Comics

2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Ho Ho Horrors with Andy Clarke for the big Xmas Prog 2312!

13th December 2022

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’ssssssss Christmassssssss (which strangely, works whether it’s Noddy Holder or Judge Death announcing it.) And Christmas means the HUGE 2000 AD festive blow out, complete with a cover from the ever-wonderful Andy Clarke!

Yes, it’s full on Christmas in Hell for the big Xmas Prog this year, with Andy Clarke’s cover leading into a massive end of year celebration and the beginnings of some of the greatest Thrill Power you’ll find anywhere!

We have two lots of Judge Dredd, the beginnings of three ghafflebette tales – Proteus Vex: Crawlspace by Mike Carroll & Jake Lynch, The Out Book Three by Dan Abnett & Mark Harrison, and the highly anticipated Joe Pineapples: Tin Man by Pat Mills, Simon Bisley & Clint Langley, as well as the continuation of the dark horrors in Hope: In the Shadows Reel Two by Guy Adams & Jimmy Broxton. Plus, Rogue Trooper encounters Nort genetic experiments in Brothers by Kek-W & Warwick Fraser-Coombe, and there’s the unexpected (and bittersweet) return of the anarchic alien, Bonjo From Beyond The Stars, by Garth Ennis and the late Kevin O’Neill, plus a special Judge Dredd tribute to the much-missed Alan Grant. Seriously, this is one you need to be stuffing that stocking with!

But now, we’ll get the skinny from Andy Clarke on putting together the cover that you’ll see on the shelves for Christmasssss…

Ohhhhh, it’s PANTO season – ‘He’s behind you!’

ANDY CLARKE: The brief from Tharg was pretty exciting – the chance to come up with a cover for the Christmas Prog with the added bonus of some flippin’ brilliant Lee Carter work to reference. It was a good opportunity to revisit the original Carlos Ezquerra strip too – fantastic stuff.

[Andy’s talking about Judge Dredd: The Last Temptation of Joe by Ken Niemand & Lee Carter in the Xmas Prog, a sequel riffing off the classic Beat the Devil, by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra, originally published in Judge Dredd Annual 1984 – the one set in Iso-Block 666 and ending up with Satan in cuffs.]

Once Tharg approved the sketch, I tweaked anythingthat needed it or needed tightening up. I was going to do most of it greytone, so only inked up the outlines and the odd detail here and there. 

Fire and brimstone and the usual bondage gear for Dredd’s Christmas party then?
Pencils and partial inks done by Andy, all awaiting the greytones

I got the background underway first so I could see as I went along how it was sitting in relation to Dredd and the devil. I dropped in some texture instead of going in and drawing any more detail and then erased into it to get an idea where the light was going to fall on the buildings. 

To give the sky a bit more to do, I wetted some paper and made a few splodges with old ink that’s more grey-brown than black, scanned it in and dropped it in behind the city. I did a few of these a few years back to use for outer-space backgrounds – the hope was they’d look a bit more interesting than just a black area with ink-spray for stars. They seem to work for other stuff too, adding dirt to things that are a bit too nice and clean – flicking ink over everything works pretty good too. 

If you even think about it, Beelze-perp, I’m going to stick that trident, flaming or not, where the sun don’t shine!

The greytone stuff needed a little more care this time – my usual parallel pen method wasn’t going to work all that well on the devil’s skin – it’s a bit hard and flat – so something with a softer edge seemed a better option for these areas. Same approach for the devil’s fiery “tail” thingy. 

The devil rides into MC-1 trailing a brown toxic cloud of choking gas…
A lesson learned, always avoid overdoing the sprouts.

Once all the flats were in place, I changed some of the greys to colour for a bit more flexibility, then darkened up some areas and lightened up others. Wasn’t really sure how to approach the fire on the devil’s fork, so made some fiery shapes, duplicated them, blurred and blended, poked and prodded until it all started to come together. A lot of mucking about and hoping, in other words.

To finish off – as it’s that time of year – I peppered in some falling snow and capped the city blocks. I’m glad Tharg went for the subtler snowy option, far better than the other thought I had about Dredd being tangled up in xmas tree lights and the devil wearing a santa hat. Lame.

Silent Night, unholy night – choir practice always gets canceled because of something in MC-1

And that’s it – it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… all thanks to Andy Clarke! You can find 2000 AD Prog 2312, the final Prog of 2022, wherever you pick up your weekly dose of the Galaxy’s Greatest, including the 2000 AD web shop from right now – today.

If you want to read more of Andy Clarke talking covers (and of course you do) – how about Prog 2287 with its trash droid for Dredd? Who can forget the Sinisterless Dexter cover with the world’s worst category for Prog 2290. And finally there’s his swimsuit special Dredd for Judge Dredd Megazine 444.