Neil Roberts - (NOT AT ALL) Like a Bat Out Hell!

SHAKARA!!! Oh man, I love this fantastic cover by Neil Roberts! Furthermore, I freaking love ALL his prelims too, I genuinely couldn't choose between them, take a look:




Neil is well known on this blog for throwing himself into his work, be it pulling gangster poses in his dressing gown or gurning like a loony for a Dirty Frank cover, so I was looking forward to seeing him posing on a child's scooter or tricycle for this, unfortunately it's not to be. Neil says "No silly pics of me pulling daft faces this time, this was a nice quick one with little need for gurning!" I'm so disappointed!

The design team at the Nerve Centre obviously saw something in Neil's work that (he vehemently insists) wasn't there - an homage to erm... classic Meatloaf Album 'Bat Out Of Hell.'


Neil insists "One thing, I wasn't consciously going for a Bat Out Of Hell thing - and I can totally see the similarities now - it was purely coincidence,I just wanted to make a kick-ass Skakara cover!"

Like any sane human being, Neil is obviously a fan of Shakara co-creator Henry Flint, so doing this cover was a real treat for him, he says "Going for the whole Henry Flint-black-white and red vibe was the best thing about doing this cover, making it more graphic than my normal work."


Neil has asked me to, quote "Find a pic of ''Bat out of Hell" and say I WAS IN NO WAY INSPIRED by the image - that'd be great. Still, it's nice to be associated with a great piece of pop (or should that be soft-rock) art ;)" Personally I think he's protesting a little too much!


One artist who obviously was inspired by the album was Jason Brashill in this cracking cover for the Judge Dredd Mega-special of 1996. The issue ran a feature of classic album covers starring 2000AD characters and Jason's obviously made the cover.

Thanks to Neil for sending the images, be sure to check out his site and blog, his work is brilliant!

Hey you!

A sight to chill you to your marrow, a pissed off looking Dredd pointing squarely at YOU! This is the cover of Prog 1723 by the wonderful Nick Percival. Over to the man himself to tell us more...

"It was a simple brief from Mr.Tharg for the cover art. Nice, big Dredd, pointing at the reader with his gun raised, blah, blah. Nothing dynamic - just a clear, solid Dredd which is always cool to do. You can't really hide anything or get away with any short cuts on an image like this, so it all has to be pretty spot on and I guess it's the kind of image that's been done a number of times before but it was good to paint the grumpy old bastard one more time..."

And spot on it is too, below are the roughs...

Followed by the bloody beautiful digital paints, awesome!

Thanks to Nick for sending this - I know I keep banging on about it but if you haven't already, please try to read his Legends: The Enchanted graphic novel - it's excellent and cheap as chips on the comixology app!

See more of Nick's excellent work on my blog here and at his Deviantart page here.

Steve Ellis - "Go Team Uriel!"

Catching up a bit, here's the cover painting of Prog 1720 by Steve Ellis. The cover features Necrophim's Uriel leading his hellish horde on the battlefields of Hades.

Steve is a very accomplished artist having worked for Marvel, DC, Wizards of the Coast and a host of other organisations so it's great to see him working for Tharg. Lets hope there's more to come.

You can visit Steve's site here.

Mean Gene!

Scaaaary! Here's Simon Davis' fantastic take on Gene the Hackman from the brilliant strip Kingdom. Get whet!

Podcasting!

Rich 'Blue Meanie' McAuliffe from the brilliant Everything Comes Back To 2000AD podcast asked me to co-present (pretentious, moi?) a special show with him celebrating our top 10 covers of last year.

This is the specially designed podcast companion post where you can actually see the covers we're drunkenly trying to describe with links to how each was made. Having not heard the podcast yet, I hope I don't come across as too much of a twerp on it and any listeners can understand my ridiculous Mackem accent (that's Mackem, NOT Geordie alright!?!)

Soooo, first, I'll list Rich's top 10 followed by my own. Oh, and as I said on the podcast, it really was an impossible task with many others I shoulda put on there and, of the 10 chosen, the order changes by the minute! Here we go with Rich's 10 then, click the hyperlink above each picture to see how it was created!

10 - Chief Judge Dredd by Greg Staples

Rich's no 9 - Slaine by Clint Langley

8 - Volkhan's Warriors by Clint Langley

7 - Defoe by Leigh Gallagher

6 - The Death of Johnny Alpha by Ben Willsher

5 - Zombo by Henry Flint

4 - Dredd in the Rain by Ben Willsher

3 - Rojaws by Clint Langley

2 - Prog 1700 by Jon Davis-Hunt


Aaaaaand, at number 1, Karl Richardson's excellent Dredd cover for Prog 1695...

Moving on to my faves, I had to start with an honourable mention for D'Israeli's brilliant Stickleback cover of Prog 1669...

10 - Dirty Frank by Neil Roberts

9 - Karl Richardson's Dredd cover of Prog 1695...

8 - The Law at the Door by Mark Harrison

7 - Chief Judge Dredd by Greg Staples

6 - Dredd vs the Dragon by Cliff Robinson

5 - Zombo by Henry Flint

4 - Prog 2011 by Simon (public apology no 3, 276, 273) Fraser

3 - Dredd in the Rain by Ben 'Coolest Lawmasters' Willsher

2 - Beautifully atmospheric Heroes be Damned cover by Simon Fraser

1 - Again, that wonderful Prog 1700 by Jon Davis-Hunt

Finally, we named our covers of the year so far and not suprisingly, our favourite cover artists of last year had already become our favourite artists of this year! Rich chose Karl Richardson's action packed Devil's Island cover of Prog 1718...

Where as I went for Jon Davis-Hunt's glorious Elson-esque Kingdom cover for Prog 1717...

So, you can visit the Everything Comes Back to 2000AD website here and get full details of how to download this aural delight!