2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Mike Dowling Brings Back The Vamp For Megazine 465
26th February 2024
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!
We’re looking at the new Judge Dredd Megazine for this latest Covers Uncovered – with Megazine 465 featuring the return of the deliciously dandyish, voluptuously vampish (not to mention vampiric) Mr Devlin Waugh, as brought to life by Mike Dowling for the cover…
Inside Megazine 465, we have the return of everyone’s favourite Brit Cit bon viveur, Devlin Waugh, with Aleš Kot returning to write Nightclubbing alongside new series artist Steven Austin, where we’re checking in with Devlin and his plastic pal Titivillus. The trouble is, Devlin’s struggling a little to get his shit together right now after his most recent troubles in dealing with a curse on his bloodline.
Here’s just a little of what to expect inside, with art by Steven Austin…
But before you get the delights of peeking inside at Devlin’s latest exploits, time to chat to Mike Dowling about putting this great new Megazine cover together, complete with a sneak peek at a Devlin cover in Mike’s rough ideas that we might well be seeing later in the year. As is often the case, it was another example of the art droids throwing themselves on the mercy of The Mighty One for work. Or, in this case, Tharg’s Earthly representative…
MIKE DOWLING: I’d got in touch with Matt Smith to see if he needed anything and he suggested A Devlin Waugh cover. I sent over 3 rough ideas and handily for me, Matt went for 2 of them.
I started with the big portrait of Devlin. I’d tried to do something like this before and it hadn’t worked out. I was keen to have another go at it and at least get it mostly right this time!
Looking at the original sketch I decided it just wasn’t dramatic enough. I originally thought the scale of the head would be striking enough but I quickly decided I needed something more – something in the lighting to give it some drama. I remembered a picture of James Cagney from Angels with Dirty Faces – he has such presence in the photo – I thought I could lift the lighting from that publicity still wholesale. I wanted some menace in the picture, which Cagney has in spades but I also needed something a bit carnal – It’s Devlin after all!
After that decision it was all pretty straightforward – I put together the pencil drawing, adding another shadow to better frame Devlin’s left eye and made sure it would all fit with the logo.
I’ve moved from the dark tones to the light, trying to find the right balance.
With all the tones in place, I spent a while trying to sneak up on the right colours for the piece. Normally I would have a colour idea in place when I got started, but as this was not part of a scene or larger story I had to deal with the worrying possibility of the colour being ‘anything I wanted it to be’.
Existential crisis aside I added some paper texture, Made sure it still sat happily with the logo and considered it finished.
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And that’s it – it always sounds nice and simple when droids like Mike lay it all out that way, missing out the hours and hours of blood, seat, and tears that go into putting something worthy of a cover together!
Our thanks to Mike Dowling there for sharing the art there to this latest gorgeous Devlin cover. You can find it on the front of Megazine 465, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop right now.
