primarily Hotspur. Strips he drew included "The Cowboy Cricketer", and "Nick Jolly", a fantasy story about an eighteenth-century highwayman brought forward in time by well-meaning aliens to fight the sinister arch-villain Simon Death on his robotic, jet-powered horse Bess. He pushed for Thomsons to publish superhero strips, and was eventually given the go-ahead to create "King Cobra", who first appeared in Hotspur in 1976 and ran until 1980. Other titles he drew for include humour titles The Topper, The Dandy and The Beezer, and boys' adventure titles The Victor and Warlord, for which he drew "Drake of E-Boat Alley" and "Codename Warlord". He also did some uncredited work for Marvel Comics in the USA. 2000 AD In 1979 he began drawing "Judge Dredd" for IPC's 2000 AD, and during the early to mid-1980s, Ron Smith was by far the most prolific artist working on the character. Along with Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon he contributed to two of the character's most popular epic-length stories, "The Day the Law Died" and "The Judge Child". Amongst the more grotesque characters created by Smith was Otto Sump, Mega-City One's ugliest man, with Smith excelling himself in "The Otto Sump Ugly Clinic" depicting the horrific length citizens of the metropolis go to in making themselves look as physically repulsive as possible. Smith was responsible for the majority of ugly-spin-off stories including "Gunge", "Who Killed Pug Ugly?" about an ugly pop star and "The League of Fatties" about over-eaters gone to extremes (although the first Fatty story was actually drawn by McMahon in a previous Annual). The "Get Ugly!" 2000AD cover has been used at least twice as a T-shirt design. Other Dredd stories which featured Smith at the peak of his powers were the Pat Mills scripted "Blood of Satanus" where he more than effectively depicted a man's transformation into a blood-thirsty Tyrannosaurus rex, "The Hot-Dog Run" featuring a group of cadet Judges on a training mission in the Cursed Earth and "The Graveyard Shift", an extended narrative covering one typically crime-filled night in Mega-City One. Ron Smith also co-created the anti-hero Chopper in "Unamerican Graffiti" and Dave the orang-utan who became Mayor of Mega-City One. Smith also created some of the most memorable 2000 AD cover images, and produced a number of other strips produced for the comic, including "Rogue Trooper" and "Chronos Carnival". Smith went on to draw for other IPC titles,