2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Fourth time’s the charm – John McCrea’s Prog 2380 cover
1st May 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!
Borag Thungg once more Earthlets, time to take a look at the latest Thrill-Powered cover by John McCrea, adorning the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2380 with the McCrea droid showing us Aquila in action down in Hades on a hell-born steed!
Inside this week’s Prog, we’ve reached part 4 in the latest instalment of Gordon Rennie and Patrick Goddard’s sword and sorcery tale of blood and nightmares as Aquila’s time in the underworld has boiled over into all-out war in The Rivers Of Hades Book Two.
Aquila’s down in Hades to free the soul of Nero, the only one who can lead him to Ammit The Devourer, the underworld goddess of retribution. She bestowed upon Aquila the curse of immortality in return for providing the souls of evil men for her sustenance. But Aquila’s grown weary and wants to be freed of the curse – which is why we find him down in Hades right in the middle of The Battle of the Rebellion of the Dead!
And I know it’s John McCrea’s Covers Uncovered but we can’t resist sharing with you this zarjaz panel from the start of this episode by Patrick Goddard… it’s just everything you’re going to love about Aquila…
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Okay, enough going wow over the Goddard droid’s fabulous interiors. Let’s hand this over to John McCrea to tell you all about a cover that was a long time in the making – for all the wrong reasons. Strap yourselves in, it’s a good one…
JOHN MCCREA: Ok, this cover demonstrates a certain amount of instability in the McCrea droid’s circuits. The brief was to draw our hero charging forward on horseback towards a group of demons in hell.
So I immediately forgot about the horse (or never noticed) and drew Aquila running towards us, sword drawn with demons in hot pursuit…
JOHN MCCREA: Tharg ok-ed it and I prepared to ink. The following morning I woke up, looked at my drawing and hated it, so I scrapped it. I felt the figure was two stiff and upright.
[Okay everyone – let’s keep count at home – that’s one McCrea cover scrapped]
JOHN MCCREA: I then penciled this…
JOHN MCCREA: Once again, old green bonce approved, so I went to inks.
I added the same demons from the previous drawing into the background.
JOHN MCCREA: I sent it to Jack Davies, who coloured it up not realizing the horror that was in store for him. As you can see from my notes there were some changes I wanted…
JOHN MCCREA: I think it was at this point that I realized that I actually hated this drawing as well.
I felt there was no dynamic to it, even though I had really tried to put a lot of dynamism into it.
It looked more like he was going to fall over, due to the way he was carrying his swords. Maybe I was trying too hard. So I scrapped this drawing too.
[And yes, that’s cover number two scrapped – this one made it all the way to Jack Davies’s colours!]
JOHN MCCREA: I then pencilled this. I’ve always loved floating heads on covers and interiors thanks to guys like Steve Ditko and Gil Kane. However, I don’t think my heart was really in it and the heads really don’t look very good. I think I was finding it hard to focus due to the headache this cover was giving me.
JOHN MCCREA: Nonetheless, I inked it, adding flames behind the running figure and using the transform tool in Photoshop to warp the heads a bit…
JOHN MCCREA: Tharg, who I imagine was beginning to lose his patience with me, approved this cover too, so off to Jack it went.
The colours came back but I felt they were too dark and not punchy enough…
JOHN MCCREA: I did this to it, but at this point I was starting to have a gnawing feeling in my dark, shrivelled little soul that I was not very happy with this cover either.
[Of course he wasn’t – We think you’re all seeing where this is going, right?]
JOHN MCCREA: Sure enough, the next day I scrapped it as well.
[Well you all saw that coming, right? That’s three completed covers gone by now, two of which poor Jack has coloured. Who’s going to do bad things to the McCrea droid first, an aggrieved colourist or a frustrated Tharg?]
JOHN MCCREA: I went back to the original brief and realised that Matt (Tharg’s Terran name) had originally asked for Aquila on horseback. I love drawing horses so it confused me that I had missed this. I drew a demonic-looking horse, requisite flames, and shadowy hero figure.
At this point, I realised I had finally got it right.
JOHN MCCREA: Tharg once again approved, but said he would be sending Mek Quake around to my hab if I tried changing anything else! So I dutifully progressed to inks. It’s funny but as soon as my pen hit the paper to ink this, I knew I had got it right.
JOHN MCCREA: I added digital tones for a little more grit…
JOHN MCCREA: Off to Jack, who was having a nervous breakdown at this point, for colours.
Jack was obviously inspired as well as I only had a few notes…
JOHN MCCREA: And that was that. All in, it took me about a week to draw this cover. Which is ridiculous.
But I am mostly happy with the finished result.
Apologies to Jack.
Thanks so much to the McCrea droid for another ghafflebette cover and the rollercoaster of emotions he gave us in the telling of it being put together. It just goes to show, you just have to keep on going and keep trying until you get it right! And always say sorry to your colourist!
Prog 2380 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.
If you want more Covers Uncovered from John, we’ve plenty here at 2000 AD.com to tickle your fancies – some cracking Dredds on Prog 2024, Prog 2224, Prog 2328, Prog 2351, and Prog 2361, plus his most recent for the Judge Dredd Megazine, issue 467, which is out right now as well!