You could argue that we all live in Jock's world now. We all live – in our heads at least – in a world of superpowered beings and robots with artificial intelligence greater than our own, a world of larger-than-life horror and heroism. The geeks have inherited the Earth and their culture is now our culture.

And how does that culture look? It looks a bit like a Jock illustration. It looks like a beautiful woman with see-through skin revealing her electronic circuitry. It looks like a woman in a cat suit leaping over a cityscape against a burning red sky. It looks like a granite-jawed futuristic cop looming over Mega City One.

From Judge Dredd to Ex Machina, from Batman and Daredevil to the next Star Wars movie, the artist has been shaping the way we see the world.

Today cosplayers and comic fans will descend on Glasgow for the last day of the MCM Scotland Comic Con and no doubt some of them will be wearing a T-shirt bearing an image the artist created. The surreal image of the Joker's face made up of tiny bats perhaps, one that has been copied onto T-shirts and even Converse trainers. "I could dress myself head to toe in that Joker image," the man called Jock laughs.

"It's a funny thing. When I did it I didn't realise it would have quite the reaction that it got. I thought it was OK, but I didn't think it was anything massively special. It's been reprinted on everything. I've seen maybe 50 tattoos, two full back pieces with that face, one on someone's stomach, from the nipples down to their waist."

Jock is the pen name of artist Mark Simpson. But only his family call him Mark. Everyone else, even his wife, calls him Jock. It's a childhood nickname that's stuck. He got it as a kid when everyone in Dorset and Devon made fun of the Scottish accent he'd inherited from living in East Kilbride until he was two years old.

"I had a Scottish accent until I was maybe 10 or 11," Simpson says. "One of my biggest regrets is I can't even put one on any more. It's just disappeared. At school I used to have the mickey taken out of me and when you're growing up you try to fit in. But now I wish I had a wee bit of a twang."

The name survived and now it's a brand, one celebrated in a new book entitled The Art Of Jock, a collection of images from his comic book work and concept design for some of the biggest films of the last few years.

The artist is taking a break from working on a new Batman comic and a new series of his horror comic Wytches to come to Glasgow to sign copies.

The book features more than 20 years of his work, which mixes up painterly realism with fantasy surrealism. He is a favourite of Buffy creator Joss Whedon, while director Guillermo del Toro collects his work. (It's a mutual admiration society. Among the work Simpson has created for the company Mondo is new poster art for del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth.)

Surprisingly, Simpson was not a great comic fan as a child. "I had a couple of Superman annuals and I used to read Buster and Whizzer & Chips. But it wasn't until I was 14 when I saw my first issue of 2000AD that I realised it was something that could be your job."

"2000AD felt very pure and very exciting. You could almost feel the thrill power, as Tharg would say, crackling off the page. As a kid it blew the back of my head off. It was massively exciting and inspiring."

That was in 1986. Less than 10 years later, in 1995, he hitch-hiked from Devon to Glasgow in one day to attend the Glasgow Comic Con. There he met 2000AD artist Glenn Fabry who told him to "f*** off and make some money."

Soon 2000AD got in touch and he was commissioned to draw a Judge Dredd poster. By the turn of the century he was a regular contributor to the comic.

His crisp, dramatic style lent itself to cover images and soon DC Comics came calling. Simpson worked on Batman and Catwoman and created the strip The Losers with writer Andy Diggle. When that was commissioned as a film he found himself drawn into the world of cinema concept design.

"I met Peter Berg who was going to be the writer-director of The Losers. He didn't end up directing it but we stayed in touch and whenever he was working on a new film I'd tend to do some artwork."

"I heard he was working on an adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune and I emailed him and said: 'If you need anything …' And he said: 'Do you want to do some concept work?' I did six weeks on that and right after that the Dredd film happened."

For Dredd, Simpson was asked to create a storyboard in comic book form. "It's my bread and butter," he says. "It's fairly easy for me to translate a script into imagery. But the way[the Dredd scriptwriter] Alex Garland and the production company responded took me by surprise. They were so impressed and it made me realise that in those years of drawing comics you have to be a cinematographer, a lighting man, an actor, a director. A whole visual language comes into play drawing a comic well."

He worked with Garland again on the writer's directorial debut Ex Machina. His were the original concept designs for the humanoid robot Ava (played by Alicia Vikander). To see Ava "come to life," he says, was thrilling.

"When I worked on it, it was just Alex and I. Nothing was greenlit, it wasn't in production. To go from that to then walking into the editing room probably a year and a half later I was just blown away. Double Negative the effects company brought so much to her design as well but clearly the work Alex and I had done was there."

It can be intimidating to find himself involved in these big-budget projects, he admits. "I've just finished nine months on Star Wars episode eight doing costume design up at Pinewood and I'd be lying if the first few weeks weren't slightly intimidating and nerve-wracking. 'Can I do this?' And the truth is, anyone can. All these amazing characters get drawn by someone. I've somehow been lucky enough to find myself in the position where in that moment it's me."

What is most surprising, he says, is how open the studios are to input. "I can't say anything about Star Wars, but it's pretty direct and very open. I found working on big budget films you're given a lot of free rein. You can try things out.

"I think when projects get to that size they understand how creatives work. Your job as a concept artist is to spark ideas."

Are audiences quite as free, though? Aren't we now drowning in sequels and superhero movies? Shouldn't we really grow out of adolescent power fantasies?

"I don't think it's fair to say you should grow out of something. I hate that phrase 'guilty pleasure.' If you still like something as an adult I don't see why you should feel you shouldn't."

That said, he admits nostalgia plays a part. "And nostalgia is an odd thing. I think if filmmakers pander too much to nostalgia that's an ever-decreasing loop. I don't know where it would lead us."

He cites the recent Netflix 1980s-flavoured sci-fi series Stranger Things, which drew heavily on the work of Steven Spielberg. "I liked it but it was so heavy on riffing on things we grew up with.

"The danger is it gets diluted and diluted and your reason for doing it isn't necessarily what's going to make the best story or the best film. I don't think that's the way to get the best stories personally.

"But then again I remember when I heard they were making Iron Man thinking: 'Yeah, we're done now. No-one's heard of Iron Man.' And it turned out to be great and one of the biggest Marvel hits."

Mark Simpson will be signing copies of The Art of Jock at A1 Comics, Glasgow, tomorrow evening at 6.30pm.