Lee Sullivan

Lee Sullivan is an illustrator and comic artist whose association with Doctor Who has waxed and waned since his first work for Doctor Who Magazine in the late 1980s. Generally, though, his work on Doctor Who comics has been confined to a few stories in the Seventh Doctor's run, the Radio Times strips that introduced the comic version of the Eighth Doctor, and the Battles in Time comic strips involving the Tenth Doctor. He's also provided illustrations that served as the backgrounds for the webcasts, Shada, Real Time and Death Comes to Time. Furthermore, he's been a prolific provider of comic previews of Big Finish audios for Doctor Who Magazine.

Outside Doctor Who, Sullivan amassed a reasonably large resumé of comic work in the British comics industry, particularly during the 1990s. However, he had, by his own admission, a considerable — and unwanted — lack of work in the industry during the latter part of that decade and the first half of the 2000s. Moreover, unlike most prominent Doctor Who Magazine artists, he never really "cracked" the American market to any significant degree — though it's unclear whether he has ever harboured ambitions in this direction.

Early career
Sullivan trained as a wildlife and technical illustrator at Barnfield College. He went on to work as a graphic artist for British Aerospace and spent some time in the advertising industry working freelance.

In 1988. with John Higgins' support and encouragement, he entered the world of comic books. He began with cover artwork for Marvel UK's Transformers comic title. Interior work for the Transformers 1989 Annual and other Transformers publications swiftly followed. Even at this early stage of his career, he displayed an affinity for drawing the Daleks, since he once illustrated a 1989 Transformers in such a way as to imply that Octus could change into a Dalek.

Soon, he began to build a comic resumé which included titles like Thundercats, Death's Head, RoboCop, Wildcards, William Shatner's TekWorld, 2000AD (Judge Dredd, Mercy Heights, Futureshocks, Vector 13), Action Man, and Thunderbirds.

Doctor Who comics work
Sullivan's first Doctor Who comic strip was Planet of the Dead, which gave him the opportunity to draw all the Doctors that existed at that time. While drawing this strip, he came to hold the opinion that the Second Doctor was his favourite to draw. Thematically, however, he is strongly associated with stories involving the Daleks. He regards Nemesis of the Daleks as his favourite Doctor Who strip. Children of the Revolution, a sequel to Evil of the Daleks, gave him the opportunity to combine his love of Daleks with his enjoyment of the Second Doctor, who appears in flashbacks. His long-term artistic study of the Daleks has given him some authority to opine on what makes them work. He is an avid admirer of the TV Century 21 work, and has claimed a dislike for Davros, at least as seen in the original series. "...this lazy introduction of one-character-to-portray-a-whole-race is exactly what I don’t like in SF. It emasculated the Daleks as an independent force; downgraded them to Ogron status. Remembrance redressed the balance a bit, but if [Davros] never tuns up again I’ll be pleased. I’m a Yarvelling and Zolfian man."

- Sullivan speaking before the 2005 relaunch of Doctor Who

Sullivan's expertise with drawing Daleks eventually led him to an unusual assignment based on the 1960s Dalek movies. His artwork on DWMS: Daleks Versus the Martians remains the only original story to use characters and situations from that movie duology. He also has a couple of other "firsts" under his belt. He drew the comic strip debut of the Eighth Doctor. His partnership with writer Gary Russell in the Radio Times beat out Doctor Who Magazine's Eighth Doctor debut by a wide margin. Much later, his view of Donna Noble hit newsstands narrowly before her DWM debut.

Other information
Sullivan is a saxophonist who regularly tours the UK as part of a Roxy Music tribute band called "Roxy Magic".

BBCi Webcasts and audio releases

 * Death Comes to Time (from FictionLab)
 * Real Time
 * Shada

Sixth Doctor comic strip stories

 * "...Up Above the Gods..."

Seventh Doctor comic strip stories

 * Planet of the Dead
 * Nemesis of the Daleks
 * Darkness Falling
 * Distractions
 * The Mark of Mandragora
 * The Chameleon Factor
 * Emperor of the Daleks!
 * The Last Word

Eighth Doctor comic strip stories

 * Children of the Revolution

Doctor Who Magazine Covers

 * Doctor Who Magazine 182
 * Doctor Who Magazine 183
 * Doctor Who Magazine Summer Special 1991

Other Doctor Who Magazine Material
Contribution to this collected volume included some additional content, namely schematics for the Kill Wagon, Dalek Death Wheel (MK 1)and Anti-Dalek Weapon: Chain Sword with John Freeman assisting with the text.
 * Metamorphosis (Comic Strip in Doctor Who Yearbook 1993)
 * Doctor Who Magazine Special 1979-1989New B&W artwork of the Seventh Doctor and Ace against the Daleks.
 * Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer (graphic novel)
 * Daleks Versus the Martians
 * Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1991 included ‘The Alien Exclusive Blueprints’ (A look at the Whomobile) by Lee Sullivan

Radio Times - Eighth Doctor comic strip stories

 * Dreadnought (10 episodes)
 * Descendance (10 episodes)
 * Ascendance (10 episodes)
 * Perceptions (10 episodes)
 * Coda (2 episodes)

BBC Doctor Who Website front pages

 * The Empty Child
 * The Doctor Dances

Doctor Who: Battles in Time
(see also Doctor Who: Battles in Time comic strip stories for gallery)

Other Doctor Who Material

 * Doctor Who Calender 1993
 * Cover artwork for Virgin Publishing's NA: Love and War by Paul Cornell.
 * Lee Sullivan also assisted Peter Darvill-Evans and Paul Cornell to 'visually design' the Bernice Summerfield character.
 * Frontispiece artwork for Telos Publishing's Doctor Who novella, Citadel of Dreams.
 * Developing a new comic strip Doctor for an abandoned SF project.