Cliff Robinson - Blooming Crackpot!

Blooming heck! The wonderful Cliff Robinson obviously has FAR to much fun in his work as this weeks' amazing cover will show! This is the cover for the current Dredd thriller 'Scream' which features the return of Prog 18's 'Brainblooms', human-plant hybrids that can imitate any known sound!

Below we see Cliff's rough thumbnails, he seems to have started working on the one to the bottom-left...

This next rough is fascinating, Cliff tells me "My left ear, glasses and watch are visible on one of the roughs. I filmed myself with my camcorder then printed out the pose in blueline and pencilled over the top. I often do this as it saves a lot of time and can be fun, although I'd never let anyone see the original photo's of me posing like a complete pillock!"

Ah, so now we know what Dredd looks like under the helmet, Cliff Robinson!

And below is a mock up of the cover with some of Cliff's trademark terrible puns! A story - last year I broke a rib in a car crash and made the mistake of telling Cliff that it was agonising when I laugh. For days and days afterwards he sent me (absolutely terrible) jokes, the swine!
For some reason, Cliff had a change of heart (I suspect it was Tharg induced) and went for his alternative design. Of the brainblooms themselves, Cliff said "The brainbloom faces were also from photo's of me gurning like a fool. But again, the original photo's are unavailable for publication... heh!"

You can tell they're Cliff as he left in his pointy ears and bulging veins...

Midway through the process Cliff obviously decided to go for a more dynamic pose for both Dredd and the Brainbloom in the foreground....
Here's the cover rough mock up...
And finally, those stunning, trademark perfect Cliff Robinson inks which shows that he truly is the best in the business...

Absolutely amazing. The inks were then sent to the similarly brilliant Dylan Teague to be coloured and once again, we have a frikking AMAZING 2000AD cover.
Thanks SO much to Cliff for sending the images, he's always such a brilliant supporter of the site. Thanks also to Dylan for his amazingly fast response and support!

Naturally I couldn't let this post go without re-telling the disgraceful story of the cover of Prog 18. From this blog:


"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 début 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!"

Green Fingers Ma Mahaffy - now you see her...

Now ya don't!