Kennedy cover art
Ian Kennedy was a Scottish comics artist who was born in Dundee on September 21st (which is also H. G. Wells' birthday) 1932. After leaving secondary school he was employed in 1949 as a trainee illustrator by D.C. Thomson, an experience he described to The Courier as "like the medieval artist's workshop. You had the Michelangelo or whoever and he had his minions around doing fill-in jobs or whatever. You just sat and sucked all this in. You were learning and you didn't know it. It was just a wonderful place to be and the guys were always very helpful." His first job was filling in the black boxes in the Sunday Post crossword.
Having married a nurse called Gladys whom he met while being treated for an ear infection, Kennedy started working for Knockout in 1953. He went on to work for a huge range of comics, including Thriller Picture Library, Air Ace Picture Library (he has been a big fan of aeroplanes ever since his childhood during World War Two), Hotspur (he was working freelance for D.C. Thomson by that time), Buster (on Jeff Craig Detective), Bullet (on The Smasher) and Wizard (on Tiger McTaggart and Typhoon Tennyson).
For renowned sci-fi comic 2000 AD Kennedy has worked on M.A.C.H. One, Invasion!, Tharg's Future Shocks and Judge Dredd. For its short-lived sister comic Starlord he drew two Ro-Busters stories, Timequake and the cover of issue 20.
Ian Kennedy has also worked for Battle Picture Weekly, Buddy, Blake's 7: A Marvel Monthly, Eagle Annual (drawing Dan Dare), the revived New Eagle (drawing the new Dan Dare), M.A.S.K, Victor Summer Special, Wildcat and Commando (he drew more than 1, 600 covers for Commando, a record unlikely to be equalled). His services have not yet been requested by any other crossword.
In 2017 Ian Kennedy was given an 'Outstanding Contribution to Comics' award by the Scottish Independent Comic Book Awards.
Ian died on 5th February 2022.
