Thanks to the Amazing PYE-01!

Huge, huge, huuuge thanks to PYE-01 for producing the amazing image above! PYE-01, or Simon Parr as some would call him, is Tharg's Head Design Droid and he has been instrumental in allowing this blog to function. Many of the covers we've been able to enjoy on this site have been sent by Pye, as he is my last port of call if I can't track down the cover artist themselves or if they don't scan their work.

It's so kind of him to give so much time to a blog that's basically undoing all the hard work that he has to do, so this is a very public thank you to him!

As well as having such a great design sense, Pye is a damned talented artist too. He has recently started a web site to show some of his fantastic work, you'll find it at http://www.pyeparr.com/ . I urge you all to look at his 'Lunchtime of the Dead' strip too, it's horrendously funny!

Thanks again Pye, you're a legend!

Karl Richardson - Holy Terror!

Karl Richardson is easily one of my favourite 2000AD cover artists who has been responsible for some amazing covers in recent years. Once again he has turned the thrill power to maximum with this fantastic depiction of Raziel the Angel from Tony Lee and Lee Carter's ace story Necrophim.

Karl tells me that this is a version of the final cover but not actually the finished one. I for one can't see any differences between this and the one on my prog (which was late, bloody postal strike, hence this late blog entry!) If any readers spot any differences, please leave a comment below!

To see more of Karl's amazing work, click here. Thanks again to Karl for sending me this fantastic image and driving me crazy playing spot the difference!

Art for Hearts Auction

The week beginning 2nd of November sees a very special auction on Ebay. Organised by 2000AD fan Ian Stacey, the 'Art for Hearts' auction will raise funds for research for the transplant team at Great Ormond Street Hospital. This cause is, quite literally, very close to Ian's family's hearts as their own son’s life was saved by a heart transplant just four weeks after his birth.

The auction is of original art and signed digital prints by children’s illustrators such as Korky Paul, Lynne Chapman and An Vrombaut. Most of the artwork is original although there are also some signed digital prints and screen prints too.

All proceeds from the auction will be donated to help fund research by the transplant team at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Transplanted organs do not have the same life expectancy as non-transplanted organs and the transplant team is looking at finding ways to combat this.

Full details of the auction are available to view at http://art-for-hearts.blogspot.com/
Best of luck Ian, I'll certainly be putting a bid or two in!

EDIT - HERE is a link to the auction.

BOO! A Halloween Special!

Apologies straight away for that awful pun, but as it's Halloween, I thought I'd present a Boo Cook special! Boo is a fantastic artist who's off the wall imagination and amazingly vibrant colours are always guaranteed to absolutely blow me away!

As with most 2000AD artists, Boo earned his stripes illustrating the obligatory Tharg's Future Shocks, getting his first one under his belt in August of 2000. After impressing the fan base with his imaginative layouts and exotic aliens, he was given a three part ABC Warriors strip before teaming up with writer Rob Williams to produce the political strip Asylum.

The tale followed Marshall Holt, an alien hunter who's job it was to track down illegal immigrants trying to enter Earth. Holt was stationed on a lunar platform tethered to Earth, where any alien refugees would be processed before being granted entry to the planet. As with many of his Future Shocks, this gave Boo a chance to cut loose and showcase some of his sublime future tech and his balmy alien designs. The strip was a success, spawning an enjoyable sequel as well as being collected in a graphic novel. Among its many merits, the strip is notable for going down in 2000AD history as the first to depict a badly wounded man of the cloth shitting himself. Though as we will see, this was not Boo's last association with faeces in the Galaxy's Greatest!

Following Asylum, Boo worked with former Tharg Dave Bishop on the prison story Dead Men Walking. Reaction to the strip was mixed, but once again, an intergalactic prison full of exotic aliens and zombies allowed Boo's fertile imagination to soar!

Below we can see covers for both strips as well as prog 1411's Lobster Random cover.




Boo got his first shot at illustrating Judge Dredd in Prog 1432, in the Undercity tale Descent. Written by Gordon Rennie, the story saw Dredd, Psi-Judge Karyn and two other judges venture into the dangerous Undercity beneath Mega-City One to rescue a group of tourists from some hungry troggies. The trail leads them to a powerful psychic troggie known as The Shadow King, who resides in the ruins of St. Patrick's Cathederal in Old New York.

Boo's colour palette of oranges and purples used in this strip is absolutely wonderful, the pages actually seem to glow! The story is a significant one in the world of Dredd as it sadly sees the (apparent) end of long running Psi-judge Karyn as she sacrifices her humanity to save Dredd, becoming a feral beast possessed by the demonic spirit of the Shadow King.

Below we have Dredd-flavoured covers for Progs 1422, 1436 and 1471.




Boo's next co-creation for 2000AD was the popular Harry Kipling (Deceased), created with the wonderful Simon Spurrier. Kipling is an Earl Grey drinking, elephant gun toting, stiff upper lipped, British Imperial Zombie who's job it is to hunt and kill deities, all in the name of the British Empire.


Below we see the prestigious cover for Prog 1500. The cover features a host of characters and vehicles from 2000AD's rich history including Tharg the Mighty, Dredd, Guthrie, Jonny Alpha, Wulf Sternhammer, Chopper, Zenith, the ABC Warriors, Two tonne Tony Tubbs, Spikes Harvey Rotten and many many more.Finally, for 2000AD at least, there's the cover of Prog 1532, showing Dredd at the mercy of the last president of the USA, Big Bad Bob Booth during the Origins storyline.

As well as working in 2000AD, Boo has had several covers and strips published in the Judge Dredd Megazine. Returning to the poop theme, Boo's first story for the Meg was "In the Stomm" in Megazine 236 which saw him battling a huge rat-squid in a stinking sewer beneath Lon Chaney Block during a crime sweep.

Boo's other Dredd strip for the Meg was the controversial 'The Listener', which saw Gordon Rennie lampoon several boarders from the 2000AD's message board, several of whom were less than amused with what they read...

Currently, Boo is lead artist on the Judge Anderson strip, giving us the extraordinary Wiierd and Biophyle strips penned by Alan Grant as well as next years' House of Vyle.

Below are the superb covers of Megs 254 and 274 respectively.


Next up we have the wonderful cover of Zarjaz fanzine's 30 Years of Dredd Special. Is that Lobster Random's claw I can see there?Boo also provided covers for several 2000AD Extreme Editions. Obviously, his crackpot imagination and superb alien designs made him a natural choice to provide a cover for a reprint of the late Massimo Belardinelli's strip, The Dead, and he was also chosen to illustrate Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein for Extreme Edition 24.



Currently, Boo's beautiful artwork can be seen in the fantastic Elephantmen published by Image comics as well as on his superb blog All Tomorrow's Particles, which I recommend to find at http://www.boocook.blogspot.com/, some of his Elephantmen covers are simply breathtaking!

Many, many thanks to Boo for sending me so many covers, I can't wait to see him back in the Meg next year!

Henry Flint - "I am Skakara!"

Among the many, many artists who have worked for 2000AD I can think of few who are as universally popular (or indeed as talented) as Mr Henry Flint. Known for his amazing creativity, bonkers imagination and staggering attention to detail, Henry has baffled and thrilled us in equal measure for fifteen wonderful years!

Henry's artwork has a wonderful old school feel that is mixed with a sense of the very best cutting edge design. The best way I can think of describing his work is, it's like someone took all the best bits of McMahon, Bolland, O'Neill, Gibson, Bisley, Robinson, Dillon, D'Israeli and Langley, mixed 'em together, added some concentrated creativity and ramped the Thrillpower up to maximum!

Above we see his fantastic homage to McMahon's seminal Cursed Earth cover of Prog 85, a fan favourite to many, many readers. In typically modest style, Henry said that Tharg "asked me to use the same pose as Prog 85, it was his idea and a good one too. I don't usually sign my work but I did with this one only so I could add McMahon's initials. It isn't that clear instead of putting 'after' I put a 'wink' !) anyway, those in the know will hopefully understand. It's always best to credit a pose (specially when you know you won't get away with it!!!)"


Below is the original artwork which is owned by super collector John Bamber:

I'm sure McMahon will be flattered to see such an amazing cover from an artist who really is at the top of his game.

This cover reminded me of a set of variant covers Henry did for the ABC Warriors story 'Shadow Warriors' in prog 1476. I asked Henry about the design of these as there was something vaguely familliar about them. He said "Prog 1476 was my own design but it was directly influenced by Prog 130. I think I was asked for a group shot of the ABC's in action but I thought it would be interesting to have a cover in segments...like those 80's annual covers."

As well as Shakara, Henry is best known for his fantastic artwork on this year's hit strip Zombo (which he co-created), Nemesis, Deadlock, ABC Warriors and a host of Judge Dredd hits including the superb Dredd vs. Aliens crossover Incubus.

Once again, thanks to Henry for being so generous with his time and for the years of fantastic thrillpower he has given us all!

New Zarjaz and Dogbreath Covers!

Those talented guys at Futurequake Press have done it again! Last week saw the release of the wonderful eighth issue of Zarjaz featuring a stunning PJ (Nicest Man in Comics) Holden Rogue Trooper cover which has been superbly coloured by Steve Denton.

Last week also saw the release of Issue 21 of the Strontium Dog fanzine Dogbreath which boasts an amazingly rendered cover by Paul Rose.

I urge all readers to rush out and buy both fanzines. They're absolutely superb, with artwork and scripts by some of tomorrows brightest stars! Go to http://thequaequamblog.blogspot.com/ and snap 'em up!

Thanks to Bolt for sending them!

Mark Harrison's Formula for an Amazing Cover!

Above is Mark Harrison's absolutely beautiful cover for Prog 1655.

Mark burst into 2000AD back in 1994 when he produced scorching visuals for the Judge Dredd tale "Conspiracy of Silence," a prelude to the Wilderland's Epic. He went on to provide the operatic artwork for the reboot of Durham Red which was painted both traditionally and digitally - without a doubt making him one of the pioneers of digital artwork in the rich history of 2000AD. His other projects include the terrifying Glimmer Rats story, the Pulp Sci-Fi one offs (of which he wrote two episodes) and The Ten Seconders.

So, for all you aspiring cover artists out there, it is my pleasure to reveal 'Harrison's First Law of Amazing Covers' which should help you all produce similarly spectacular results. Ready? Here we go (click the image to make it bigger):

Simple eh? Professor Harrison will expertly demonstrate his complicated formula below, pay attention at the back!

He explains "Originally I was handed the brief of the Succubus and Uriel and I imagined using the image of an old Macbeth poster I did way back. (It felt very Macbeth, the whole Necrophim story, which is my favourite in 2000 AD at the moment.)" Below we can see his original poster and the concept sketch for the prog cover...

He continues "I use a quick photo montage method that is digitally painted over. This can be images off the internet or if you're lucky, someone posing for you (like my brother in these shots). I asked my long suffering brother to give me a series of brooding, dismissive, confrontational, pissed off poses; more than usual! (Note the cereal bowls doubling for skulls that were going to be in the original image.)

I supplemented that with photos of an action figure gave me some basic clothing reference. I've used action figures as a source of reference for years as they afford you that freedom of pose and perspective a photo can't give you (Well that's my excuse for my "reference collection"! ;))

Tharg wanted the female draped over the man so I used a flop of a thumbnail image of a Vanity Fair image as reference."

We can see all of those elements in the image below, perhaps his brother whould have looked slightly less brooding if Mark had sorted out a beautiful girl to drape herself over him!

Next, Mark handily goes on to justify the existence of this very blog - "The background was the architecture of Hell, namely internet images distorted; ruined churches, abbeys, statues , stone carvings and fields on fire (all lost on the final cover!)"

Finally he adds some Photoshop magic to really bring the cover alive! "To give a suitably hellish sheen to everyone I dropped a "sweat" image file (that I've had since Glimmer Rats days) over the bodies.

Finally I ran a couple of my own custom PhotoShop actions to add bloom and colour overlays (which as you can see in the attachments make a hell of a difference, making it punchier.)"

So there we have it, stunning stuff! Mark continues to work with Rebellion, producing absolutely beautiful covers for their Abaddon range of books. Please visit Mark's website and also take a peek at his hilarious Travellers strip. You can see more of Mark's covers uncovered on the great covers sketch page of Barney here!

HUGE thanks to Mark for being so generous with his time and for sending such amazing images!