Career
Sharp made his debut in the 1980s for the science fiction magazine 2000 AD after a year's apprenticeship with Don Lawrence, artist on the Dutch comic Storm. His works included many Judge Dredd stories, the origin of Finn, ABC Warriors series and one of Tharg's Future Shocks. He later moved to Marvel UK, for which he drew the mini-series Death's Head II. Thereafter he began working mainly in the United States on books as diverse as X-Men, Hulk, Spider-Man, Venom, Man-Thing (for Marvel Comics), Superman, Batman for DC Comics, and Spawn: The Dark Ages for Todd McFarlane.
Sharp has also worked on more mature themed books for Verotik, doing GOTH, Jaguar God and Frank Frazetta's "The Death Dealer". He briefly worked on a strip originated by Stan Winston called 'Realm of the Claw'. Later he co-created the Wildstorm series The Possessed with writer Geoff Johns, and a strip for Heavy Metal magazine, entitled "A-crazy-A" featuring Playboy model Tiffany Taylor – for which he provided the art and script. He was also the complete author of the short story "Winter Rose" in the Vampirella magazine.
In 2004 Sharp set up his own publishing company, Mam Tor Publishing, with his wife Christina McCormack, to publish the art book Sharpenings: the Art of Liam Sharp.
After the early success with this, Sharp saw a hole in the comic book market for alternative independent comics, and together with his wife Christina, designer Tom Muller and friend John Bamber set out to expand the company to start publishing more work. This saw the launch of the critically acclaimed and award -winning anthology Mam Tor: Event Horizon. Event Horizon featured art by Glenn Fabry, Brian Holguin, Ashley Wood, Simon Bisley, Alan Grant, Steve Niles, Emma Simcock-Tooth, Ali Powers, Kev Crossley, Lee Carter and Dave Kendall.
Sharp went on to illustrate the controversial and critically well-received DC Vertigo comic Testament written by Douglas Rushkoff, and the Countdown-related title, Lord Havok and The Extremists with writer Frank Tieri. After that he provided art for the biggest selling comic of 2008 in the US, the Wildstorm title based on the video game Gears of War.
Mam Tor and the advertising agency Mother produced a free sixteen page comic given away with Time Out for which Sharp was the art director, as well as providing the art for a story in the first two issues as well as the cover for the first issue.
In September 2008 he signed an exclusive deal with DC.
Sharp wrote the 2011 novel God Killers.
On 9 April 2011 Sharp was one of 62 comics creators who appeared at the IGN stage at the Kapow! convention in London to set two Guinness World Records, the Fastest Production of a Comic Book, and Most Contributors to a Comic Book. With Guinness officials on hand to monitor their progress, writer Mark Millar began work at 9am scripting a 20-page black and white Superior comic book, with Sharp and the other artists appearing on stage throughout the day to work on the pencils, inks, and lettering, including Dave Gibbons, Frank Quitely, John Romita Jr., Jock, Doug Braithwaite, Ian Churchill, Duncan Fegredo, Simon Furman, David Lafuente, John McCrea, Sean Phillips and Liam Sharp, who all drew a panel each, with regular Superior artist Leinil Yu creating the book's front cover. The book was completed in 11 hours, 19 minutes, and 38 seconds, and was published through Icon on 23 November 2011, with all royalties being donated to Yorkhill Children's Foundation.
In 2017 Derby Museum hosted a ten week long retrospective of Sharp's work, spanning his career from 2000ad to Wonder Woman. Sharp was awarded a wrought-Iron and mosaic star in the city's #MadeInDerby2 campaign, which can be found outside the Standing Order pub, near the front door of the house where Joseph Wright lived in Derby's cathedral quarter. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Derby University in 2022.
