2000 AD Covers Uncovered – Blood Comes To Thistlebone With The Latest From Simon Davis!
20th May 2021
Every week, 2000 AD brings you the galaxy’s greatest artwork and 2000 AD Covers Uncovered takes you behind-the-scenes with the headline artists responsible for our top cover art – join bloggers Richard Bruton and Pete Wells as they uncover the greatest covers from 2000 AD!
This week, it’s 2000 AD Prog 2232, featuring a typically gorgeous Thistlebone: Poisoned Roots cover by Simon Davis to conclude what’s been a chiller of a series… Folklore Horror at its finest!
With TC Eglington and Simon Davis‘ Thistlebone: Poisoned Roots reaching its finale in 2000 AD Prog 2232, the blood is well and truly flowing in the woods. But whose blood?
It’s been a series of creeping horrors, as the darkness spreads deep in Harrowvale, with Simon Davis’ beautifully sinister artwork amazing us at every turn. And now, it’s time for one final scare courtesy of Davis.
When we talked to Simon in our Thistlebone interview, he laid out just how he puts his art together, with everything starting with reference and modeling before he puts together the story in some incredible watercolour roughs, exquisite things that many artists would be proud to call their finished work. After this, he begins it all once more with traditional drawing, finishing it off with gouache, ink, crayon, and oils.
Now, over to Simon… one last time… the terror of Thistlebone…
SIMON DAVIS: Like my previous cover for this Thistlebone story, I wanted to create an image that encapsulated the feel of it rather than be narratively specific.
I tried a few variations of this design with different British mammals, eg a hare, a weasel, an owl, etc, but it just didn’t seem to work. A badger had featured in the story a few times so I was a little puzzled as to why I hadn’t thought of it before.
So I started to play with various badger/bonemask images and finally settled on this.
I really like images against white that are simple shapes and compositions and always try to have in the back of my mind how they will look on a shelf in a shop.
Matt Smith is always open to perhaps the more obscure imagery that maybe would put off other editors so I am very grateful to him for giving me the go ahead for this as it was one of those ideas I really wanted to paint.
It was painted in oils on a wooden panel and is (hopefully) pleasingly symmetrical.
Short and sweet but damn, the end result just looks so horrifyingly good. You can look for the newsagent terrifying cover on 2000 AD Prog 2232, available from 19 May from everywhere comics to chill and thrill are sold, including in the 2000 AD web shop.
For more on Thistlebone, be sure to check out the interview with writer TC Eglington and Simon Davis here and Simon’s previous Covers Uncovered for 2000 AD Prog 2223. And be sure to pick up the first volume of Thistlebone is from the web shop.
