A Proper Gander at the Jaegir One Shot Cover.

August 27th sees the release of the scrotnig Jaegir One Shot. The comic collects Strigoi, the debut series of Kapitan-Inspector Atalia Jaegir of the Nordland State Community Police. In this first arc, Jager is drafted into the Office of Genetic Purity to help hunt genetically mutated monsters known as the Strigoi.

It's a fabulous read, with a nasty script by Rogue Trooper fan Gordon Rennie, wonderful art by Simon Coleby and a gorgeous palate by Len O'Grady.

The cover is really striking so I got in touch with design wiz Pye Parr to find out more. He said "The art first came about after Molcher and Gordon came up with a rough idea for a promo campaign for Jaegir when it first ran in 2000 AD. Gordon and Simon were keen to avoid spoilering a few things - namely that the main character was female, but also that she was one of the Bad-guys, so Simon did some awesome teaser art in the style of an old soviet propaganda poster, and I continued the theme with some designery quote posters, which teased the background of the story quite well without revealing any specifics about it..."

Here's Simon Coleby's "Why don't we do something like this?" marker rough:

Well, I wouldn't bother after Season 1 if I were them...

And his more refined comp...

The Wilf Gasmask Appreciation Society annual gathering poster.

Which is made up of linework...

The creator looks on at the Banzai Battalion prototypes...

And tone...

The Kubaz from Star Wars joins the Norts?

Put 'em together and what have you got? Bippetyboppetynu-earth.

Whiiite eyes, burning like fiiire - sob!

Here's Pye's Promo Poster based on the image...

Some very Norty boys

And his, quote, 'Designery quote posters!"

"Rogue has only got one ball."

Traitor General 

Pye continues "After that we decided to put out Jaegir as one-shot US-format comic, and the poster art was so cool it seemed a shame not to use it again, especially as not a lot of the readers would have seen it before, having never run in the Prog. I had to tweak it a little bit from the poster to fit with a cover layout (mainly just enlarging/centring the main guy...)

"Ya Doktor, I appear to have a tank coming out of my groin..."

"I even managed to reuse the layout for the quotes posters on the title page (which was nice, as I was quite pleased with them too)."

Dammit, everything about the Norts was way cooler the Southers. That insignia is great!

Be sure to report to the 2000AD shop and pre-order this one shot now citizen before officers from the Nordland Office of Nasty Bastards pay you a visit. Nu-Earth sized thanks to Pye for sending the images and info, go check out his excellent blog!

Jake Lynch - Dredd Alert!

Congratulations to new(ish) artdroid and friend of the 2000AD Messageboard, Jake Lynch for landing his first cover for the mighty Prog! Over at the Multiversity Comics website, Jake takes us through the creation of this Jarjaz cover, sharing his inks, design sketches and the odd interesting tip. It's a cracking read!

"Drokk! I've left the iron on!"

You may well recognise Jake's style as he has contributed a fair bit to the Prog. He got his break with this stunning star scan in the prestigious 35th birthday issue, Prog 1771, which also happened to be his first ever entry to the 2000AD art comp, more on that later...



Judge, Jury, Executioner, Grumpy Bastard.

Following this Jake, cut his teeth on the obligatory Future Shock (Pro 1862), as well as providing fantastically dark art for Tales of the Black Museum in Meg 348, Orlok for the Summer Special and, of course, the recent Sinister Dexter tale, Congo.

However, before he was assimilated as an official artdroid, Jake contributed to Zarjaz and Dogbreath, providing, amongst other things, this rather wonderful cover for Dogbreath 26:

Mr Creosote had eaten too much spaghetti again.

As mentioned previously, Jake first came to my attention with his dazzling 'Movie Poster' entry to the 2000AD message board art competition, shown above. Going under the name of JTPegg (that's Jake Tiberius Pegg, not to be confused with Rolf Harris' creation of course!) he absolutely walked the first compo then continued to blow our socks off with each subsequent entry. Here are a selection of some of my favourites, firstly, what Dredd did in his Summer holidays...

Dredd in Bognor City 2

 

Followed by what an unfortunate cit did in his visit to MC-1. What a fantastic study of a Pat Wagon! 

"Pat? Paaaat? Why did you leave me gal?"



Dredd gets shirty in a no camera zone...

"Get that drokking camera out of my face!"



The epitome of cool with this wonderful Pineapples drawing...

 

Joe showed off his blowing-a-balloon-up-using-his-farts trick again.

 

A salmon leap from Slaine!

You've got red on you.

 

And this brilliant Dredd pin up, which I just love, Drokk indeed!



Rico nearly finds Joe in the cupboard during a game of hide and seek

Finally, here's my all time favourite image by Jake, a beautiful trio of Christmas Angels for the 2000AD Advent Calendar. Amazing!

"No one harks less'n I says they can!"

 

You can see the process behind most of these pictures on Jake's old site here (in the Re-Education section) and it's well worth checking out his Deviantart page too!

 

So hat's off to Mr Lynch, it's always great when one of the 2000AD faithful make it. Here's to loads more from his talented droid in our prog!



INJ Culbard - "We're gonna need a bigger boat!"

Oh dear, I hope that Sabrefin has had a breath mint! INJ is back with another perfectly composed cover which is simultaneously sweet and terrifying as the crew of the Nominal Charge continue their mission in 'The Deeps!' 

An easy one this, according to Mr Culbard, he says "The brief was pretty clear and straight forward. Giant, razor toothed angler fish, Wren and Sept stood in the foreground with their backs to us, holding hands." Oh yes, easy, a giant angler fish, that old chestnut!

Below is Ian's first attempt at a rough...

Say "Aaaaaaaaaaaagh!" 

He continues, "The roughs were really just a question of scale, because everything was very much an 'exactly-what-you-see-on-the-tin' response"

Wren couldn't help but think that Sept had rushed into buying their new house... 

And here's the final image all inked up and coloured, fantastic!

The Harry Ramsden's challenge was getting out of hand... 

And finally the prig as it looks on your shelf, lovely interaction between the logo and the lighting on the image.

Perhaps Sept's choice of venue for the second date was a bit off...

Thanks again to Ian for sending the flotsam and jetsam for this mightily impressive cover. Remember, Brass Sun os currently being collected in American sized reprints and are very highly recommended!