2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Feeling the weight of the world with Rufus Dayglo’s Cover for Prog 2360
29th November 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 we have another fabulous Rufus Dayglo Devil’s Railroad cover to delight you on the cover of Prog 2360 – one that you’ve possibly already seen in the promotional images for this great series by Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo.
We’re now deep into the incredible sci-fi love story that began in Prog 2352, Milligan and Dayglo thrilling us with a tale of two young lovers living in a war zone who’ve just discovered they’re expecting. Wanting something as simple as a life during wartime and a life not threatened every day for their child, they’ve joined The Devil’s Railroad, the dangerous people smuggling route offering them sanctuary on Earth.
It’s exactly the sort of politically-infused sci-fi that 2000 AD has always been known for, a heady mix of epic love story and social commentary that has already proved a huge hit with fans.
So, time to join the young lovers once more, as Constance and Palamon feel like they’ve got the weight of the world on them in this latest cover by Rufus, such a great cover in fact that Tharg’s already been using it for publicity…
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Compared to Rufus’ first cover for The Devil’s Railroad, this one was a lot easier, all starting, as Rufus will tell you, with just the one cover rough… this one in fact…
RUFUS DAYGLO: This cover came to me pretty much fully formed as an idea… with the World oppressively failing to welcome our desperate young refugees.
Sometimes it really is that simple!
So the two elements of the cover were set and done… first the desperate young lovers…
And then the world above them, full of abuse and hatred…
But even here where the cover came together so easily, there’s still things that cause the art droid problems – back to Rufus again…
RUFUS DAYGLO: The only thing I tinkered/struggled with was colouring the couple! I tried various simple colour tones before fully colouring them.
The Globe on this cover is actually a Plastic toy Globe I bought at a Berlin flea market from a middle-aged Syrian refugee, who was selling odds and ends to try and make cash. He was an architect from Damascus and we talked in English.
I did two versions of this cover, one with the couple small, almost crushed by the World, and the other with a larger couple, with all the abusive graffiti behind them.
And here are just a few of the various combinations of figures and colours that Rufus tried before settling on the final cover…
All of which led to that iconic final cover – so iconic and representative of The Devil’s Railroad, absolutely stunning…
Thank you again to Rufus for all the details of this second Devil’s Railroad cover – and what a fabulous cover it is! Thanks so much to Rufus for sharing that with us. Find the cover on the Prog wherever thrill power is sold, comic shops, newsagents, and of course the 2000 AD web shop.
For more on The Devil’s Railroad, make sure you read our interview with Milligan and Dayglo, and have a look at Rufus’ first Devil’s Railroad Covers Uncovered as well, you can find that here.
And for more from the Milligan/Dayglo team, there’s an interview on their dystopian cyberpunk thriller Counterfeit Girl here and we talk Bad Company: Terrorists here.
Counterfeit Girl is available as a collection whilst Bad Company: First Casualties can be found in Progs 1950-1961 and as a digital collection. Bad Company: Terrorists can be found in Progs 2061-2072. And for more of Milligan’s Bad Company, The Complete Bad Company, with art by Brett Ewins, Jim McCarthy, and Steve Dillon is essential.
