Henry Flint - Hank So Low.

An elegant weapon for a more civilised age?

Wow, this crazy Zombo cover by the wonderful Henry Flint REALLY pops! It seems a bit more saturated than the printed and digital versions and, in my GCSE-Grade-D-for-art-based opinion, really benefits as a result.

Of course, it features the nefarious Hank Epsilon and Myron Snyde, showing us that their chopper is very much bigger than ours. This cover sadly marks the end of the current, crackpot arc for our favourite codpiece wearing Zombie, however he will return soon...

Below is Henry's mad as a box of frogs rough...

The Farce Is Strong with this one...

And again the finished version. I'm absolutely loving the background, so very effective.

That armour's too strong for blasters.

And here's what the prog looks like on your shelf - love the complimentary greens in the 2000AD logo.

"You Walt a piecea me!?!"

A BIG thanks to Henry for sending the cover. As you would expect, he and Al have done an amazing job on Zombo. Grud only knows what twisted plans they have for poor Eric Rabinowicz! Please check out Mr Flint's glorious website here! 

Glenn Fabry - P S I Megacity-One

Ex-Psi-Ting!

 

She knows what you're thinking and so do I - it's fantastic to see double Eisner Award winning artist Glenn Fabry going back to his roots and providing a beautiful cover for 2000AD! Glenn began his professional comic career waaay back in 1985 working on the Slaine epic Time Killer, providing the cover as well as interiors for his debut prog - no pressure there then!

 

Below we can see that first ever cover, Prog 411, which featured classics such as Slaine, Dredd: The Hunters Club, Halo Jones, Rogue Trooper and erm... Hell Trekkers. 



He didn't think it too many.

 

The great news is that Glenn will be returning to Slaine to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the character in August. Glenn, along with much loved artists Mick McMahon, Simon Bisley and Clint Langley will all be contributing to episodes to a special story, 'The Book of Scars.'

 

Speaking of Bisley, here's the cover he helped Glenn on when the artist was stranded in California due to the Icelandic Volcano Ash crisis in 2010. An absolute beauty and a really nice companion piece to this weeks' cover... 

 

 Drokkin' Ash

 

As well as Slaine, Glenn worked on Judge Dredd, a Future Shock and the luscious Dredd and Batman team up Die Laughing for the house of Tharg. He also provided several covers, including the first ever Judge Dredd Megazine...

 

Ah, the memories...

 

Glenn also worked on Revolver, Crisis and Deadline where he began a fruitful partnership with Garth Ennis. This led to a host of award winning covers for Preacher and Hellblazer as well as interiors for several comics including the Authority and Thor.

 

The cover for this weeks' prog heralds the welcome return of Cadet Anderson by Alan Grant and the mighty Carlos Ezquerra. The story sees Anderson leading a squad of psychic cadets investigating sickening corruption at an orphanage. This story is gonna get nasty...



 



She looks ready... 

And here's how the cover looks in your local thrill merchant...

 Buy this today!

 

I'm absolutely delighted to see Glenn back on the prog and can't wait for the Book of Scars. A huuuge thank you to Glenn (and Andy) for sending the image, it's fantastic! Please check out his website at http://www.glennfabry.co.uk/home.htm for lots, lots more!



Carlos Ezquerra - Apocalypse Now!

"Request denied"

Dredd gets his retaliation in first with this breathtaking cover that will have fans of The Apocalypse War, arguably the most popular Dredd epic ever, foaming at the mouth! The cover is by Dredd's daddy himself, the great Carlos Ezquerra and is for the fantastic IDW Carlos Ezquerra Collection Vol 1.

Not only did Carlos create the country's most prominent comic character, he is the only artist to have single handedly drawn FOUR of Dredd's mega epics (Apocalypse War, Necropolis, Inferno and Origins.) Carlos has also produced more 2000AD covers than any other artist. Legend doesn't even begin to describe the man!   

On to the cover. Below is the rough - a battered and beaten Dredd with Stub Gun in hand, having just dispatched a Strato V... 

"Let the Apocalypse begin!"

Magnificent inks, complete with famed Carlos jaggedy bits!

Sliced through it like munce.

And that beautiful coloured version again. What a brilliant piece of design, I'm loving the clean look of these IDW collected editions.



And here's how the standard version will look on your shelf...

Those with bigger bank balences might want to go for the Red or Blue label collections which look absolutely beautiful, find out more here.

All this is talk of the Apocalyspe war is making me very nostalgic, so how about a look at Carlos' covers for this fine epic? Let the Apocalypse begin with the cover of Prog 245, which kicked off the holocaust...

 The time has come to push the button... Vaporise!

Five issues and millions of deaths later, the Sovs were ready to invade...

 You dirty Diktaorats!

Best picture I could find of Prog 254, one of my favourites ever!

Hmmm, I always expected the Cycops Phylon TX Laser to make a better noise than 'Pzzooo!'

And we go full circle as we return to the mighty Stub gun...

 "Slice those Creeps!"

Thanks to my pal Iian on the 2000AD Messageboard we have these two fantastic prelims from the collected versions of the Apocalypse War... 

Total Nuke Out!

 C'Mon Everybody! Let's do the Apocalyspo!

Finally, Carlos is currently taking on commissions for a very reasonable price. Here's Iian's fine Apocalypse War themed one. If you want a personalised commission by the mighty Carlos, you can contact him through his Facebook page. There are also two stunning galleries of his commissions to salivate over!

 "Niet! Neit!"

Thank you to Carlos for sending the images for a truly breathtaking cover!



Ben Willsher - Breaking the Law!

This Image is called Fallen Justice

At the risk of sounding repetitive, THIS could well be my cover of the year in 2013! Ben Willsher, who has very quickly established himself as one of the greatest of the new generation of Dredd artists, has once again produced an iconic image of the future lawman. I reckon this would make a brilliant cover for the forthcoming Day of Chaos: Endgame graphic novel.

Over to Ben to tell us more: "This was an exciting assignment as it was my first wraparound cover." 

It certainly is, but not the first time we've seen an oversized image from this particular droid. Earthlets with good memories will recall this scrotnig poster from Prog 2011...

The 2000AD Christmas party 2011 in full swing

Back to the cover, Ben says "The brief was 'Dredd was standing stoic among the rubble and wreckage of the Statue of Judgement - Resolute that Justice will go on, despite the state of Mega-City after DoC'

"I toyed with the idea of Dredd standing right in front of the smashed statue head (which would stretch over the 2 pages), but in the end I didn’t think I would be able to show either enough of Dredd or the Statue to do either of them justice (if you pardon the generic pun); with this in mind I thought it best to make Dredd the main focus on the front page and the Statue head on the back."

"So I came up with this rough…"

MegaCity-One looks rough these days...

"Tharg liked it, but wanted to make sure that Dredd was facing towards the reader. He was completely right, this was not a good angle for Dredd. He looks too wistful and forlorn… He needed to be more determined and imposing, so I raised the gun changed the stance and made him bigger to fill the page. This worked much better, now no mistaking that Dredd is…well… DREDD!!!"

Dredd bucks his ideas up in the final inks.

"This was drawn over 2 A3 pages that were stuck together, and scanned. I cleaned up the black and white lines until I was happy, then the final stage was colouring them and adding all the FX."

Trouble in the Rubble

Ben gives us his theory on what makes a successful wrap-around "The trick to a good ‘wrap-around’ cover is making it work as two strong separate elements; so you have a good, powerful front cover, yet at the same time produce something that will give the same cover extra strength visually when fully opened. Ideally the back cover should be able to be viewed separately too on its own merit, without it looking like you have merely cropped a bigger image. Whether I achieved this or not, is down to the reader; but I’m pretty pleased with the end result." Amen brother! I certainly think Ben achieved his goal here, I think this cover is truly stunning.

Below is how the prog looks in the flesh!

Must... resist... Dredd and large helmet gag...

This is a great excuse to also show some of Ben's other excellent Dredd covers, starting with my favourite cover of last year...

"Any Questions?"

And his iconic 'Rain' cover, brilliant!

Carl Heinz Pilchards-In-Tomato-Sauce Claydeman stages a comeback tour

Next up is Ben's hard hitting cover of Meg 299...

In case of law breakers, break glass

And finally, the absolutely wonderful Kirby Dredd he did for the 2000AD Advent Calendar 2012...

Ah, the heady silver age of Dredd

Once again, a whopper Thank You to Ben for taking the time to do this, he's been a great supporter of this blog from it's earliest days. Please check his site out, it's really, really cool! Also, there's a great interview with Ben as he discusses his Free Comic Book Day Dredd story in ECBT2000AD's Megacast Podcast.