London Film and Comic Con (LFCC) has announced its second annual round of inductees into its new Hall of Fame, naming former DC Vertigo editor Shelly Bond; artist Simon Bisley; cartoonist Lew Stringer; and former UK children’s TV presenter Peter Purves. They were announced over the course of last weekend’s (July 5 to 7) LFCC event in the UK.
Shelly Bond is an American comics editor best known for two decades working at DC’s landmark Vertigo imprint, having started out as an assistant editor to Vertigo founder Karen Berger — after a brief tenure at Comico. She would help oversee all of the major titles that the once-influential line put out including The Sandman, Hellblazer, Shade, the Changing Man, Fables, and more. She was promoted to executive editor and vice president of Vertigo Comics, after Berger’s departure, in 2013 and saw the line through to its untimely demise in 2016. Remaining an editor at large, she briefly spearheaded her own imprint at IDW – Black Crown – before shifts at the company saw it shuttered in 2019. With her husband Philip Bond, they co-founded their own publisher Off Register, and Bond has produced crowdfunded graphic guides and autobiographies (Filth & Grammar and Fast Times in Comic Book Editing) utilising her years of experience in the industry.
Simon Bisley is a multi-award winning British artist who has left an indelible mark on the British industry – most notably for his game-changing fully painted art on the Pat Mills-written (and co-created) Sláine epic The Horned God in the pages of 2000 AD between 1989 and 1990, which inspired generations of artists and drove a boom in fully painted comics work. In the US he had a hand in the revival of Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen created DC comics character Lobo. Bisley’s first comics job was at 2000 AD in 1987, reportedly after sending in a pin up of a robot holding a baby while still in art school. The image spurred writer Pat Mills to revive the fan favourite ABC Warriors series after almost a decade in stasis. The first series with Bisley on art, The Black Hole, was published the following year. The first time the robot freedom fighters had been seen in the comic since a year-long series of appearances 1979, they would become a regular feature in modern 2000 AD with different star artist interpretations until Mills split from the comic in the late 2010s.
Lew Stringer is a cartoonist whose been working in the UK industry since 1983, having cut his teeth in the fanzine era of the late 1970s. As an artist and script writer he has worked on some of Britain’s most beloved comics magazines including the Beano, Dandy, Oink!, Buster, Sonic the Comic, Viz, and Doctor Who Magazine. His first job in the UK industry was at Marvel’s short-lived UK branch where he would work as an art assistant to cartoonist Mike Higgs, after an introduction by Alan Moore and the sale of his first cartoon (which would appear in an issue of The Daredevils). His creations include Brickman, Combat Colin, Tom Thug, Derek the Troll, and many more.
Peter Purves might be better known to international audiences for a brief acting role in Doctor Who during the William Hartnell era in the 1960s. To British audiences, he may be better known for a decade long run (1967-1978) as a TV presenter on the BBC’s beloved children’s magazine programme Blue Peter, on which he would also engage in comics advocacy. Since 2007, Purves has returned to the world of Doctor Who via Big Finish audio productions revisiting classic eras.
The LFCC Hall of Fame debuted in 2023 as part of a shake up of the comics side of the event. Hall of Fame inductees largely come from the comics space, with an additional spot for a media personality. It’s first inductees were US comics writer Dan Slott; British artist Brian Bolland; cartoonist and satirist Hunt Emerson; and actor/writer Claudia Christian.
Founded in 2004, London Film and Comic Con is a twice-yearly comics and pop culture event organised by events company Showmasters Ltd. It takes place in Kensington’s Olympia Exhibition Centre, West London.
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