARTS+ENTERTAINMENT

KENT CARTOONIST:

Gary Northfield

Gary Northfield is a Kent-based cartoonist and writer who has worked on
well-loved children’s publications such as the Horrible Histories Magazine
and The Beano. Now he has created his own comic book story featuring a
gladiator zebra called Julius, and we asked him to tell us a little about how
it all began. It really is a story of a dream come true.

cartoonists, who also created homemade comics. A group of us discovered
that we had the same taste in alternative comics from America and Europe,
so we put together our own anthology of strips, which we then took to the
big International Comics Festival in Angoulême, France, and to SPX (Small
Press Expo) in Washington DC in America.

“I’ve had a love of comics since I was at least three or four years old; I
remember enjoying a Pink Panther annual well before I was able to properly
read, figuring out the story just by looking at the pictures. I lapped up any
comic I could find – The Beano, Marvel, and Disney – and I drew my own
comics and wrote many stories about funny animals or monsters. My mum
was particularly supportive, encouraging me to write stories on rainy days
during the summer holidays.

“It was through one of these like-minded cartoonists, Nick Abadzis, that I
got my big breakthrough in 2002 with Horrible Histories Magazine. Nick,
who was working as an illustrator and writer on the title, was moving on,
and he offered his job to me! Of course, I jumped at the chance. Nick told
me it would probably be about six weeks work, but I ended up staying at
the publisher, Eaglemoss, as an in-house illustrator for six years! I juggled
many magazines during my time there including Horrible Science, Magical
World of Roald Dahl, and various other projects in development.

“When I left school, I studied for an illustration degree, learning printmaking
amongst other things. However, it was tough to find any work in such a
crowded market, so I worked in an art shop and my dad’s furniture factory
for a few years. But I was never despondent, and in my spare time, I made
photocopied comics, which I would then sell to comic shops in London and
at comic fairs around the country. It was at these fairs that I met like-minded

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