Ronald George 'Ron' Smith (1920-2019) was a comics artist from Bournemouth, England, whose career lasted almost fifty years, beginning on Amalgamated Press's Knockout title in 1949 after a stint working for the Gaumont British animation studio. He produced numerous adventure strips for AP until in 1952 he was taken on by rival publishers D.C. Thomson to work on story papers Hotspur, Wizard and Adventure and later girls comics including Bunty and Judy.
Smith and his wife had been living in London, still a grim place for a family with a young child after World War II, but D.C. Thomson bought him a house outside Dundee (where they were based) and deducted the cost from his wages in instalments. Newspaper The Scotsman sent him undercover into South Africa in 1963 to locate anti-apartheid activist Jeannie Stewart for them, rightly guessing that his passport giving his profession as 'artist' rather than 'journalist' would make the authorities less suspicious.
In 1972, Smith left D.C. Thomson and moved to Surrey, becoming a freelance artist, though he continued to accept work from the publisher, including Nick Jolly and the superhero King Cobra for Hotspur, and Codename Warlord for Warlord. He also worked on Beezer, Dandy, Topper and Victor.
Smith began working for IPC's sci-fi anthology 2000 AD in 1979, drawing Judge Dredd. He was easily the artist most associated with the character at that time, working on epic storylines such as 'The Day the Law Died' and 'The Judge Child Quest', and co-creating such popular and memorable characters as Chopper, Otto Sump and Dave the Orangutan, as well as drawing the long-running Judge Dredd newspaper strip for the Daily Star. He also worked on Jinty.
Smith also worked on other 2000 AD series including Rogue Trooper, Survivor, the revived Harlem Heroes and Chronos Carnival, as well as on other IPC titles including Eagle, Wildcat, M.A.S.K and Toxic Crusaders, and some material for Marvel UK's Transformers title. in 1985, he created the superheroic Captain Caution for a British rail safety campaign. He eventually retired in the 1990s.