Richard Starkings

Richard Starkings has worked in comics since he was ten, which began what he refers to as his “helping my brother at comic marts in exchange for advance copies of Conan the Barbarian” phase. In his teens he created four panel comic strips for Doctor Who fanzines and developed his pen lettering skills on comic strips for indy publisher Harrier, thus beginning his “ink-stained & calloused middle finger” phase. In his twenties, Starkings was hired by Marvel Comics in London and entered his “drawing logos for chocolate” phase which led to editorial responsibilities for Doctor Who, Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters. Moving to Los Angeles in 1989, Starkings pursued a freelance career and famously pioneered digital comic book lettering in order to meet tight deadlines, known now as his infamous “sixteen X-Men books a month” phase. Starkings hired UCLA graduate John Roshell in 1992 and together they established the award-winning Comicraft studio and foundry. Comicraft’s publishing arm, Active Images, released Comic Book Lettering the Comicraft Way by Starkings and Roshell in 2003 – which pushed Starkings into his current “publishing critically acclaimed graphic novels” phase. Active Images’ growing line includes Strange Embrace, Solstice and Starkings’ own pulp science fiction creation, Hip Flask.