Artist, editor and writer Peter Richardson recalls the orign of Ian Gibson’s newspaper strip, “Annie Droid”, published in The Times between 1998 and 2000.
Launched in 1998, “Annie Droid” comprised five stories, opening with “Millennium Bug“, which ran for 26 episodes, followed by “A Glitch in Time” (also 26 episodes), “Time Waits on Noman” (30 episodes), “The Bablands” (24 episodes); ending with the truncated “Disposable Hero” (6 episodes), the strip curtailed by The Times.
A recent downthetubes posting on the auction of two pages of “Annie Droid” art took me back to my rather weird and somewhat discombobulating relationship with Ian Gibson. We had been introduced to each other via my then bank manager. A wonderfully wacky character who would bring his guitar over to our home, so that he and my wife could play some old time music together on fiddle and guitar while we discussed savings plans. At the time, I was still doing some work via my dodgy agent – on the condition that I invoiced the clients directly, thereby avoiding any risk of a repeat performance of his waltzing off with the whole of the fee rather than his 30 per cent.
It was my agent who contacted me with news of The Times launching a supplement which required a half page comic strip. I immediately thought that while I wouldn’t be able to commit full-time to such a project, it might be of interest to Ian. So, I called him up and he seemed interested. He came over and we discussed the project, I had created a robot assassin (unnamed) which had already got me a gig on IPC’s Sonic the Comic, and we reasoned if we could lighten her up a bit and make her more humorous, we might well be onto something.
I knocked together some designs of her, which Ian tweaked, and he came up with a wonderful supporting cast.
I soon realised that Ian wanted as little input from me as possible on “Annie Droid”. To put it bluntly, he was extremely underwhelmed by my drawing abilities and seemed to resent that I was able to make a comfortable living from my illustration. Within a few weeks I was made aware not only of my shortcomings, but also the shortcomings of Mac computers as opposed to Linux (which Ian held a particular affinity for), the shortcomings of the shrubs in our garden and even, the shortcomings of a collection of Buddy Holly songs that I lent him (apparently the production of the record wasn’t up to snuff!). I was beginning to get the impression that, as mega-talented as he undoubtably was, Ian had burnt a lot of bridges over the years and therefore was not occupying the same Olympian heights as many of his contemporaries.
So, although I was confined initially to colouring duties, I was more than happy to hand over all drawing, writing and production to Ian, I would simply scan the artwork, transfer it to Zip disk and mail it off to The Times (in those pre-internet days). Other than that, I did create the “Annie Droid” logos and the logos for each of the adventures and one or two supporting characters.
I was ultimately able to give Ian the full amount for each episode, paying him on receipt of the artwork, rather than having him wait for weeks for payment from The Times. I even cut my agent out of the equation to ensure that he received the full fee and his efforts were recompensed adequately.
In fairness to Ian, he applied himself with might and main to the task in hand, the pages looked fantastic and his use of colour was superb – the fact that it was applied with water and brush just added to the charm of the strip. His inventiveness was limitless and he even designed a game for inclusion in a holiday special – all at very short notice. In fact, I discovered that he was frequently relied upon as an emergency deadline buster when art was needed at short-notice back in the days when he was working full time for 2000AD. He literally had talent flowing from his fingertips!
However, we started to receive negative feedback from the editorial staff at Times newspapers – the bottom line was that they simply couldn’t make sense of the stories. Ian didn’t take this news at all well. Normally, if you are serious about making a living out of illustration, you learn to bite your bottom lip and deliver what the client wants. Despite repeated warnings, Ian dug his heels in and the net result was that the strip was terminated in the summer of 2000.
Knowing that there was now a gap which the editors were anxious to fill, I contacted another old chum, Paul Wright (son of legendary Carol Day artist David Wright) and gave him a nudge, as I knew he had a comic strip of his own which he was looking to launch.
“Ratman” appeared in the now vacant slot and was very successful – so much so, that Paul got a book deal with Jonathan Cape out of it. Unfortunately, as is often the case, The Times eventually decided that the supplement was surplus to requirements and cancelled it a year or two later.
I still have all the “Annie Droid” strips on my hard drive and although it was a decidedly bitter-sweet experience, I think that what Ian managed to create was rather wonderful. He was undoubtedly an exceptional talent.
Peter Richardson 10th April 2025
Peter Richardson is the editor of illustrators, the brilliant quarterly magazine published by Book Palace; and an illustrator, character designer, comic creator and writer whose work over several decades includes art on “Boffin Boy”, written by David Orme, work for titles such as Sonic the Comic, drawing “Streets of Rage”, Gothic noire, animation concept art, educational publishing art, and more
• Peter Richardson is online at peter-richardson-illustration.com
• In Memoriam: Comic Artist and Writer Ian Gibson – our tribute to the 2000AD artist, published in 2023
Annie Droid is ©️ Ian Gibson and his estate
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Features
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