A career in comics before the Folly
Lee Sullivan came to Rivers of London with years of comics and illustration work behind him. A professional convention biography lists credits including Transformers, Doctor Who Magazine, RoboCop, Judge Dredd and 2000 AD. These are titles with different readerships and different visual demands. A continuing licensed character has to be recognisable, but an artist still has to stage action, place characters in a world and make the page readable. That combination of continuity and invention is good context for the later job of drawing Peter Grant and the Folly.
Sullivan's own portfolio page for RoboCop discusses a two-year run on that comic and names writers with whom he worked. His Rivers portfolio does something similarly valuable for the fan: it names stories and credits the writing and colouring around his art. A portfolio is not a substitute for an issue's full indicia, but it gives us the creator's direct account of the scope of the run. Readers curious about the actual images should visit it; this page describes work, rather than reproducing panels without permission.
The Doctor Who connection is especially relevant to visitors who know Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel from that programme. Sullivan's convention biography records Doctor Who Magazine strips and other related illustration. That does not make every Doctor Who project the same collaboration: screenwriting, script editing and comics art are distinct roles. The common franchise provides a way to see three creators crossing media at different times. Following individual credits is more revealing than treating a shared title as proof that everybody worked on a particular story together.
From Body Work to Water Weed
Sullivan dates the beginning of his Titan Rivers work to 2015 and lists the stories he drew: Body Work, Night Witch, Black Mould, Detective Stories, Cry Fox and Water Weed. These form the first six collected cases in our graphic-novel index. That is an unusually useful continuous run for a reader interested in how a prose world acquires a consistent visual presence. His page also says he drew the first issue of The Fey and the Furious. We describe that later return at issue level, since it would overstate the credit to imply that he drew every page of that entire collected volume.
The opening title, Body Work, is a natural starting place. Titan's series records let readers follow its issues and the collected edition. The early comics are stories in the world of the novels, rather than a panel-by-panel transcription of the first prose book. Their art has to give a shape to the police setting, the uncanny disruption and the space between them. Our view is that a stable artist across the opening sequence helps readers learn that visual vocabulary. This is critical interpretation; the documented fact is the sequence of credits.
Continuity in an art run is more subtle than making every face identical from issue to issue. Readers recognise a setting through relative scale, recurring objects, costume, posture and how a page makes room for a reaction. The fictional London must accommodate procedural scenes and impossible events without either losing its weight. These are questions to take into the books, not claims that Sullivan followed a particular private design rule. Try looking at how long a scene holds on a character, where an establishing view is used, and when a new panel changes what you know. A comic is read through those decisions as much as through the words in balloons.
The later Water Weed gives a useful point of comparison with the start of the run. By then a reader has spent several volumes with the drawn version of this world. The shift from one case to another can rely on that familiarity even as each story needs its own atmosphere. Our index names art teams separately for later volumes because an anthology-like publishing history should not be presented as if one person drew everything under a series banner. Sullivan's sustained first-six run is important precisely because it has a beginning and an end that can be traced in his portfolio and the publisher's catalogue.
A page made by several people
Sullivan's portfolio identifies Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel as the scriptwriters of the early stories and names colourists Luis Guerrero and later Paulina Vassiliva. That acknowledgement is worth preserving. Colour can distinguish a scene's light and mood; lettering guides the path from one speech balloon to the next; editorial and production work help turn original pages into an issue and then a book. The exact credits vary by story and edition, so the volume record remains the place to settle a particular attribution. The presence of a named artist never erases the rest of the team.
A novel gives readers words from which to construct their own picture. A comic offers a concrete image while leaving room for the reader to infer movement between panels and meaning beneath an expression. That difference explains why Sullivan's contribution cannot be summed up as “pictures for the books.” The stories are original comics and the images are part of their storytelling. The writer and artist may work toward the same fictional continuity, yet each page has choices that belong to the medium. We do not claim access to sketches, rejected layouts or instructions passed between collaborators; the published pages and the attributed roles provide enough to make the creative contribution visible.
The portrait at the top of this page identifies the real artist. It should not be confused with the fan illustrations used for fictional characters elsewhere on this site. The image credit links to its source and licence. Likewise, this profile's external links direct readers to Sullivan's own art site and to publisher records rather than displaying unlicensed scans of comic panels. That respects the distinction between pointing to someone's professional work and reproducing it. Anyone hoping to see the actual drawings should follow the portfolio or open a credited issue or volume.
How to follow the credit
Start with Sullivan's Rivers gallery and notes, then open the guide's volumes alongside Titan's issue sequence. Compare an issue credit with the collection you own. Use our creator index to see the credited writers and artists without confusing a line-wide roster with a volume's actual team. If your interest is in his longer career, the RoboCop portfolio page and convention biography provide two grounded routes outward.
For this guide, the achievement is tangible: a single artist's work carried the first six collected stories of a new comics branch of a much-loved prose universe, and he returned for a later issue. It is possible to appreciate that continuity while recognising changing teams, writers and colourists. Fans may differ about their favourite visual interpretation; a transparent record of who drew what gives that conversation a fair starting point. Our comments about page reading are interpretation. The named titles and role boundaries are drawn from Sullivan's portfolio and publisher listings.
See the work and credits
Sources: Lee Sullivan's own portfolio, Titan Comics' catalogue and the convention biography. Page-reading observations are this guide's interpretation. Last reviewed 27 September 2026.
