Liam Sharp - Definately PJ Maybe!

Wow! I am very, very happy to be showing a cover by the brilliant, brilliant, brilliant Liam Sharp! Liam began working for Tharg twenty four years ago, competently illustrating a pretty cool future shock in Prog 531. If you can track it down, check out his panel layouts, they're fantastic!

Amazingly, he also had a very cool Star Scan in the very same prog (shown below.) I suppose you could expect such impressive beginnings from someone who trained under the legendary Don Lawrence.


Just three progs later Liam got his first Dredd strip, a one parter called Bug. It was a horrid little tale that introduced us to a murderous adolescent by the name of Philip Janet Maybe - a killer with a very big future ahead of him...

However PJ wasn't the only one with exciting prospects and soon his talented co-creator was working for Marvel UK on the best selling Death's Head 2, before landing gigs for the big American companies on giants such as Batman, Spiderman and Spawn.

Thankfully for us, he's back to producing some absolutely awe inspiring artwork for the galaxy's greatest. He blew our collective socks off with his James Bond themed Judge Dredd strip in the Christmas Megazine which also treat us to this truly stunning pin up...


And so, onto this week's cover, which sees the return of Flesh by original creator Pat Mills and newly assembled artdroid James McKay. Liam is obviously happy to be chained back in his cubicle at the nerve centre, he says "I had a great time working on the Flesh cover. Tharg was very open to concepts and it was so nice to have a landscape format image to work on for a change, this being a wraparound. I honestly think this stands as my best cover to date - in no small part because of the time I spent on it (about four days.)"

Yup, you can certainly see the hours upon hours of work that's gone into it, it's simply breathtaking. The artist continues "Here are some images of my progress..."



With the design almost nailed, Liam continues "I've included an earlier version with much warmer colours and the main character's arm by his side. I went for the hot colours in the end as they had much more impact I think."



Check out those sizzling hotter colours!

"I also wanted it to be more than just an illustration - I wanted it to work as a design with the 2000ad logo. And for it to be epic, almost like a film poster. Flesh was a classic series from my youth, so that had its own bearing. I had a lot to live up to!"

So here's the final image in all it's Jurassic glory, I'm sure we'd all agree that Liam has certainly fulfilled his own brief as this image is about as cinematic and zarjaz as they come! Simply stunning!

No only have we been spoilt with Liam's work on the prog, for the last few weeks he's been treating us to a series of phenomenal ABC Warrior Star Scans. I've included them below, let's kick off with everybody's favourite 3A toy, the mighty Mongrol!

Followed by the brave and noble Hammerstein...

Onto my favourite warrior, the cool, cross-dressing assassin, Joe Pineapples...

And so to the fiery Steelhorn complete with his Vortex Hammer, brilliant!

Next, the mysterious master of Khaos, Deadlock!

And finally, the heroic new boy Zippo!

EDIT - And last in the series, Ro-Jaws. I love that duck! Hi-Res image when I can get it!

As well as sending some amazing images and fascinating commentary, Liam also sent this never-before-seen painting of Slaine after what looks like a particularly nasty battle! It looks like we've found another contender to fill Clint Langley's big boots as new Slain artist!

Thank you SO MUCH to Liam for sending the images and text, I must admit to being a bit star struck when his email came through! You can visit his site here and his amazing Deviant Art gallery, which features mega, mega Hi-Res versions of his work (including pages from his recent Dredd story) here. Prepare to be stunned!

Now that he's back, let's hope Liam is going to stick around with 2000AD for many, many years to come!