Chris Weston Special - Part One Go to Work on a Klegg!

I am beyond thrilled to welcome you to the first of a three day Chris Weston special! Chris has very, very kindly given us the lowdown on not only this weeks' amazing cover but also his zarjaz covers for the XXX Flies cover (tomorrow) and IDW's Judge Anderson monthly on Tuesday! I'm extremely excited, grateful and proud, thanks Chris!

As Prog readers will know, Prog 1889 features the second part of the hilarious 'The Heart is a Lonely Klegg Hunter' which sees the welcome return of Trifecta's Sensitive Klegg. This part sees our loveable hero in the sights of The Hunters Club in the hope of winning a huge bounty from Overdrive Corp. Over to Chris to tell us more...

"The brief I received from Tharg was this:

"I was thinking of a shot of a grim Dredd, Lawgiver in hand, and a worried-looking Klegg side by side, facing off against all these guns coming in from the sides (elephant gun, chainsaw, etc) - a bit like this old Diceman cover by Glenn Fabry..."

"Two other covers also served as inspiration. Firstly Mike McMahon's Cursed Earth cover from Prog 69. Thematically, it was similar to my one, what with Dredd defending a timid alien..."

Hey! That's Robocop's line! 

"The other one I had in mind was Brian Bolland's stunning Block Mania wraparound cover. Bolland is never very far from my thoughts."

 All this because of a four creed freezy whip!

"This was my initial rough which was quickly given the green light from Tharg."

 Klegg Busted

"I then proceeded to finished art, adding in a grungy, industrial background because I just can't help adding tons and tons of unnecessary detail onto my art. I need an intervention."

 The Crocodile Hunter Diaries

"I then spent way too long colouring it up. At this point I hadn't seen Mike Dowling's colouring on the interior art, so I checked with him to make sure I hadn't gone too off-piste with my choice of costume-colours for the Hunters Club characters. Luckily, we were very much on the same page and had chosen almost identical hues. I only had to tweak the female hunter's jacket to bring into line with Mike's version."

Check out those cuts - it's a Nicked Klegg. 

"At this point I thought it might be fun to resurrect the old tradition of having Dredd summarise the plot with his trademark brevity and black humour. The old Eagle Reprint Comic Covers used this trick quite a lot and I really wanted to capture the spirit of those. I couldn't think of anything appropriate but luckily Rob Williams came riding baldly to my rescue with the following pithy quote:"

Is that Nigel Farage in the bottom corner?

And here's how the cover looks in your local Thrill Merchant's shop, simply astounding!

So... the big Klegg is covering the logo - are you gonna tell him?

Klegg-sized thanks to Chris for sending the files and his fantastic commentary - Fabry, McMahon, Bolland and Weston in one post, not too shabby eh? I'm sure you'll agree that his is an absolutely outstanding cover and has got to be a contender for cover of the year! Come back tomorrow when the blog gets all saucy with the commentary for the XXX Files!