Willsher Reigns!

I have to say I like nothing more than a stock Dredd cover and Ben Willsher has certainly produced a winner here. A mean and moody Dredd standing in the rain against an absolutely gorgeously coloured background. Amazing stuff!

Here's Ben's 'mock-up' of the cover which is damned impressive in it's own right...
Next his sublime inks (hey Tharg, I want a 2000AD colouring book, dammit!)And finally the finished piece, oh man those Mega City colours are outstanding!
Remember, you can visit Ben's site here and check out some seriously cool work, like these...



Thanks to Ben for sending these great images!

SB Davis - Damnation Station!

Introducing the cast of Al Ewing's latest creation 'Damnation Station.' The story centres on a group of commandos on the orbital space station Earth Station One. The team work for the 'Hosts,' an alien race who own our galaxy. It's the commandos' job to stop any aliens from immigrating to our solar system using any means necessary.

So, from left to right meet June Akiwara (Admin Officer), Jim Bradbury (Medic), Grandpere (the leader of the group), Brett Grayle (heartthrob actor and newest, greenest recruit of the team), Reymont and Tura (grunts) and Joe Nowhere (deputy team leader.)

Art duties will be split between the ever wonderful Simon Davis and the similarly wonderful Boo Cook. Boo has been talking about the story on his wonderful blog and gives us some sneaky peeks at a few of his panels here.

With such a talented team, I'm sure this is destined to be a classic...

Thanks to Pye for sending the cover.

New Futurequake Press Covers have arrived!

A new batch of titles have been unleashed from the guys at Futurequake Press! The 2000AD-based fanzines once again boast a dazzling array of small press and mainstream comic talent including strips from familiar names such as Nick Dyer, Richmond Clements, Bolt-01, Kev Levell, Mike Caroll, Gibson Quarter, Jim Campbell and many more.

As ever, the editorial team chose to go all out and get some big names to produce the eyecatching covers. This gives the already professional looking comics an added touch of class. Above, we see the cover for Zarjaz by 2000AD droid Nigel Dobbyn. Nigel, worked on several strips in 2000AD such as Red Razors and Trash and is probably best remembered for his fantastic work on Strontium Dogs.

Dobbyn says "These are the original pencils for the Zarjaz cover, based on a photo of my dad. The background was added afterwards when Dave (Bolt-01) said it needed to be a wraparound cover. The background was drawn from scratch digitally. Once the pencils are done, I ink everything in Illustrator and colour in Photoshop."

So, if we track down Dobbyn Sr. we'll get to see what Dredd looks like under his helmet! Thanks to Nigel for taking the time to send the rough and the comment, you can see more of his fantastic, and very diverse work on his website here, his blog here and his deviant art page here.

Next, the startling cover of Dogbreath, the Strontium Dog themed fanzine by friend of the blog Neil Roberts. On his blog, Neil says "This was a pure painting job in Photoshop, using a bit of reference to get the pose correct. I was going for a Frazetta/Starblazer feel - sort of late 70's/ 80's vibe. Ace!"


I was lucky enough to meet Mr Roberts recently and he did me this wonderful Dredd sketch below. I asked him to do a Dredd Version of his Jonny Alpha cover of Prog 1656 and this is what he came up with - wow! Loving the Ezquerra bumps!

Finally onto this scrotnig Future Quake cover by rising star Gibson Quarter.
GQ did a great making of the cover here. which has saved me a job, so thanks to him! Gibson is doing some excellent work, working with giants such as Alan Grant in Wasted magazine and I reckon it's just a matter of time before we deservedly see him in the prog. Check out his great blog here.

Thanks to Bolt-01 for sending the images and the rest of his team for making such a superb bunch of comics. Keep on doing such a cracking job fellas! You can support the future talent of 2000AD by buying their products here...

The Gorgeous Artwork of Ben Willsher (and the Dead Left in his Wake.)

Howdy parters, here’s this week’s prog cover by a low down varmint who goes by the name of Ben Willsher! The cover is for the wonderfully titled strip 'The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (and the Dead Left in His Wake) by Rob Williams, Dom Reardon and Peter Doherty.

Here's Ben's roughs for the cover...Ben said "When I was first asked to do the cover Matt had suggested "a moody, film-poster style shot of Ichabod, maybe his face in shadow, guns out."; and I took that concept and ran with it. I wanted it to feel like a cross between a film-poster and a photo from the period.

SERVING SUGGESTION: Best viewed with Ennio Morricone soundtrack in the background!"

Here's the inks and that beautiful finished version again...

This is Willsher's fourth cover for the galaxy’s greatest, the other three being Strontium Dog ones. This includes last years’ scorching Alpha cover of prog 1658 shown below...

Ben said that Tharg had sent him this single Carlos Ezquerra panel as reference for the cover...

which led to these thumbnails...

Then to these wonderful inks, wow!
I love Ben’s work, he’s got such a great style and sense of design. Also he draws my (joint) favourite Lawmaster of any 2000AD artist (Jim Murray's take on the Lawmaster for Prog 2004's 'The Good Man' story was amazing!)

Take a look at Willsher's below, it’s sleek angles are so much cooler that the horrible, awkward, boxy version of the 1970’s that we still see today!

Ben has a great site which features some fantastic and very diverse work. You’ll find it here

There are some wonderful designs on there and the posters section is just brilliant! Here are a couple of my favourite images from the site, check it out!

I adore this...
A really cool Dredd piece...
Dredd and Alpha...
A beautiful Jonny Alpha that he did for fun. I'd love to see a cartoon series in this style...
Massive thanks to Ben for sending these wonderful images, I take the varmint comment back!