Stokes got into the comics industry thanks to his brother, George Stokes, who already worked for IPC. He lived in
India until the age of 8 or 9, and when he came to England the first comic work he saw was that of his brother and colleagues, as well the comic
Eagle, which launched around the same time. This sparked a lifelong interest in comics and he moved from drawing comics in his spare time at school and trying not to draw comics at art school (where his interest was discouraged), to doing it professionally, starting in the early 1960s. He worked, largely uncredited (as was the practice at the time), for
IPC for 16 years where, among other things, he drew all 360 installments of
Fishboy as well as a number of other
Buster strips. From 1964 to 1967, he also drew the strip
Britain in Chains (later editions were entitled
The Battle for Britain) for
Lion; the strip was later reprinted (with a truncated ending) in
Smash! between 1969 and 1971. For
Smash! in 1969–1970, Stokes drew the adventure strip
Rebbels on the Run, about three young brothers who run away from an orphanage to avoid being split up. As the strip evolved into more of a science fiction story, it was retitled
The Rebbel Robot after a few months. In the late seventies, he was recruited by
Dez Skinn, initially on
The House of Hammer, and then for
Marvel UK, on such titles as
Black Knight,
The Transformers and
Doctor Who. In the early to mid-eighties he also worked for other British comics such as
Warrior and
2000 AD. Following the success of the
British Invasion he got more work with
DC Comics and Marvel in the early-to-mid 1990s. In more recent years he has done inking work for DC's
imprint Vertigo on
The Invisibles with
Grant Morrison, who he had worked with previously at Marvel and
2000 AD. He has also returned to
2000 AD after a 15-year hiatus to do more inking work. Influences include
Frank Hampson and
Frank Bellamy. ==Bibliography==