Gary Northfield is a British cartoonist, most famous for his Derek the Sheep comic strip published in DC Thomson's The Beano and BeanoMAX. Northfield graduated from Harrow College University of Westminster with a degree in Illustration in 1992. He joined the British small press comics community in 1999, creating various titles such as Great!, Little Box of Comics and Stupidmonsters. In 2002, he acquired the position of in-house illustrator at , where he worked for five years on projects such as Horrible Histories Magazine, Horrible Science Magazine and The Magical World of Roald Dahl.