Wednesday 26 May 2010

Cliff Robinson - Son of a Gun!

BLAM! Nobody, but drokkin' nobody, does a stock Dredd cover like the legend that is Cliff Robinson. This magnificent artist is responsible for some of the most iconic Dredd images of all time and without doubt some of my all time favourite covers too.

To my delight, Prog 1684 saw another Cliff belter which decided the theme for this blog entry - The snappily titled 'Cliff Robinson's Dredd Pointing His Lawgiver at the Reader' collection. We'll kick off with the afore mentioned cover before taking a trip down memory lane to drool at some of his other fine, fine work...

Below is Cliff's initial idea for the cover. Though frighteningly similar to the final piece, you can see that there are subtle differences such as the closeness of the shot, the pose and the expression on Dredd's face... Next is a 'sketch' of the cover which is damned beautiful in it's own right!

Followed by the prelim where details such as composition and the location of the blast from the gun can be addressed (it's right over the bar code!)

Then, the absolutely stunning line art of the piece, amazing...
And finally the coloured version, good Grud it's beautiful!
I thought I'd include the published cover so we can note the placement of Dredd and the slight transparency and layering of the muzzle flash to ensure pertinent information about the comic can be seen and the pesky bar code can be scanned correctly...
So, lets kick off the 'Cliff Robinson's Dredd Pointing His Lawgiver at the Reader' collection with erm... Dredd not firing a Lawgiver at the reader. This is the cover of Prog 1529 which depicts young Dredd and Rico having their first taste of action, protecting their Clone Father Chief Judge Fargo during the Origins epic. Note this was before the arrest of President Big Bad Bob Booth so the Justice System and, presumably, most of the tech that goes with it, has not been formed yet, hence the clunky guns...

Moving away from Cliff for a brief moment, here's Ron Smith's Star Scan from prog 995, showing the Mark 1 Lawgiver and treating us to titbits of information like it has a range of three miles and the six types of bullet it fires - Normal, Ricochet, Heat Seeker, Incendiary, Armour Piercing and the celebrated Hi-Ex!So here we have inks and colours for Prog 745 showing Dredd's special brand of negotiation while tracking down an East Meg Clockwork Pineapple to avoid a diplomatic incident...

Next a recreation of Prog 775, which depicts Dredd arresting his first ever perp, Bert Dubinski from the Dredd story "First of Many."

Here's a Star Scan from Prog 900...And, for those like me, who think that the Lawgiver Mk 1 is far too weedy for their tastes, here's a wonderful unpublished cover that proves that is doesn't look too shabby when you're looking down the business end of one! Onto the much cooler looking Lawgiver Mark 2. Designed by Jason Brashill and Jim Murray and field tested intermittently in Progs from around the 1050 mark, the Lawgiver Mark 2 boasts a range of improvements over it's predecessor. Again, the gun boasts six standard types of ammo, with an option of gas rounds replacing the incendiary or heat seeker round and a stun charge capable of disabling multiple opponents with a non-lethal charge.

The weapon came into active service in the story 'Gun Play' in Prog 1122 where we learn that Doomsday bad guy Nero Narcos had hidden code which would cause the guns to explode at a given signal...

Here is Brashill and Murray's design from Magazine 3.50:And Cliff's limited edition print which is available from Termight Replicas...

So, here's the inks from the cool action packed cover of Prog 1246...



And another belter from 1268, wow...
And a drokking mean looking 1275...

Here's an eye popping image of Dredd blasting an android terrorist from 1286...


And a real favourite of mine, the cover of 1345, beautiful...

Finally in our tour of "Cliff Robinson Draws Dredd Pointing His Lawgiver at the Reader" collection draws to a close with some covers from other publications. Firstly, the cool cover or Megazine 284...

And some classics form the Law in Order collections, starting with Cliff's amazing take on Mick McMahon's opening page for the Cursed Earth Epic...


And the inks and colours for the reprint of the Judge Death...

Without a doubt, Cliff is one of the shining stars of 2000AD with his iconic depiction of Dredd absolutely everywhere from Candy Cigs to 'How To Draw Judge Dredd' guides to poster flags and I hope this blog entry reaffirms why.

Saturday 22 May 2010

Nikolai Dante - Covers be Damned Amazing!

Welcome to a bit of a special Covers Uncovered featuring three (or should that be five?) scorching covers by Simon Fraser, Nikolai Dante creator and all round superstar. Simon has been very generous with his time and effort in sending and annotating these images so I'd like to express my, and I'm sure many others', massive appreciation straight away!

As fans of 2000AD are all too painfuly aware, the Dante's saga is nearing it's conclusion and readers have been gripped as the death toll of the main cast rises. In this most recent arc, Simon has produced some of his most outstanding work to date, quite a bold statement for someone who's artwork is so popular among the fans!

Speaking about the series as a whole, Simon said "There was more discussion about the two Dante covers than usual. I did two initial sketches, Matt liked both of them with some caveats (more blood or foreboding in the romance cover.) Eventually, I changed my mind on both ideas."

Below are the pencils and roughs for the first of those abandoned ideas, the 'Romance' cover, with Dante and Jenna frolicking in the sea where Dante will eventually propose, lovely...
However, Simon had a change of heart, he says "I was discussing the 'romance' cover with my Intern Edwin Huang (www.edwinhuang.com) and we both agreed that some more explicit threat would help the cover, but we couldn't show anything without spoiling the story. So we came up with the symbolic hands emerging from the buildings while Dante & Jena danced oblivious to their peril. Edwin did the initial pencil layout...""Then I drew in the figures, inked the heck out of the buildings and went on to colour in Photoshop. We were all pretty happy with how that one worked out. Edwin is a very talented chap and is now drawing a series for Image Comics."Similarly, cover 2 underwent significant change. "I worked up an idea with a hand holding the ripped and damaged Crest aloft, I deliberately used a really screwed up old calligraphy nib to ink it, so it looked really scrappy and angry..." While I quite liked the result, Matt wasn't so keen and I went back to the original idea, which I think worked out for the best."


Pencils for the crest cover...
A colour test:

Inks...Voila, the finished piece...
Wow! After last Prog's shocking Dante climax, everyone's favourite Russian Rogue returns later in the year with the ominously titled 'City of the Damned', let's hope Dante fairs better than Dredd in this one!

As if wowing us with Nikolai wasn't enough, this month sees the serialisation of 'Lilly Mackenzie and the Mines of Charybdis' in the Magazine. Formally a web-comic on the fabulous Act-i-vate website, the story follows a half-Scottish, half-African space travelling babe across the galaxy with her faithful and somewhat besotted friend Cosmo. Simon has added some extras to really let the story breathe in the Megazine and I for one can't wait!

As well as being in the Meg, Lilly is on the Meg. Simon says "The Lily cover was fairly easy. Though I did have a lovely model called Mia pose for Lilly's posture. I used a photograph for the Earth seen from orbit, after messing around with various unsatisfactory painted versions. It turns out that all photos taken on the ISS are public domain. Which is nice!"

Again, thanks to Simon for sending all these wonderful images, he's a true comics evangelist! You can see all of Simon's Dante covers here and here and visit Simon's site and blog by clicking the links.

Thursday 20 May 2010

Siku - Red Dead Redemption!

Behold, the mighty Bayo Akinsiku, or Siku to you and me, is back! Siku painted this epic cover of Prog 1682 for the fantastic, but ever so lengthily titled 'The Grievous Journey of Ichabod Azrael (and the Dead Left in his Wake') for Prog 1682.

The image has a somewhat religious feel about it which is understandable as Siku is a committed Christian who has been jointly responsible for some massive religious comics such as the Manga Bible and the Manga Jesus trilogy of books.

Siku got his break for 2000AD nearly 20 years ago painting a satirical Judge Anderson strip based on the controversial Rodney King riots of 1991. No stranger himself to controversy, Siku delights in the fact that his unique style of artwork splits fan reaction straight down the middle. His imaginative redesigns of the Judge uniform along with Dredd's ever-expanding chin have had some fans of the future lawman gnashing and wailing like never before!

The artist worked on many 2000AD favourites such as Tales to Telguth, Harlem Heroes, Slaine and Sinister Dexter among others but will most probably be remembers for his outstanding work on Pan African Judges and the wonderful Dredd/Devlin Waugh epic Fetish.

Siku was a natural choice for both these stories. Having lived in Africa for nineteen years of his life, his knowledge of the surroundings and love for the country gushed from every one of his lush double page spreads.

Below we see two Megazine covers for the Fetish epic:

This cover of Megazine 3.33 is a prime example of Siku's brave re-imagining of Dredd's suit his wonderful mega-chins that would split fan opinion!
A Sinister Dexter cover, very much in the visual style of the computer game 'Evil Genius', of which Siku was Visual Director.
Finally, a wonderful image that Siku did for his very entertaining interview at the wonderful 2000AD Review site (you can read it here.) Again, capturing the artist's ever changing style, this image captures Siku's slighly more minimalist 'Meatmonger' Dredd.
I'm a big fan of Siku work, he's a very brave artist with the confidence to stamp his own vision on an institution such as Dredd and would love to see him back in the prog.

You can visit his website here. Thanks to Siku for the HUGE Ichabod image!

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Not The Beeeeeees!!!

Here we have Henry Flint’s wonderful cover for prog 1883. In true Bee movie (sorry!) style, this cover pits two terrifying creatures against each other – Zombo versus Zombee! In the red corner (and red codpiece) we have Zombo, the flesh eating, Cameo-esque codpiece wearing, gentleman zombie! And in the yellow corner, Zombee, a creature made entirely out of flesh eating, blood sugar drinking, bees!

This is a gloriously madcap scene from a fantastic story that’s simply bursting with imagination and wit. Among a plethora of screwball ideas, Zombo’s Eleven features bored, suicidal, teens filming their deaths on YouTube to see who can get the most stars, eye ball earrings, a zombie Walt Disney head, a safe cracking dog, a defective Simon Cowell cyborg who can’t see anything wrong with anything, Maggie Broon(!) and the goriest bunch of deaths you’ll ever see in 2000AD.

Above we see the inks for the cover and below we have Henry’s roughs...
And the breath taking final inks...
Super thanks to Henry for sending these!