John Hicklenton

John Hicklenton (8 May 1967 – 19 March 2010), aka John Deadstock, was a British comics artist best known for his brutal, visceral work on flagship 2000 AD characters like Judge Dredd (in particular Heavy Metal Dredd) and Nemesis the Warlock during the Eighties and Nineties.

He had multiple sclerosis and recorded an award-winning documentary about living with the condition. On 19 March 2010, Hicklenton chose to end his life at Dignitas in Switzerland.

Comics
Hicklenton got his first break when he realised a friend at college was Ron Smith's daughter so he made her a Judge Dredd Christmas card.

However, regular work remained elusive until, on the advice of his mother, he phoned Pat Mills directly and their working relationship developed from there. He did other work with Mills including a strip in the now defunct CoolBeansWorld site. He also drew ZombieWorld (as John Deadstock) for Dark Horse Comics, who commissioned him because, as Mills has said "John is the ultimate horror artist ... I defy anyone to show me an artist whose monsters are more grotesque, whose zombies have a more ghastly look in their eye."

Here's Johnny
He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2000. Here's Johnny, a documentary about his illness produced by Animal Monday, launched at the Science Museum on 30 January 2008, followed by its world première at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin, Texas. It got its television debut on More4 on 17 February 2009. The film took over 5 years to make and documents his brave and often humorous battle against MS. The film was favourably reviewed by the British Medical Journal and in 2008 won an unprecedented two Grierson Awards for "Best Newcomer" and "Best Arts Documentary".

Later activities
He continued to draw, working on projects like Sand for Renegade Arts Entertainment, and also focused on bringing multiple sclerosis as a disease to the public's attention in order to help those with the condition to fight for better treatment and research from the medical community. In his final year he wrote and illustrated his graphic novel, 100 Months (published by Cutting Edge Press), which he finished the day before he died.

Death
On 23 March 2010 Pat Mills announced via the 2000 AD forums that Hicklenton had died the previous week following his battle with multiple sclerosis. Hicklenton had travelled to Switzerland and died on 19 March at Dignitas.