John Allison | |
|---|---|
 John Allison at the Barcelona Comic Fair (2022) | |
| Born | John Allison 1976 (age 47–48) |
| Nationality | British |
| Known for | Webcomics |
| Notable work | Bobbins, Scary Go Round , Bad Machinery , Giant Days |
John Allison (born 1976) is a comic writer and artist. He has been producing comics since 1998 and his work has won multiple Eisner Awards.
Allison started creating webcomics in 1998 with Bobbins , a series which ran on Keenspot. He ended Bobbins in 2002, later saying that he had fallen out of love with the rough and ready nature of 'Bobbins', and at the same time started a new comic, Scary Go Round . Then, in 2009, he ended Scary Go Round and started Bad Machinery . In an interview, Allison said that he ended Scary Go Round because "the work I was doing was becoming somewhat uninspired. I had a lot of characters that I didn't care about, and I was making whole runs of strips about characters that people didn't really like... I had lost perspective and direction. I was also losing readers for the last year and it was evident that changes had to be made." [1]
Allison described Scary Go Round as "a comic that I've been making since 2002. It started off as a comic about barmaids Tessa and Rachel, then it became more about Shelley Winters and her bizarre escapades. In recent times it is kind of a split between the Shelley Show and Tackleford Grammar School. It's always evolving." Bad Machinery focuses on several of those grammar school children, now teenage detectives. [1]
In 2013, Allison pitched a spin-off from Scary Go Round, Giant Days , to Boom! Box, a newly formed imprint of Boom! Studios for established artists outside the comics industry. [2] The series follows three young women—Esther de Groot, Susan Ptolemy and Daisy Wooton—who share a hall of residence at the University of Sheffield. The series began as a six-issue limited run, and was then picked up as an ongoing series. In 2016, Giant Days was nominated for two Eisner Awards and three Harvey Awards, with a fourth Harvey nomination for Lissa Treiman's work on the comic. [3] [4] In 2019, it won two Eisner Awards, for Best Continuing Series and Best Humor Publication. [5] It concluded later that year with a special over-sized issue. [6]
The success of Giant Days led to further work with independent presses. Allison went on to write the series By Night for Boom! Studios, and is now writing and drawing Steeple for Dark Horse Comics. [6]
Allison currently resides in Letchworth Garden City. [7]
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| Year | Nominated work | Category | Result | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Bobbins | UK National Comics Awards: Best Online Strip | Nominated | [9] [10] |
| 2002 | Bobbins | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in three categories: * Best Use of Color * Best Site Design * Best Female Character | Nominated | [11] |
| 2003 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards: Outstanding Original Digital Art | Won | [12] |
| 2003 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in three other categories: * Outstanding Art * Outstanding Environment Design * Outstanding Use of Color | Nominated | [12] |
| 2004 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards: Outstanding Art | Won | Joint winner with Mac Hall [13] |
| 2004 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in six other categories: * Outstanding Comic * Outstanding Writing * Outstanding Environment Design * Outstanding Character (Writing) * Outstanding Comedic Comic * Outstanding Story Concept | Nominated | [13] |
| 2005 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards: Outstanding Comic | Won | [14] |
| 2005 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in three other categories: * Outstanding Art * Outstanding Environment Design * Outstanding Layout | Nominated | [14] |
| 2006 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards: Outstanding Comic | Nominated | [15] |
| 2007 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards in three categories: * Outstanding Comic * Outstanding Character Writing * Outstanding Writer | Nominated | [16] [17] [18] |
| 2008 | Scary Go Round | Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards: Outstanding Character Rendering | Nominated | [19] |
| 2016 | Giant Days | Eisner Award: Best Continuing Series | Nominated | Allison wrote for Giant Days. The nomination was for John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julia Madrigal. [20] |
| 2016 | Giant Days | Eisner Award: Best Writer | Nominated | [20] |
| 2017 | Bad Machinery, Vol. 5: The Case of the Fire Inside | Eisner Award: Best Publication for teens (ages 13–17) | Nominated | [21] [22] |
| 2018 | Giant Days | Eisner Award: Best Continuing Series | Nominated | Allison wrote for Giant Days. The nomination was for John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julia Madrigal. [23] |
| 2018 | Giant Days | Eisner Award: Best Humor Publication | Nominated | Allison wrote for Giant Days. The nomination was for John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julia Madrigal. [23] |
| 2019 | Giant Days | Eisner Award: Best Continuing Series | Won | Allison wrote for Giant Days. The nomination was for John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julia Madrigal. [24] |
| 2019 | Giant Days | Eisner Award: Best Humor Publication | Won | Allison wrote for Giant Days. The nomination was for John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julia Madrigal. [24] |
Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, and International Horror Guild Awards.
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Evan Dorkin is an American comics artist and cartoonist. His best known works are the comic books Milk and Cheese and Dork, the latter of which features his comic Eltingville. His comics often poke fun at fandom, even while making it clear that Dorkin is a fan himself. Dorkin also served as a writer on the Adult Swim animated series Space Ghost Coast to Coast from 1994 to 1999, and created a pilot for an animated adaptation of Eltingville for Adult Swim in 2002.
Scary Go Round is a webcomic by John Allison. Running from 2002 to 2009, it is set in the fictional North Yorkshire town of Tackleford and follows university students battling fantasy and science fiction threats to the town. The comic was a successor to Allison's first comic, Bobbins, and was followed by Bad Machinery, all of which take place in the same general setting.
Shannon Wheeler is an American cartoonist, best known as a cartoonist for The New Yorker and for creating the satirical superhero Too Much Coffee Man.
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Chris Crosby is a co-founder and the chief executive officer of Keenspot, a company providing a platform and network for webcomics. They are also a comics writer and artist, with works including Superosity, Sore Thumbs, and Snap The Punk Turtle.
BOOM! Entertainment, Inc., doing business as Boom! Studios, is an American comic book and graphic novel publisher, headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States.
Bobbins is a webcomic written by John Allison. It ran from 21 September 1998 to 3 June 2002, but shifted into reruns with commentary on 17 May 2002. It has made occasional returns in John Allison's website in between his other comics since 2013. Webcomics portal Keenspot kept the Bobbins archive freely accessible online, but the archives eventually moved to Allison's own site.
Bad Machinery is a webcomic written and drawn by John Allison and set in the fictional town of Tackleford, West Yorkshire, England. Bad Machinery started on 21 September 2009 loosely based on characters and situations from John Allison's previous webcomic, Scary Go Round. New full colour paneled pages appeared four times a week.
James T. Tynion IV is an American comic book author. He is best known for his work at DC Comics including as the writer on the mainline Batman title, the Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy, and Justice League Dark volume 2.
Notable events of 2009 in webcomics.
Notable events of 2002 in webcomics.
Notable events of 2005 in webcomics.
Giant Days is a comedic comic book written by John Allison, with art by Max Sarin and Lissa Treiman. The series follows three young women – Esther de Groot, Susan Ptolemy and Daisy Wooton – who share a hall of residence at university. Originally created as a webcomic spin-off from his previous series Scary Go Round, and then self-published as a series of small press comics, Giant Days was subsequently picked up by Boom! Studios first as a six-issue miniseries and then as a monthly ongoing series. In 2016 Giant Days was nominated for two Eisner Awards and four Harvey Awards. In 2019, it won two Eisner awards, for Best Continuing Series and Best Humor Publication.
Something Is Killing the Children is an ongoing comic book series created by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera, published monthly by Boom! Studios beginning in September 2019.
The British Comic Awards (BCA) were a set of British awards for achievement in comic books. Winners were selected by a judging committee; the awards were given out on an annual basis from 2012 to 2016 for comics made by United Kingdom creators published from September of the previous year until September of the current year. Award presentations were held at the Leeds Thought Bubble Festival, in the fall of the year.
The Eisner Award for Best Anthology Shot is an award for”creative achievement" in American comic books. It has been given out every year since 1992.
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