Here is the esteemed Mr Brian Bolland's incredible cover to the landmark issue that was Prog 1821, which celebrates in style 36 scrotnig years of thrill power! And what better artist to choose than one the biggest success stories of the comics illustrious history?
Based on Henry Bacon's famous Lincoln Memorial, the cover depicts Old Stony Face in fine style.
Bolland spoke about the cover at the 2000AD panel at the London Super Comic Con. The inspiration came from a recent trip to Washington DC, whilst taking photos of the imposing statue, he was reminded of Mega City-One's most feared law man. However, Brian described the cover as a 'rip off' of a classic cover of \prog 204 by fellow 2000AD legend, Mick McMahon, where Dredd is sat atop a throne watching over his beloved city.
Bolland noted how Lincoln was very topical at the moment, with the 2012 movie receiving numerous Oscar nominations and a high profile advertising campaign for Kevin Spacey's House of Cards series dominating London.
Below is Brian's trademark stunningly clean line work which was also used for an extremely rare LSCC T-shirt...
And again, that wonderful coloured image.
Finally, the image on your super soaraway prog...
At LSCC, Brian was selling this re-coloured print of one of his classic Eagle Dredd reprint covers...
He spoke fondly of the Eagle covers, stating that they were the most fun to do as they gave him a chance to work on strips he loved that he'd missed out on. Let have a look at some of those classic covers below, starting with one of my favourite Dredd images ever...
Next some of Brian's more modern covers...
And now a stroll down memory lane as we look at some of Brian's seminal 2000AD covers of years gone by...
If you enjoyed that (who wouldn't!?!) then be sure to grab IDW's complete Brian Bolland book for an (almost) comprehensive collection of Brian's 2000AD work...
Genius. Those Eagle covers are a thing of beauty. Would have loved to have got my hands on one of those prints.
ReplyDeleteAye, that Eagle cover number 5 is my favourite 2000ad image. Next would be Kev Oniells "Gasman" poster! :-)
ReplyDeleteI'd never seen that cover with Satanus (Eagle No7). Boy, that's a good image.
ReplyDeleteAlways loved the Jigsaw Man cover - remember it frying my brain when I saw it as a 10 year old in the newsagent's.