Ugly of temper and with a pair of claws surgically grafted onto his sides, Lobster Random was a genetically modified soldier, adapted to never need sleep or to feel pain.

After being discharged from the military he found his talents lay in the art of torture, and hired out his services for any client who required information and wasn't squeamish about the methods employed to get it.

"Lob" is a cranky old bald man with two huge lobster claws emerging from his back, and is part of a long tradition in 2000 AD giving their protagonists a distinctive visual appearance at odds with the comic book stereotype of square-jawed, good-looking action heroes.

Lob's character is portrayed as extremely grumpy, cynical and sometimes psychotic (all resulting from both decades without sleep and his experiences during the time after his discharge from the military).

The art, by Carl Critchlow, represented a departure from his older painted style and instead used a computer-based line drawing technique that he developed in his self-published Thrud the Barbarian.