Howdy parters, here’s this week’s prog cover by a low down varmint who goes by the name of Ben Willsher! The cover is for the wonderfully titled strip 'The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (and the Dead Left in His Wake) by Rob Williams, Dom Reardon and Peter Doherty.Here's Ben's roughs for the cover...
Ben said "When I was first asked to do the cover Matt had suggested "a moody, film-poster style shot of Ichabod, maybe his face in shadow, guns out."; and I took that concept and ran with it. I wanted it to feel like a cross between a film-poster and a photo from the period.SERVING SUGGESTION: Best viewed with Ennio Morricone soundtrack in the background!"
Here's the inks and that beautiful finished version again...
This is Willsher's fourth cover for the galaxy’s greatest, the other three being Strontium Dog ones. This includes last years’ scorching Alpha cover of prog 1658 shown below...
Ben said that Tharg had sent him this single Carlos Ezquerra panel as reference for the cover...
which led to these thumbnails...
Then to these wonderful inks, wow!
I love Ben’s work, he’s got such a great style and sense of design. Also he draws my (joint) favourite Lawmaster of any 2000AD artist (Jim Murray's take on the Lawmaster for Prog 2004's 'The Good Man' story was amazing!)Take a look at Willsher's below, it’s sleek angles are so much cooler that the horrible, awkward, boxy version of the 1970’s that we still see today!
Ben has a great site which features some fantastic and very diverse work. You’ll find it hereThere are some wonderful designs on there and the posters section is just brilliant! Here are a couple of my favourite images from the site, check it out!
I adore this...
A really cool Dredd piece...
Dredd and Alpha...
A beautiful Jonny Alpha that he did for fun. I'd love to see a cartoon series in this style...
Massive thanks to Ben for sending these wonderful images, I take the varmint comment back!
It's all GOOD stuff, and all worthy of comment. I mean no sleight to everything else here if I just say that I ADORE the Jonny Alpha piece: though I've never felt there was anything at all wrong with how JA has been drawn before, I'd say this is how I'd like to see him portrayed from now on. It's a clean & precise design, easily-identifiable through its' form rather than relying on line-work, and it's a quite distinctive take too. Splendid stuff! Hurrah for Mr Willsher!
ReplyDeleteMake a nice poster that would, Tharg!
ReplyDeleteThanks Pete, I've been trying where and when I'd seen that awesome Lawmaster design, Jim Murray, Prog 2004. Ben's design is also a cracker, and it's got round profile tyres! Good man. The Johnny Alpha design is a blinder and just begging to be turned into an animated series.
ReplyDelete