Monday 27 July 2009

Truly Zarjaz!

Futurequake Publishing is a small press organisation who specialise in producing a variety of 2000AD fanzines of an exceptionally high quality. The group publish many scrotnig titles including Zarjaz (a 2000AD inspired anthology,) Dogbreath (dedicated to all things Strontium Dog,) Futurequake (a Future Shock inspired anthology,) Mangaquake (Manga-esque tales,) Something Wicked (horror stories) and the one off Stak (a tribute to Rogue Trooper on his 30th Anniversary.)

The fanzines are very professionally produced and contain the writings and art of a hotbed of young talent. Past, and indeed current, contributors to the magazines have been writers and artists such as Al Ewing, PJ Holden, Nick Dyer, Si Spurrier and Arthur Wyatt.

Testiment to the high production values of these fanzines are their amazing covers, produced by some of Tharg's top droids! Many thanks to commisioning editor Bolt-01 for sending me this selection of covers - click the images to see them in all thier glorious detail!

Please support these superb fanzines (I promise you won't regret it) by buying them from here and checking http://thequaequamblog.blogspot.com/ for news and updates.

Above we had Richard Elson's beautiful 'Kingdom' inspired cover for Zarjaz 6 followed by Dave Kendell's magnificent Slaine for the 'Zarjaz Pat Mills Special':

This is Colin MacNeil's beautiful 'VC's' cover which graced Zarjaz number 5:

Next we have a series of Dogbreath covers starting with Nigel Dobbyn's hilarious 'Pink Gronk's on Parade' cover (spot the iPod!) for Dogbreath 17, followed by Team Tank super-artist Rufus Dayglo's cover for Dogbreath 15 and 'The Authority's' very own Simon Coleby's cool cover for Dogbreath 16.




Finally we have PJ Holden's mean and moody cover for Stak, brilliant!

Saturday 25 July 2009

The legendary Nick Percival!


Since starting this blog just a few short weeks ago, I've been struck by how kind and generous many of the 2000AD artists are. Most have responded very quickly to my cheeky emails and have been more than obliging when sending me things. Imagine my delight when legendary artdroid Nick Percival stumbled across the site and contacted me!

He sent this amazing collection of covers, all of which are absolutely gob-smacking (please remember to click 'em to see the beautiful larger versions!) He also told me he's working on a brand new Dredd cover and has promised to send it once it's been published. I can't wait!!!

For those who don't know what these covers are, we have Prog 1658: Shakara (above) and in order below we have Progs 1507: Chiaroscuro, 1494: Dredd, 1601: Lobster Random, 1545: Defoe and 1582: Dead Signal.

Thanks again Nick!





Tuesday 21 July 2009

Dr Bonehinge!

Anthony Williams has a reputation of being an incredibly fast, reliable artist who always delivers the goods. So why, I wonder, was I so suprised when he sent me the pencils, inks and colours to the fantastic cover of prog 1645 within about two milliseconds of me emailing him!?! The guy ain't human, I tells ya!!!


Thank you very, very much Mr W, as ever, they're stunning! Be sure to check Anthony's site out here








Monday 20 July 2009

"He saw you coming!"

Imagine the scene, it's the tenth anniversary of the Judge Dredd Megazine and editor Andy Diggle gets one of the goddamn hottest comic artists ever to do a special commemorative cover. That artist was none other than Frank Miller, who was at his creative peak with his Sin City series.

Former Megazine editor David Bishop was in the command module as the art arrived as he was about to go for a farewell lunch with Dredd creator John (God) Wagner. Bishop says "I opened the package in Wagner's presence. His comment: "He saw you coming!"

Bishop sent an email to Miller expressing his disappointment and it was agreed that the cover would never be used. Two good tings come out of this sad little tale - one, the art was sold for more than $2000 for the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund and the other was that Diggle wrote Lenny Zero for free to fund the cover - giving the world not only a really cool character but more importantly, giving super artist Jock a big step up the artisitic ladder.

Wednesday 15 July 2009

Frazer Irving - Buttonman 4

Mega thanks to super Artdroid Frazer Irving for being so kind as to send me all the covers for Buttonman 4 - The Hitman's Daughter. In my humble opinion, Buttonman is one of 2000AD's strongest strips. The strips sense of ultra realism in terms of both art and script made it a cut above for me. I really hope we finally get a film version of this one day.

I was initially disappointed when Arthur Ranson, who had done such an amazing job on books 1-3 of the series couldn't do book 4 but my worries were shortlived as Frazer did such an amazing job on the series.

So, I proudly present all the covers for Buttonman 4 - the design work is absolutely amazing so please remember to click 'em to see the full sized versions so you can chack out all the lovely detail. Oh, and don't forget to visit Mr Irving's site at http://www.frazerirving.com/



I have lots more of Frazer's covers so watch out for them in the coming months!

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Zombo!



Hooray! I received a lovely email from Uber Artdroid Henry Flint today with the fantastic Zombo cover of Prog 1634. Zombo, by Al Ewing and Henry Flint, deservedly become an instant hit with a massive portion of the readership of 2000AD thanks to it's mix of old and new style storytelling, fantastic main character and absolutely stonking art.

Thanks to Henry for sending this!




Monday 13 July 2009

Gongbeater!


When I decided I was going to do this blog there were one or two covers, and cover artists, I had in mind that I was desperate to show. Far and away one of those artists was Clint Lagley who's work just boggles my mind it's so stunning.

I contacted him and asked if he wouldn't mind sending me some of his covers and he very, very kindly agreed! I'm absolutely dying to get his series of ABC Warriors covers but for now here is his excellent wraparound (or should that be warparound?) cover to Prog 1638, featuring Slaine and Ukko.

Huge thanks to Clint for being so generous and making this fanboy very happy!

Thursday 9 July 2009

Censored Brainblooms!

Hmmmm, a strange one this. According to The Judge Dredd Mega-History, this cover for Prog 18 by Don Lawrence further angered Carlos Ezquerra (Dredd's creator, who was already pissed off because the debut strip of his character drawn by someone else.) Apparently, Lawrence was having trouble getting the look of Dredd right (an old woman is about as far wrong as you can get!) so an Ezquerra Dredd from 'Bank Raid' (which was to be the first Dredd tale but was considered too violent - try to keep up!) was pasted over the top. Shocking!




PJ Holden


Would you believe that this post will contain 100% of the 2000AD related cover's that this fantastic Artdroid has done? As the above cover from Dredd Megazine 281 shows, Mr Holden is very much a rising star in 2000AD and certainly one of my favourite Dredd artists. His recent, follically challenged "It Came From Bea Arthur Block" story was an absolute hoot, you could see he was really enjoying himself with the art. Here is the uncoloured McMahon inspired cover to Prog 1639: It's fantastic how he's replicated McMahon's inking style of the time and I love how the red circle of McMahon's original has been replaced with the baldy's head! Here's the coloured version and the cover it apes from Prog 310's 'Starborn Thing' tale:

You can see some unlettered pages from the story (and check out more of Paul's work) here. Also, check out the Eclectic Micks blog where Mr Holden and several other talented Irish artists post some fantastic artwork.

Thanks to Paul for sending me the cover of Meg 281, your services to Thrillpower are legendary sir!

C'mon Tharg, more covers for this fantastic artist please!

Tuesday 7 July 2009

Dredd vs Aliens vs Predator!

In Prog 1322 Megacity One was invaded by some rather familliar looking xenomorphs in a rare 2000AD crossover. The tale, written by Wagner and Diggle featured sumptuous art by Henry Flint and some amazing covers. All of these are shown below:



Prog 1322 by Kev Walker:

Prog 1324 by Greg Staples:

Wraparound 1330 by Fraser Irving:


Two variant covers for the finale of the story in Prog 1335 by the wonderful Jock:




Another Hollywood alien that Dredd has trounced is Predator. Here are two of the four covers I know of, starting with Mr Bolland's Judge Pred:



And Duncan Fegredo:



There were also covers by Dermot Power and Martin Emond but as yet I cant find any sullied versions!

Brian Who?



Brian Bolland, legendary 2000AD Artdroid has most of his covers to look at here. Please do yourself a favour and spend a few happy hours drooling over them! I recently wrote to Brian and he told me he has a John Wagner-written fatties story in his desk waiting to be drawn. Can we force him to do it at gunpoint?

Here is the wonderful Synthetti Men cover of prog 216, he must have spent absolutely hours on those pieces of spaghetti, amazing!


Iconic Eagle reprint of Judge Death for the US market:


Another great American reprint cover (he actually did more US reprint covers than he did 2000AD covers) featuring Dredd about to be fed into Pa Angel's Mark One Super Scream Torture Machine...



Orlok the Assassin finally gets his comeuppance in Prog 1336:

Remember, you can click on all images to see larger versions. In my dreams I own all of the pieces of artwork in this post!

Monday 6 July 2009

Patrick Goddard - Savage Uncoloured



Here's the uncoloured versions of Patrick Goddard's fantastic Savage covers from Progs 1632 and 1637.

Greg Staples - Dredd Head Prog 1600



The stunning cover of prog 1600 which my good pal Mark Willis owns, the lucky sod! Here's the inks too...


Kev Walker - Old and New



Kev Walker's older painted work and his more recent darker, minimalist style continue to divide the readership of 2000AD. I'm gonna sit on the fence and say I love it all!

The above image of Anderson is the cover of Megazine 2.28 and the one below is Meg 3.57 showing a mean looking Judge Guthrie during the Doomsday epic.



Below we have uncoloured versions of Prog 1289 (Sin City) and 1453 (Mandroid.) Both were used as the covers for the Rebellion Graphic Novels.