Truly Zarjaz!

Futurequake Publishing is a small press organisation who specialise in producing a variety of 2000AD fanzines of an exceptionally high quality. The group publish many scrotnig titles including Zarjaz (a 2000AD inspired anthology,) Dogbreath (dedicated to all things Strontium Dog,) Futurequake (a Future Shock inspired anthology,) Mangaquake (Manga-esque tales,) Something Wicked (horror stories) and the one off Stak (a tribute to Rogue Trooper on his 30th Anniversary.)

The fanzines are very professionally produced and contain the writings and art of a hotbed of young talent. Past, and indeed current, contributors to the magazines have been writers and artists such as Al Ewing, PJ Holden, Nick Dyer, Si Spurrier and Arthur Wyatt.

Testiment to the high production values of these fanzines are their amazing covers, produced by some of Tharg's top droids! Many thanks to commisioning editor Bolt-01 for sending me this selection of covers - click the images to see them in all thier glorious detail!

Please support these superb fanzines (I promise you won't regret it) by buying them from here and checking http://thequaequamblog.blogspot.com/ for news and updates.

Above we had Richard Elson's beautiful 'Kingdom' inspired cover for Zarjaz 6 followed by Dave Kendell's magnificent Slaine for the 'Zarjaz Pat Mills Special':

This is Colin MacNeil's beautiful 'VC's' cover which graced Zarjaz number 5:

Next we have a series of Dogbreath covers starting with Nigel Dobbyn's hilarious 'Pink Gronk's on Parade' cover (spot the iPod!) for Dogbreath 17, followed by Team Tank super-artist Rufus Dayglo's cover for Dogbreath 15 and 'The Authority's' very own Simon Coleby's cool cover for Dogbreath 16.

Finally we have PJ Holden's mean and moody cover for Stak, brilliant!

The legendary Nick Percival!

Since starting this blog just a few short weeks ago, I've been struck by how kind and generous many of the 2000AD artists are. Most have responded very quickly to my cheeky emails and have been more than obliging when sending me things. Imagine my delight when legendary artdroid Nick Percival stumbled across the site and contacted me!

He sent this amazing collection of covers, all of which are absolutely gob-smacking (please remember to click 'em to see the beautiful larger versions!) He also told me he's working on a brand new Dredd cover and has promised to send it once it's been published. I can't wait!!!

For those who don't know what these covers are, we have Prog 1658: Shakara (above) and in order below we have Progs 1507: Chiaroscuro, 1494: Dredd, 1601: Lobster Random, 1545: Defoe and 1582: Dead Signal.

Thanks again Nick!

Dr Bonehinge!

Anthony Williams has a reputation of being an incredibly fast, reliable artist who always delivers the goods. So why, I wonder, was I so suprised when he sent me the pencils, inks and colours to the fantastic cover of prog 1645 within about two milliseconds of me emailing him!?! The guy ain't human, I tells ya!!!


Thank you very, very much Mr W, as ever, they're stunning! Be sure to check Anthony's site out here

"He saw you coming!"

Imagine the scene, it's the tenth anniversary of the Judge Dredd Megazine and editor Andy Diggle gets one of the goddamn hottest comic artists ever to do a special commemorative cover. That artist was none other than Frank Miller, who was at his creative peak with his Sin City series.

Former Megazine editor David Bishop was in the command module as the art arrived as he was about to go for a farewell lunch with Dredd creator John (God) Wagner. Bishop says "I opened the package in Wagner's presence. His comment: "He saw you coming!"

Bishop sent an email to Miller expressing his disappointment and it was agreed that the cover would never be used. Two good tings come out of this sad little tale - one, the art was sold for more than $2000 for the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund and the other was that Diggle wrote Lenny Zero for free to fund the cover - giving the world not only a really cool character but more importantly, giving super artist Jock a big step up the artisitic ladder.

Frazer Irving - Buttonman 4

Mega thanks to super Artdroid Frazer Irving for being so kind as to send me all the covers for Buttonman 4 - The Hitman's Daughter. In my humble opinion, Buttonman is one of 2000AD's strongest strips. The strips sense of ultra realism in terms of both art and script made it a cut above for me. I really hope we finally get a film version of this one day.

I was initially disappointed when Arthur Ranson, who had done such an amazing job on books 1-3 of the series couldn't do book 4 but my worries were shortlived as Frazer did such an amazing job on the series.

So, I proudly present all the covers for Buttonman 4 - the design work is absolutely amazing so please remember to click 'em to see the full sized versions so you can chack out all the lovely detail. Oh, and don't forget to visit Mr Irving's site at http://www.frazerirving.com/

I have lots more of Frazer's covers so watch out for them in the coming months!

Zombo!

Hooray! I received a lovely email from Uber Artdroid Henry Flint today with the fantastic Zombo cover of Prog 1634. Zombo, by Al Ewing and Henry Flint, deservedly become an instant hit with a massive portion of the readership of 2000AD thanks to it's mix of old and new style storytelling, fantastic main character and absolutely stonking art.

Thanks to Henry for sending this!

Gongbeater!

When I decided I was going to do this blog there were one or two covers, and cover artists, I had in mind that I was desperate to show. Far and away one of those artists was Clint Lagley who's work just boggles my mind it's so stunning.

I contacted him and asked if he wouldn't mind sending me some of his covers and he very, very kindly agreed! I'm absolutely dying to get his series of ABC Warriors covers but for now here is his excellent wraparound (or should that be warparound?) cover to Prog 1638, featuring Slaine and Ukko.

Huge thanks to Clint for being so generous and making this fanboy very happy!