Charlie Adlard is UK’s Comics Laureate. Lancaster University sponsors the Comics Laureate role to support spreading the word about the worth and value of comics in education. He was announced a new Comics Laureate in 2016 to take this role for 2017 and 2018. 

Charlie has been a “veteran” of the comic industry for over 20 years. He’s spent the majority of his time since 2004 working on The Walking Dead for which he has received many industry awards. In his time as a cartoonist he has worked on many other projects as far reaching as Mars Attacks, the X-Files, Judge Dredd, Savage, Batman, X-Men, Superman etc and creator-owned projects closer to his heart like Astronauts In Trouble, Codeflesh, Rock Bottom, and White Death.

He was born on the 4th August 1966 in the town of Shrewsbury, England and, having moved away to study film and video at art college, eventually moved back and still resides there today. Before moving back to Shrewsbury, he spent a brief stint in London, finding out that the BA he’d earned at art college was pretty useless in getting a job in the film industry, and after failing to set the world alight playing the drums in a rock band, eventually settled on the “third” option, which was comics. An option he finally realised should have been number one right from the beginning.

After spending two years back in Shrewsbury, working on a portfolio, he eventually found his first work at the Judge Dredd Megazine in 1992 and hasn’t looked back since.

The new Comics Laureate was announced: congratulations Hannah Berry!