Steve Yeowell - Random Lobster!

Poor Jack Dancer, he's been dangling in front of that giant lobster since Prog 1623, that's forty five weeks ago now! This is, of course, another brilliant Red Seas cover by the series' celebrated artsit Steve Yeowell.

Steve's delicate penmanship was first seen in 2000AD way back in Prog 535, on a little known strip called Zenith. Grant Morrison, the writer of Zenith, had worked with Yeowell on Marvel's Zoids comics and invited him to be the artist on his story of the egotistical British superhero. It's worth noting that only three progs after his momentous start on Zenith, Yeowell also provides the art for a Future Shock written by Neil Gaiman! Not a bad introduction, eh?

Steve has worked on a large number of strips for 2000AD, including big hitters such as Judge Dredd, Sinister Dexter and Nikolai Dante as well as being the main or sole artist for several titles such as the afore mentioned Zenith, Detinator X, Manic 5, Pussyfoot 5, A Life Less Ordinary, Devlin Waugh: Chasing Herod and most recently, the Red Seas.

The Red Seas is a swashbuckling adventure which mainly follows the adventures of 18th century pirate, Jack Dancer and his crew. First published in Prog 1313, many readers, myself included, assumed that Tharg was jumping on the forthcoming Pirates of the Caribbean bandwagon. Naturally the mighty one soon proved us wrong as the tale quickly developed into a complex, dimension spanning, time travelling epic featuring themes and characters from writer Ian Edginton's vast universe and beyond.

Below we have the rough for this weeks cover followed by the half size print rough, check out the faultless composition, wow...

Next we have the pencils and those wonderful inks. I don't know about you but this cover freaks me out a little, crustaceans always look so dangerous, ugh!

And finally the coloured version (colours by Chris Blythe...)

Fantastic! So, lets have a look at some of Steve's wonderful Red Seas covers from Progs gone by and a brief, somewhat muddled recap of this complex story to date! Allow me to introduce the fearsome villain of the first Red Seas story, Doctor Orlando Ignatious Maximillian Herodetous Doyle (who also featured in England's Glory, the second book of Stickleback...)
Doyle was an evil necromancer, captain of 'The Black Galleon' and leader of an undead horde who planned to destroy the world using information stored in 'The Albrecht Tome', a lost chapter of a powerful religious book which had been unwittingly stolen by Jack and his crew. With a little help from Satan himself, Doyle undergoes a fearful transformation as shown on this great cover for Prog 1321...

And here are the dazzling colours by consistently excellent colourist Chris Blythe...

Doyle is thwarted by Satan who plans to use the Albrecht Tome himself to unmake creation, thankfully the devil himself is defeated by Dancer and his sorceress lover Isabella. Something which may well come back to haunt him...

The next two images feature the cover for 1460, boasting what I feel is the definitive Red Sea's cover - a cocky looking Jack quite literally up to his neck in trouble. This was the opening episode of "Underworld", a romp where Jack, accompanied by his crew and his half brother Alexander, journey beneath the Earth to find their missing father on the orders of Sir Isaac Newton.

Onto Prog 1602, the the first of two covers for the "Old Gods" story which saw Jack and his faithful crew in the service of George Washington to stop a horde of undead Vikings murdering civilians in America...
This led Jack to an hilarious meeting with some cantankerous old Norse gods and the acquisition of a host of mythical weapons powerful enough to stop the zombie Vikings and recurring bad guy Professor Toten. In the cover below (Prog 1609) we see Jack with the fabled Lightning Bow, given to him by the Demi-God Storr. By the end of this adventure, Jack and his crew decide that they will no longer run from their fate, choosing to face whatever dangers come their way head on...
Indeed danger soon finds Jack as he is summoned by a tempest to the Isle of Lost Souls by none other than Shakespeare's Prospero, who wishes to emphasise to Dancer his importance in forthcoming events. Prospero warns that Satan, still furious at his defeat by Dancer, has summoned the Cradle of Filth (a vast ark filled with all manner of dark creatures) to destroy Jack and his crew forever. Shortly after hearing this news, Jack and co are captured by Caliban and offered to the giant lobsters seen at the start of this article...

Meanwhile, Sir Isaac Newton calls together a meeting of the twelve members of the all-powerful Brotherhood of the Book - the guardians of the secret magical history of mankind. Made up of many characters from Edgington's universe (including Dr Doyle,) this otherworldly cabal protect their respective realities from all manner of arcane threats. Newton warns the group of Satan's plan to undo creation and remake it in his twisted image but they decide not to get involved. A furious Sir Isaac storms out, leaving the brotherhood forever...

The superb cover below, for Prog 1644, shows the great clock who's bell summons the Brotherhood to order.

Newton decides to find Jack but is himself kidnapped by the mad Baron of Vulgharia, a robot-making maniac who wishes to discover the secret of Newton's immortality. Sir Isaac discovers that the Baron is working with a resurrected Professor Toten and that there is a traitor within the Brotherhood of the Book. As Toten begins to torture poor Newton, Dancer's beautiful Arabian cousin Captain Sarita, descendant of the great adventurer Sinbad himself, saves the day. She reveals she was also summoned by Prospero and told to rescue Newton and Dancer.
Please note, colours for both the above covers are again by Chris Blythe.

So, that clumsily brings us up to date with the Red Seas and allows me to showcase some of Mr Yeowell's amazing covers. Thanks to Steve for sending them, and particularly for getting in touch with Chris to get the coloured version of this week's cover. I'm sure all who are reading this appreciate it as much as me!

Simon Davis - Who's your Grandpere?

Above is a great cover featuring Grandpere, the fearsome leader of the doomed foreign legion squad from Al Ewing's Damnation Station story. The cover is yet another painted masterpiece by award winning portrait painter, Mr Simon Davis.

Below is his other Damnation Station cover featuring the initial cast of the space epic.


Simon is a self confessed luddite who doesn't own a scanner and prefers to hand deliver his artwork to Tharg's Command Module, hence no work in progress scans or sketches for the blog unfortunately. However, I can point you in the direction of his glorious Ampney Crucis covers, a wonderful collection of his Sinister Dexter covers and some outstanding white space covers here.

I've also printed a random selection of his covers below kicking off with the cover of the 2000AD Brit Cit Special that was Prog 1293 and the cover of Classic Judge Dredd number 6, showing Simon's depiction of the classic ale 'The Big Sleep' by TB Grover and Cam Kennedy.

A couple more Dredds, firstly the cover of Prog 1069 for the Story 'Little Bo Peeper' by John Wagner and Cliff Robinson and then Prog 1038 from the story 'Fog on the Eerie' which saw Dredd and a bunch of cadets go back in time to hours before Big Bad Bob Booth intitated the atom wars that led to the creation of the justice system...

I've included the printed cover so you can see the erm... realistic gaussian blur that was added to the water in the whirlpool, ugh!
Simon has painted well over 80 covers for the House of Tharg featuring pretty much every major character or series. He's worked on dozens of strips and has a knack for taking other artist's characters and making them his own, for example, in many readers' eyes, Si is the definitive artist for Sinister Dexter and Missionary Man.

Below we see a bunch of geeks from Si Spurrier's Beck and Kawl series from 1329, a wonderfully creepy cover for the nasty Stone Island from Prog 1502 and Hannah Chapter fighting a Golem from the much missed Caballistics Inc. by the much missed Gordon Rennie...




A strange one next, a spread from the Judge Dredd Mega Special from 1994. Readers were asked to vote on which series they'd like to see back in the Megazine. From left to right there's: Judge Karen, the Undertaker (from Missionary Man), Pandora (drawn by the late John Hicklenton), Sumos and Sporrans, Dredd - Sinned-In City and the superb Wetworks.
Aaaaand finally, a crowning moment in 2000AD's history. After our glorious alien editor was ousted by the odious Men In Black, Tharg made is triumphant return on the cover of Prog 1032 and squax everywhere rejoiced!
I'm a big fan of Davis' work and think he's definately one of 2000AD's treasures. It says a lot about the comic that such an accomplished and respected artist is still so active in the galaxy's greatest and long may he continue...

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.