Randolph Holton Holmes was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

  artist and illustrator probably best known for his work in underground comix

Underground comix

Underground comix are small press or self-published comic books which are often socially relevant or satirical in nature. They differ from mainstream comics in depicting content forbidden to mainstream publications by the Comics Code Authority, including explicit drug use, sexuality and violence...

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Born in Truro, Nova Scotia

Truro, Nova Scotia

-Education:Truro has one high school, Cobequid Educational Centre. Post-secondary options include a campus of the Nova Scotia Community College, as well as the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in the neighboring town of Bible Hill.- Sports :...

, he grew up in Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

. As a teenager Holmes taught himself to draw by copying comic-strip artists Wally Wood

Wally Wood

Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...

 and Will Eisner

Will Eisner

William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...

. Harvey Kurtzman

Harvey Kurtzman

Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic books and magazines. Kurtzman often signed his name H. Kurtz, followed by a stick figure Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924, Brooklyn, New York – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and the editor of several comic...

 later published two of his drawings in Help!

Help! (magazine)

Help! was an American magazine published by James Warren. It wasHarvey Kurtzman's longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad and EC Publications, and during its five years of operation it was always chronically underfunded, yet innovative...

He married young and worked briefly as a sign painter. Holmes moved to Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

 in 1969 and found work as an illustrator at The Georgia Straight

The Georgia Straight

The Georgia Straight is a free Canadian weekly news and entertainment newspaper published in Vancouver, British Columbia, by the Vancouver Free Press Publishing Corp...

, a weekly underground tabloid. He drew numerous covers for the publication and created the Harold Hedd comic strip, which ran in the paper during the early 1970s. Described by writer Dana Larsen as Holmes's "most well known cartoon creation", the one-page strip was collected in The Collected Adventures of Harold Hedd in 1972, with a smaller sized second volume in 1973.

Holmes's work appeared in underground comics titles such as White Lunch Comix (Georgia Straight), # 1 1972, All Canadian Beaver Comics (Georgia Straight), # 1 1973, Slow Death Comics (Last Gasp), # 5 1973, # 6 1974 and Fog City Comics (Stampart), # 1 1977, #2 1978, #3 1979 and Snarf (Kitchen Sink), # 11 1986. He illustrated three horror story scripts for Pacific Comics

Pacific Comics

Pacific Comics was an independent comic book publisher that flourished from 1981-1984. It was also a chain of comics shops and a distributor. It began out of a San Diego, California, comic book shop owned by brothers Bill and Steve Schanes...

 (Twisted Tales

Twisted Tales

Twisted Tales was a horror comics anthology published by Pacific Comics and, later, Eclipse Comics, in the early 1980s. The title was edited by Bruce Jones and April Campbell.-Publication history:...

# 2 , # 5 1983 and Alien Worlds

Alien Worlds

Alien Worlds was a science fiction anthology comic book published by Pacific Comics and, later, Eclipse Comics, in the early 1980s. The title was edited by Bruce Jones and April Campbell.-Publication history:...

# 8 1984). Hitler's Cocaine was Holmes's longest published story (26, 30 p.), published by Kitchen Sink

Kitchen Sink Press

Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publishing company founded by Denis Kitchen in 1970. Kitchen owned and operated Kitchen Sink Press until 1999. Kitchen Sink Press was a pioneering publisher of underground comics, and was also responsible for numerous republications of classic comic strips in...

 in 1984.

In 1982, Holmes and his second wife Martha left Vancouver and moved to Lasqueti Island

Lasqueti Island

Lasqueti Island is an island off the east coast of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Georgia, Powell River Regional District, British Columbia, Canada. A passenger-only ferry connects the island to the community of French Creek, near Parksville...

. In his last years he concentrated on his meticulous surrealistic oil painting

Oil painting

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...

. Rand Holmes died at Nanaimo, BC, waiting for his chemotherapy

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the treatment of cancer with an antineoplastic drug or with a combination of such drugs into a standardized treatment regimen....

 treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma

Hodgkin's lymphoma

Hodgkin's lymphoma, previously known as Hodgkin's disease, is a type of lymphoma, which is a cancer originating from white blood cells called lymphocytes...

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In 2005, Holmes was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame.