John Higgins was born in Walton, Liverpool. After leaving school when he was 15, he joined the army and, on leaving, spent some time in a commune in Wiltshire. He returned to Liverpool and, in 1971, resumed his studies at Wallasey College of Art. There, in 1974 he qualified in technical illustration, which allowed him to get a job as a medical illustrator at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. After getting his first comic book art published in Brainstorm in 1975, he drew the cover for 2000 AD No. 43 in 1977 and decided to go freelance in 1978, with an eye on becoming a comic artist. In 1981 he started getting regular work at 2000 AD, one of his early projects being the art for a Tharg's Future Shocks by Alan Moore, as well as doing covers for Marvel UK. After this he worked steadily at 2000 AD and joined the British Invasion in the mid-eighties—notably doing the colouring on Moore's Watchmen and , a job he got through colouring Steve Dillon's art on Moore's ABC Warriors story. This led to more work inthe American market, although he has kept working on British titles too especially with Judge Dredd over 20 years. He provided the art for Greysuit with Pat Mills, as well as working with Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti on and Jonah Hex No. 28. Higgins is also a writer. He wrote and drew his first Future Shock at 2000 AD and did the same for Razorjack, a comic book mini-series from Com.x, which was reprinted in 2009. Higgins has worked in a number of different areas providing artwork for animation, film and book covers like The Cabinet of Light and The Morgaine Stories. In 2012, Higgins worked on the Before Watchmen project, drawing the serialised feature "Curse of the Crimson Corsair" which was initially written by Len Wein. Higgins later became the writer of the feature as well. In 2016 he provided the art for six stamps commemorating the Great Fire of London, illustrating them in the style of a comic strip. In 2017 a collection of his artwork was exhibited at the Victoria Gallery & Museum in Liverpool, in an exhibition called Beyond Dredd & Watchmen: The Art of John Higgins.
