Steven Cook

His other notable work outside of the comics industry includes three album sleeves for Asian Dub Foundation (Tank, Time Freeze, A History of Now), William Orbit (Strange Cargo III) and Last Man Standing False Starts & Broken Promises, which was selected in September 2008 by Peter Saville and Dylan Jones for the London exhibition 'SPIN – The Art of Record Design'.

He initially worked as a display artist for leading department stores before taking on the role of stylist for Carlton Photographic Studios in London where he realised his passion for photography.

This was followed by a stint in a small advertising agency in Surrey as photographer and graphic designer, working on ads and concert programmes for musicians Gary Numan and The Boomtown Rats.

A chance meeting with British photographer Bruce Fleming gave Cook the opportunity to assist and learn from this respected artist, best known for his classic images of Jimi Hendrix in the 60s.

Having previously styled mannequins during his window display period, Cook set about re-defining doll photography by shooting outdoors on-location, thereby pre-empting the "Blythe" series by 14 years.

Diametrically opposed to this, Cook was back on the dolls again producing elegantly styled and manipulated photographs for Egmont's Barbie Magazine to which he contributed more than 60 covers.

Continuing as art director for 2000 AD until 2001 he consistently updated the look of the title commissioning Rian Hughes to design several exclusive fonts, which alongside Cook's graphic style gave it a unique identity on the newsstands.

Roy Voss 2002 *[6] "Any computer aid can be misused and Photoshop's facilities for manipulation of images have led to some less-than-stunning results, Cook's work is a lesson in how it should be done" Tony Mitchell 1999 Fetish – Masterpieces of Erotic Fantasy Photography

"Cook was always well ahead of any coming trend, and this Photoshop cover is a classic by him. Long before Bollywood crossed over into the mainstream of British pop culture, Cook pushed to do this cover and the results were stunning. Different from our usual covers, but still 2000 AD." David Bishop 2007 * [ 3 ]