# John Smith (comics writer)

John Smith (born 1967) is a British comic book writer best known for his work on the weekly anthology 2000 AD and its spin-off title Crisis, particularly the Indigo Prime, Devlin Waugh and New Statesmen serials.

## Career

Smith's earliest published work appeared in the DC Thomson's science fiction comic Starblazer in the mid-1980s. Soon after, he became a regular contributor for 2000 AD and followed up with the political superhero serial New Statesmen for 2000 AD's spin-off title Crisis.
Many of Smith's series created for 2000 AD shared the same continuity under the umbrella of Indigo Prime, a multi-dimensional organisation that policed reality, recruiting recently dead people as its agents. The original run of Indigo Prime stories ended with "Killing Time", in which agents Winwood and Cord pursued a demon that had hitched a ride on a Victorian time machine, one of the legitimate passengers of which turned out to be Jack the Ripper. Other contributions to 2000 AD include Revere, a post-apocalyptic occult story with art by Simon Harrison, and Firekind, an anthropological science fiction story involving alien cultures and dragons, illustrated by Paul Marshall. Perhaps the best-known character created by Smith is Devlin Waugh, a flamboyantly gay exorcist, assassin, and vampire working for the Vatican of the future, co-created with artist Sean Phillips and published in 2000 AD's sister title Judge Dredd Megazine. In addition to his own creations, Smith has also contributed stories for the long-running serials Rogue Trooper and Judge Dredd.
Smith has also briefly worked in the American market. For DC Comics, he wrote an issue of Hellblazer and an 8-part mini-series Scarab, which began life as a revamp of Doctor Fate. In the early 2000s, Smith wrote a run of Vampirella comics for Harris.

## The Smithiverse

Examples of John Smith's cross-referencing of characters throughout his oeuvre include:
* Renegade Indigo Prime agents Fervent and Lobe originally appeared in Tyranny Rex. Although, at that point, Indigo Prime had only appeared in a single Future Shocks installment, "A Change of Scenery", Smith stated he always considered the stories taking place in the same world: "They were both part of the same tailor-made Universe. That was intended right from the start."
* Characters from Pussyfoot 5 originally appeared in Devlin Waugh.
* The character Mr. Cheetl originally appeared in Firekind, while Mr. Vathek, another member of the Chadarisq-Khan species, appears in Pussyfoot 5.
* Two members of Indigo Prime, Dazzler and Creed, appear in Scarab #7. "By that time I was probably just so sick of the thing I thought – 'Fuck it. I'll rip off my own story' – and stuck in Indigo Prime as a lazy way out."
* Winwood and Cord appear in the last few pages of Dead Eyes, uploading Danny's soul into a cloned body after the human race in his home universe (Reality 377) are killed.

## Style and influences

Smith's work, told in an elliptic, fractured narrative style reminiscent of Iain Sinclair or the cut-up technique of William S. Burroughs, is characterised by intricate, sometimes obscure plots and an interest in taboos and the occult.
Other notable influences include Michael Moorcock, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alan Moore and Noël Coward.