Nigel Dobbyn was a comic artist, illustrator and designer, who lived in Guisborough. Born in Oxford, he grew up reading his older brother’s comics and discovering new comic characters and stories with his friends at school. He gained an engineering degree but, after submitting some of his drawings to different publications, quickly developed a successful career in writing and drawing for comics.
Nigel Dobbyn created work for a number of famous publications including 2000AD, The Beano, Spiderman and Friends and Sonic the Comic. He also created illustrations for books by well-known authors such as Anthony Horowitz‘s Power of Five: Nightrise graphic novel.
Nigel gained a reputation as a very versatile artist, adapting to suit the different comics he worked on, he also had his own distinctive style. 2000AD described his work “…his strong storytelling and clear lines give all of his work a solidity and openness that was often at odds with the prevailing fashions in comic art at the time. His colour work was bold and striking but also grounded and earthy.”
More recently, Dobbyn created graphic panels for Kirkleatham Museum and was the writer and artist behind the Museum’s Saxon Princess comic strip. Here, he used his instantly accessible style to bring the past to life through engaging characters, dialogue and storytelling. Through the eyes of two young dragons, called Sparky and Smoky, we find out about the extraordinary discovery of a Saxon burial site at Loftus, between 2005 – 2007, explore life in Saxon times and begin to understand why the discovery was so important.
Find out more about Nigel Dobbyn’s work here
Find out more about the Early Settlers in the Tees Valley and the Saxon Princess here
Our Tees Valley Museums Local Art and Artists: Activities is available to download here
Follow one of the adventures of Nigel Dobbyn’s Saxon Princess through our pages below:
Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6
Image courtesy of Redcar and Cleveland Council (Kirkleatham Museum)