Lobster Random is a character

Fictional character

A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...

 in the comic book 2000 AD. He was created by Simon Spurrier

Simon Spurrier

Simon Spurrier is a British comics writer, who has previously worked as a cook, a bookseller and an art director for the BBC.Getting his start in comics with the British small press, he went on to write his own series for 2000 AD, like Lobster Random, Bec & Kawl, The Simping Detective and Harry...

 and artist Carl Critchlow

Carl Critchlow

Carl Critchlow is a British fantasy and science fiction comic illustrator. He is perhaps best known for his character Thrud the Barbarian, which originally appeared in White Dwarf magazine, and for his work for the Lobster Random comics....

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Overview

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). Lob has also had his left arm amputated on three separate occasions (twice was this self-inflicted).

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

Thrud the Barbarian

Thrud the Barbarian is a comics character created by Carl Critchlow in 1981. Although Thrud himself is a parody of Conan the Barbarian, particularly as depicted in the Arnold Schwarzenegger films, inspiration for the character's adventures and adversaries has been drawn from several fantasy...

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Lobster Random debuted in an eight-part adventure in 2003, entitled "No Gain, No Pain." (progs 1342-1349). A hardback collection of this 45-page story was released by Rebellion

Rebellion Developments

Rebellion is a British computer games company, based in Oxford, who are most famous for the first Aliens vs. Predator computer game. It has published comic books since 2000 and launched its own book imprint, Abaddon Books, in 2006.-History:...

 for the European market in April 2005

2005 in comics

- January :* January 3: Will Eisner, creator of The Spirit, dies at age 87.-April:*April 13:**DC Comics announces the discontinuation of its Humanoids and 2000 A.D. titles....

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The second series, "Tooth and Claw," ran for nine episodes (with a double-length finale), from progs 1411-1419 (October to December 2004).

The third series was called "The Agony and the Ecstasy".

The Vort

Writing under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

G. Powell, Spurrier introduced a world called The Vort in its own standalone series. At the end of which it was revealed one of the main characters was a hideously scarred Lobster Random.

This was followed by the fourth series of Lobster Random "The Forget-Me-Knot" starting in prog 1601 in 2008.