2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Jingle this, creep! Mike Perkins on Judge Dredd Megazine issue 463
20th December 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 month’s Judge Dredd Megazine is wishing you a perfect Christmas with a warning – woe betide anyone who’s been naughty this year because you’re going to end up with Dredd’s daystick list, and that’s far worse than Santa’s naughty list! And for the cover, we have the return of one of 2000 AD’s alumni – Mike Perkins.
This years’ Christmas Judge Dredd Megazine is out right now and features a ghafflebette line-up of strips for consumption alongside lashings of festive feasting. There’s the return of the psychotic l’il michief maker Dollman in Judge Dredd, more from Spector: Incorruptible, and the new DeMarco P.I. series continues to impress in A Picture Paints. Bringing things to a close, there’s a double-sized finale to Lawless: Most Wanted, with Lawson and pals in a titanic showdown against Fugly’s mob.
Alongside those zarjaz series, the Megazine is packed with goodness, reprints of the Treasury of British Comics’ classic of British comics Trigan Empire, the finale to Garth Ennis and Keith Burns’ Johnny Red, and a very special Judge Dredd: Deviations strip from John McCrea and Mike Spicer asking what if Dredd stayed lycanthrope after the classic Cry of the Werewolf. Plus interrogations with Mike Collins, Gary Welsh, and Rufus Hound. All in all, 132 pages of absolute Thrill Power to end the year in 2000 AD style!
On the cover, we have the return of Mike Perkins, one of many, many art droids who got their start with Tharg before going on to light up the comics firmament.
Mike’s earliest work included a debut for 2000 AD with the Future Shock: It’s a Cold World back in 1993’s Prog 865. He’d go on to work on Dredd and Vector 13 before heading to the USA with work for every major publisher, having acclaimed runs on Captain America, Thor, The X-Men, Green Lantern, Lois Lane, and the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand. His most recent DC Comics series was his and Ram-V’s reworking of Swamp Thing.
But, as he’ll tell you, a gap in exclusive contracts has meant that he’s able to make a triumphant return to the house of Tharg. So, without further ado, over to Mike to tell us all about his new Xmas Megazine cover!
MIKE PERKINS: I’m still a big enough 2000 AD fan that whenever I get offered a cover to illustrate for them I still get that frisson of excitement in my belly. Having been constantly exclusive for the past 22 years I haven’t been able to accept a lot of those proposals – and have kicked myself every single time.
Now, due to a break in those exclusivity contracts, I have a window in which I can accept the opportunity to tackle the characters I’ve grown up with and love dearly. Without a shadow of a doubt being offered the actual Christmas cover adds that extra layer of thrill.
I pretty much knew how I wanted to approach it – the picture was in my head. A good, simple, menacing Dredd figure – failing to exude any festive niceties whatsoever.
I did offer up another couple of ideas – and I hope I can get to do one of them for the Megazine in the future – but they weren’t necessarily seasonally motivated. Thus was pitched Dredd ‘classic’ which was accepted and went on to become the actual cover…
The only provisio being that I placed some Christmas lights around the daystick. I like to think that Dredd has just smacked a perp over the head who has been wearing nothing BUT the line of lights and that’s the only thing that’s still bright and shining!
The second one – ‘multi judge’ – is the one I want to tackle as another cover at some point – but with the amount of alternate judge divisions established I may need a wraparound. This is a huge hint, by the way.
The third one – ‘Santa and elf battle’ – would have been fun but I had the sneaking suspicion that Tiernen Trevallion had produced something similar at some point and, if that was the case, it was probably brilliant.
Mike’s absolutely right about the Trevallion droid getting there first with the Santa and his elves battle cover – it was this one back in 2011…
MIKE PERKINS: After the approval I went straight into the finished piece. My pencils nowadays are almost non-existent as most of the drawing is accomplished at the inking stage. I feel that this gives the artwork a little more spontaneity and more bounce in the brushwork.
Once that was approved I moved onto the colours. Recently I’ve moved to applying the colours in ProCreate. The first time I’d done that was the recently released hardback variant cover for The Fiends Of The Eastern Front cover (available in the webshop here) and it came out really well and it’s lovely to change the tonal value as you go along.
What an honour! A truly prestigious accolade. Next year – perhaps the 2000 AD Christmas cover?
Mike, we’re absolutely certain that Tharg will be tapping you up, exclusives allowing, for more covers. Hey, maybe a strip as well – that multi-Judges idea sounds a great one! As for the Xmas Prog cover… well, that sort of knowledge is for Tharg and Tharg alone!
Thank you so much to Mike for sending along his cover – it’s a fine festive finale to a great year of Megazines. You can find Megazine issue 463 on the shelves of every good newsagent and comic shop right now. Plus, it’s available in the 2000 AD web shop.
We’ll leave you with Mike’s incredible cover for the webshop exclusive cover of the new Fiends of the Eastern Front collection – a perfect cover for a chilling, blood-soaked set of tales of the vampire Constanta…
