2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Dredd Rules O.K.! on Andy Clarke’s subs-exclusive Prog 2350 cover
20th September 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, something different – it’s the subscriber-exclusive cover to the mega-crossover 2000 AD Prog 2350 by Andy Clarke!
On 20 September 2000 AD Prog 2350 asks the question – what would 2000 AD have been like if it had merged with stablemate Battle Action in the 1980s?
But we don’t just ask the question, we answer it – with a zarjaz 48-page stand-alone crossover event merging legendary characters from 2000 AD with classic characters from the ground-breaking Battle Picture Weekly and the controversial Action.
And to celebrate the event, subscribers to 2000 AD will be automatically receiving an exclusive edition of Prog 2350 with that Andy Clarke cover – a ghafflebette homage to the legendary Carlos Ezquerra’s notorious Kids Rule O.K.! cover for Action from 1976 – but now with the Judges in charge!
Meanwhile, the standard newsstand edition – available from newsagents, comic book stores, and the 2000 AD webshop from 20 September – features a superb line-up cover by Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague.
In this latest of our mega-crossover events, you’ll have the chance to see Judge Dredd meets Kids Rule O.K.! in Juves Rule, El Mestizo meets Major Eazy in The Treasure of Solomon, plus Death Game 2049, Hellman of Hell Force, and more! But that’s just Prog 2350 – the crossover action then heads over to Judge Dredd Megazine #460, also out on 20 September, featuring a wraparound cover by Judge Dredd artist Henry Flint.
So, with the subscriber-exclusive cover homaging a legend, it was no surprise to find that cover artist Andy Clarke was having a bit of a moment when he got the job…
Tharg’s brief of delivering a homage to this one had the Clarke droid quaking in his boots!
ANDY CLARKE: Once I’d got past a touch of the nervous-nellies (for obvious reasons), this was a good opportunity to take a good hard look at how (King) Carlos Ezquerra put an image together.
As the composition was already set, I went straight to a finished drawing that I could work on with . . . if The Mighty One gave the okay to do so, of course.
For the Mega-City punks, I looked at Dredd strips that were gang-heavy to get an idea of the kind of look they have – there was a Metro Dredd strip I remembered doing that might’ve been useful too, but I couldn’t find it. Some Jamie Hewlett seemed like a good bet as well, just as a general reference point. Any excuse’ll do, but to me, the Tank Girl cast did have a future punk-y kind of look to them. This part took a bit longer than it should have as I got good and distracted by the Calvin & Hobbes books I rediscovered while looking through things.
But it is a LOT of aggro, just as it should be!
Feel the fear punk – time to say hello to Joe’s daystick.
Initially, I was going to take a crack at doing this one a little differently – loosen up a bit and just use enough grey to add a bit of substance to the figures without getting all that specific on details, add a bit of texture maybe and then keep the colours as flat as possible.
Something less laborious that would hopefully work out if I could get it to look how I wanted. A bit like these examples.
The Dredd pics were just things I did for myself a few months before I did the “Dredd underwater” cover for the Meg. Again, they’re pretty good examples of the simpler approach I was thinking about for this cover . . . but chickened out of.
And these are just “sketchbook” stuff/character design stuff really, but they’re pretty good examples for the approach I was thinking of taking…
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I thought it might look a bit more in keeping with the original cover as well.
But I bottled it in the end.
I stuck to what I did with the 2000 AD covers from last year: inks, greytone, flat colour, shadows and highlights.
Well, Andy says bottled it – we reckon the results look pretty damn great… here’s the next stages, greytones and flat colours added…
To finish up, it needed some tweaking to make it more presentable. Adjusting things – lightening or darkening certain areas to bring them forward or drop them back, saturating the colours a bit more – stuff like that.
And all that led to this… the final version that subscribers will see on the front of their Progs…
That’s a homage worthy of King Carlos we reckon!
Thank you to Andy for sending that one along. If you are a subscriber, Andy’s cover to 2000 AD Prog 2350 will have dropped through your letter box already. If you’re not a subscriber (and why the hell not?), be sure you don’t miss out on the next subscriber exclusive, the subscriber free gifts, and a great deal on the Galaxy’s Greatest by subscribing right here!
As for more Covers Uncovered action from Andy, be sure to have a look at his covers for Prog 2287, Prog 2290, Prog 2312, and Megazine 444.