Brett Ewins 1955-2015

 

A very sad day today for comicdom as we see the passing of a true legend, Brett Ewins. As a tribute to this visionary artist, I thought I'd share some of my favourite covers, including a few high rez scans for people to pour over.

 

Brett drew his first cover (with long term collaborator Brendan McCarthy) way back in 1977, a Supercover for Prog 33...

 



 

Over the next sixteen years he went on to produce art for 35 prog covers as well as several star scans and reprint titles. He will be fondly remembered for his work on Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Judge Anderson (my first crush!), ABC Warriors and, of course, the amazing Bad Company.

 

Below I'll showcase some of his stunning covers. His amazing eye for design shines through and shows just why he was one of the very, very best.

 

A true visionary.

 

Let's start with some Dredds; while Brett's first Dredd was the classic 'Bring Me the Head of Dredd' in the Day the Law Died saga, his first cover was this cracker for the Apocalypse War...     

 

 The Haunting of Sector House 9 featured some of my favourite Ewins' artwork, including some sublime panel layouts and amazing lawmasters. It also had two brilliant covers...

Brett's way out designs made him the perfect choice to illustrate 'The Wally Squad' in Progs 390-352...

Finally for Dredd, two absolute stonkers. The first, an awesome piece that really epitomises the oppressive nature of Megacity Justice. Long arm of the law indeed!

And this beast of a cover which is just pure, fried genius!



Surely Brett's fantastically creepy work on 'The Haunting of Sector House 9' and 'The DNA Man' made him an absolute shoe in for the excellent Anderson tale 'The Possessed.' Brett's work on this strip was phenomenal, and as I've said before on this blog, gave me my first serious crush. Anderson was hot!

Below we have three covers, the first showing the major players in 'The Possession...'

 Next, Brett's wildly inventive creature designs surround a blood gorgeous Anderson...

Apologies for the quality of this but I had to include it, my favourite Anderson cover ever!

 

 

Also, this beautiful Star Scan... say, is it getting hot in here!?!

 

Of course, Brett worked on several Rogue Trooper strips and produced some great covers. I loved the cover of 323...

However, it's the ridiculous cover of 301 that I was dying to show!



And here's a Star Scan for Major Magnum, do you feel lucky Nort?

Of course, many will remember Brett for his outstanding work on Bad Company. This intelligent, powerhouse of a story featured sublime art and amazing character designs. Below is the first cover of the series, which gives us a startling introduction to our colourful cast...   

Here's hard nut Malcolm who broke his own rule of 'Never getting friendly' with people by sacrificing himself for Danny Franks...

 Some tremendous War Zombies (Malcolm was one of them...)

 Good old Kano...

 Thrax, another nasty bastard...

Sadly, this brings us to the end of this tribute to Brett, a truly talented and well loved creator. Though the artist has gone, he will live on through his incredible body of work for many generations to come.

 

Brett Ewins: The New Masters (1955 - 2015)