2000 AD Covers Uncovered: State Of The Union – Paul Williams returns to Dredd for Prog 2407
6th November 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!
Another iconic Judge Dredd now for the cover of Prog 2407 by Paul Williams, who’s making a name for himself with this sort of classic Dredd image.
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Paul’s another one of the droids who got their shot through the annual 2000 AD/Thought Bubble script and art contests, winning the art search competition in 2017, alongside script contest winner Laura Bailey. Since then, Paul’s art has appeared in the Prog with his contest-winning Future Shock, Sunday Scientist, in Prog 2072, and the DeMarco, P.I. 3-parter, An Eye, in Judge Dredd Megazine issue 410-413, both scripted by Laura Bailey. He’s also been a cover artist several times, with a great line of iconic Judge Dredd poses, of which this is the very latest. But you haven’t seen him in Prog or Meg recently, as he’s had, as you’ll read, a bit of a ‘season-ending injury’, so to speak
It’s great to see his work back on a cover here – and here’s Paul Williams to tell you all about putting this one together…
PAUL WILLIAMS: There was a little A4 drawing I’d sold at a convention (probably ‘Thought Bubble’ in 2019 when myself and Laura Bailey were placed, conveniently, right next to the 2000 AD stand!) which I’d always felt *could* be something more. It was nothing particularly spectacular or anything, but I liked the concept and design.
Here’s the original convention piece – I’ve no idea who owns this but I’m sure their eyes popped out of their head when they saw the latest cover!
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I’d thought about making a cover out of it but previous attempts had been a bit half-hearted. Then, this summer, I was – frankly – in dire need of some work (I broke my shoulder blade last year which put a considerable halt to my career) and thought I’d have another look at this as Matt had not been interested in one or two other ideas I’d sent previously.
So, I quickly bodged together what I thought might make a good cover and, hurrah, this one landed!
I used the original artwork scan for the mock-up so I wouldn’t waste time if it was rejected, simply adding a bit more below-the-belt (literally!) and adding tones...
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As I had the 2019 piece and quite liked most of the line work, I didn’t think it necessary to start from scratch and so most of the inks that appear on the cover are simply inked directly from that original.
That being said, there were some areas that I identified as needing significant improvement, including the left shoulder pad and Dredd’s hands and face and so I set about creating a better version of those elements.
That included getting some photo reference for the improvements using my “Judge’s glove” prop. In the background, you can see my McMahon Dredd statue and the massive photo frame containing my previous 4 covers, a gift received for my 40th birthday earlier this year...
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And those photo refs all went into making those fixes and improvements Paul talks about…
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PAUL WILLIAMS: Another part of the image that I deemed not quite up to scratch was the American flag itself.
No, I’m not referring to the fact it is – as I’m sure the more cynical amongst the ‘2000AD’ readership have already pointed out – backwards! I consider that element of the drawing to be a bit of artistic license as this was truly the only arrangement of Dredd (in this pose) and flag that looked right in terms of the weight of the composition.
No other arrangement worked as well and so I thought “Drokk it!” and took the liberty; I do recall from working on Z2 Comics’ ‘True War Stories’, however, that the flag is reversed on American military uniforms so I’m sure there’s a way you could make sense of it in a representational/conceptual sort of way!
But no, the problem I’m talking about is obviously that the stars appear a little weak on the original (probably a result of inking them at that scale) so I made sure to make them bolder and clearer and also made the blood drips look more realistic.
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Those completed inks which are a mix of digital and physical – I’ll get into that shortly!
There is something quite significant about this cover for me, and that is that it is the first bit of artwork I ever created for 2000AD which I coloured myself (though not the first to see print as something I did later came out first).
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the best colourist but I had a very strong impression of how this should look (such as the background remaining completely, solidly white) and so thought I’d have a crack at it.
Being happy with the result, I cheekily sent that along and was happy to see it accepted for publication rather than me being sent to Mek-Quake for overstepping my bounds.
Here’s original “finished” colours before the inevitable tweaks that happen after you think you’ve finished...
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You’ll also notice that the inks have not been adjusted to a solid black, which was quite intentional on my part (though this will probably be less noticeable in print than on your screen).
I always like to see the brush strokes in black and white comic art as I think it adds a bit of texture and so I thought I would experiment with leaving them in on a coloured piece.
This also explains why these inks which I drew digitally have a physical counterpart – I printed off the linework without fills and then inked all that in with a brushpen so that lovely texture would be there. I also hoped that this technique – of printing it off and then scanning it back in – might help give the artwork a less “digital” appearance – which I think it does.
After a little more tweaking, I decided to add a red spray-paint effect to the bottom of the flag and adjusted the hue of the whole image to match and voila – the actual, final, finished artwork! (which I promptly sent off so I wouldn’t spend the next day tweaking it even further into oblivion)…
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One tiny niggle I have had with some of my previous covers, if I may be so bold as to say so, is that they have occasionally been designed with the 2000 AD template in mind but then used on the Megazine with its much bigger logo which has caused some compositional issues that I feel reflected badly on me as the artist to the unknowing eye. With that in mind, I was careful to ensure this would work well on either publication and so could rest easy once it was signed off!
As mentioned above, readers of the Megazine (which you all should be!) will have already seen a self-coloured piece of mine that was drawn soon after this, as issue 471 included a DeMarco pin-up that was created using the same techniques as this cover, featuring the distinctive scar that Laura Bailey and I gave her. Sorry, Galen!
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Another cracking Dredd cover from Paul there! Thank you so much to him for sending all that along.
You can find Paul’s Dredd adoring the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2407, out everywhere the galaxy’s greatest is sold, including the 2000 AD webshop.
There’s more Covers Uncovered from Paul for Prog 2199 (the rather iconic end of End of Days cover), plus Megazine 422 and Megazine 436. In addition to all that, there’s a couple of interviews we’ve done with Paul. First, with him and fellow Thought Bubble winner, script-droid Laura Bailey, here. Second, Paul and Laura talking about their recent DeMarco strip on the Thrill-Cast here. Finally, be sure to follow Paul on the socials – Twitter, Instagram, website.
Now, a couple of extras Paul sent along for you to oooh and aaaahh at…
Paul describes this first one as, ‘an unpublished Anderson/Death piece, unsuccessfully pitched as a pin-up for the Meg. You win some, you lose some!…
And finally, a Bill and Ted crossover that Paul drew last year and went viral, ‘shared by many a 2000AD reader last year, though most were unaware it was drawn by one of Tharg’s own!‘
