2000 AD Covers Uncovered: A Legend returns – Colin Wilson’s Rogue Trooper for Prog 2338
28th June 2023
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 sees something very special, as Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Lt. Blueberry, and Nevada artist Colin Wilson returns to cover the penultimate episode of Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard‘s Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley. It was an honour to speak to this legendary comics artist, one of the few artists in the world who’ve had incredible success in the UK, Europe, and the USA.
A native New Zealander, Colin Wilson moved to London in 1980 for work at 2000 AD. And although not perhaps technically legal – he’ll fill you in on that himself – his work on Judge Dredd and then Rogue Trooper, the latter alongside the other great Rogue artist of the time, Dave Gibbons, brought his Euro-influence stylings and dystopian techno-futurism to the comic and absolutely cpativated the fans.
He may have only been at 2000 AD in the 80s for a brief time, but his work, from Judge Dredd: The Sweet Taste of Justice in the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 1981 to Rogue Trooper: Marauders in Progs 282-289 in 1982 will always be a huge part of 2000 AD history. And, like he proudly (and rightly!) tells you, he’s now been in 2000 AD in every decade from the 80s – very few can say that!
After decamping to Paris, Wilson eventually – again, he’ll tell you all about that in a moment – found his art in demand, with Glénat publishing his sci-fi series Dans L’Ombre Du Soleil. But his real grande entrance on the European bande dessinée scene came when legendary creators Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean (Moebius) Giraud saw his work and anointed him as Girard’s successor on art for their La Jeunesse de Blueberry (Young Blueberry) series. Many, many years of success in Europe followed, as well as work for US publishers, making him that rarest of things, a triple success across three very distinct comics markets – UK, Europe, and USA.
Seeing his artwork back here on the cover of Prog 2338 is an absolute thrill, just as it was to chat with him. So, without further ado, my great pleasure to introduce the wonderful Colin Wilson…
COLIN WILSON: I was thrilled to be asked to draw a Rogue Trooper cover for 2000 AD earlier this year, especially as this would continue my run of having something published in the weekly in every decade since I first started my career there back in 1980.
It was an exciting time in the 80s – I stepped off the plane from New Zealand looking forward to checking out a little of the UK before returning to NZ or Australia, and within a few months I was hunkered down in a cheap but very cold central London squat drawing my first professional comic work for 2000 AD, Initially on Judge Dredd, and then with Rogue Trooper.
I was soon also desperately trying to find a way to avoid being forced to return to New Zealand as (unbeknown to Tharg) I lacked the necessary permit to work in the UK. I never really did succeed in becoming 100% legal there, which was why several of my later RT episodes were completed on tiny tables in a couple of cheap, downmarket Paris Hotels.
Well, he might not have been 100% legal here, but that early Rogue Trooper work was well worth a little bit of bending the visa rules…
CW: While continuing to work for 2000 AD, my (soon-to-be) wife and I moved to Paris in early 1982, where we also spent the next few months visiting some of the great French comic publishers, using a selection of Rogue Trooper original pages to show them some of my current work. At the time 2000 AD artwork was never returned to the artists after publication, and so yet-to-be mailed (to the 2000 AD office) RT pages were the only samples of my work that I had to work with.
They were almost always completely baffled by what they were looking at, but eventually I got lucky, and signed my first contract to produce a three book science fiction series for Glenat [L’Ombre Du Soleil]. It was 15 years or so before I worked on 2000 AD again…
But RT was such a great character to work with. Dave Gibbons and Gerry Findley-Day had done all the heavy lifting creating the original series, and that 1st year alternating story arcs with Dave in the weekly gave me the boost I needed to think that maybe I could perhaps actually make a living drawing comics (which, in those pre-Internet days, was never going to be possible if I was forced to return to NZ).
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CW: But I was never really all that happy with the (I think) two Rogue Trooper covers that I did produce for the weekly back then. Unlike Dave’s RT covers, there was something stiff and ungainly about my own work that left me feeling unsatisfied.
Oh, artists, artists, artists! Why do you do this to yourselves. You’ve already seen two of Colin’s Rogue Trooper covers – but he was wrong, there’s actually a third, to Prog 269 (thank you Barney!) Now, you look at this and tell me there’s something stiff and ungainly about it???
CW: Which is why, when Tharg contacted me earlier this year, his request for an “old school, iconic Rogue Trooper illustration” threw down the challenge.
Looking back through a bunch of those early stories all I wanted was a simple, single vanishing point image of RT charging out of the frame, alone, hotly pursued by ‘the enemy’.
I sketched up a couple of variations on the theme, Tharg chose the final image, and I took a couple of days off from working my current series Nevada (published by Delcourt in France), and inked up the final art. Colour is something that I seldom have to deal with these days, but I also produced a quick B&W treatment of the way I saw the image looking in grey tones, and my job was done…
First up then, the couple of concept sketches Colin did, plus a few zoomed-in crops from them for your enjoyment…
And then the cover pencils for the chosen image…
And then Colin’s B&W treatment of the way he saw it all looking, in grey tones…
And finally, the finished cover with colours by the always amazing Dylan Teague…
Well, that was, I hope you agree, wonderful. I’ve loved Wilson’s work for so many years, especially when a friend showed me his astonishing Young Blueberry volumes – my sub-O-Level French may not have been good enough to read them, but there was so much excitement and amazement to be had through the artwork. So it was a huge honour and a pleasure to talk to him for this latest of his 2000 AD covers.
You can find Colin’s wonderful artwork on the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2338 from 28 June in shops, newsagents, and the 2000 AD web shop.
Now, extra stuff… because it’s Colin Wilson and I’d be remiss not to show you more, more, more of that amazing artwork. And, of course, after you’ve read this, you should go and listen to the great man chat all about his life and work at the 2000 AD Thrillcast episode from 2020 here.
So, where to start? Well, let’s go right back to the beginning and showcase all of Colin’s 2000 AD cover art first…
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Then maybe a few bits of his Rogue Trooper artwork over the couple of years he was involved…
And finally, just as a particular treat, a complete 4-page Wilson-drawn Rogue Trooper episode from Fear of the Machine, this one from 2000 AD Prog 248, 1982…
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Now, moving on to the simply stunning work he did on Young Blueberry…
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And finally, his most recent series for Dargard, Nevada, written by Fred Duval and Jean-Pierre Pécau. As you’d expect, it looks simply stunning.
Set in the 1920s when the western United States was changing rapidly, the story centres on Nevada Marquez. Once an adventurer of sorts, he now works in Hollywood for former actress turned producer Louise Hathaway. But although this may be a new age, it doesn’t mean that this west is any less wild, as Nevada’s finding out. It’s Colin Wilson being Colin Wilson on every page, filling the imagination with imagery of the last vestiges of the Wild West, obviously delighting in revisiting the places, themes, and grand vistas that made his Young Blueberry so influential and incredible.
