Comics

2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Keith Burns’ Debut Prog Cover – It’s Norts and Hoppas On Prog 2411

4th December 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!

The great Keith Burns, aviation artist extraordinaire, brings thrills from the skies for his debut 2000 AD cover with Prog 2411, as the Nort Hoppas rain down fiery death from above…

Yes, incredible to think this is Burns’ very first Prog cover, and a very special one it is too! It’s showing the action to be found inside, where it’s the penultimate episode of the Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard Rogue Trooper: When A GI Dies storyline, which wraps up next week with a special triple-sized finale.

For more of Keith’s work, be sure to pick up the new 10-issue Battle Action series, where he and Ennis are giving us the final adventure of air ace Johnny Red in A Couple Of Heroes, alongside back-up tales featuring classic and iconic Battle and Action characters reimagined by top-notch comic talent from today.

Burns’ comics work has been wide-ranging and eclectic since his first published work in the Strip Search volume organized by Hunt Emerson and John McCrea in 2006. Since then, the comics work has been plentiful, including working with McCrea and Ennis on The Boys: Herogasm and other Boys-related comics. And of course, he and Garth have been telling the tale of Johnny Red for many years now. That’s in addition to a hell of a lot of Commando covers, allowing him to show off his incredible aviation art skills. He’s a very successful member of the Guild of Aviation Artists, has exhibited at London’s RAF Club, and won Aviation Painting of the Year.

But there’s definitely a love of comics behind it all… which meant this first 2000 AD cover, featuring those Colin Wilson Hoppas from Rogue Trooper was something very special indeed.

KEITH BURNS: I put a lot of pressure on myself for this one, my first 2000 AD and also Rogue Trooper… well, Norts in Hoppa’s.

I first discovered these in Colin Wilson’s run on Rogue Trooper so it’s a dream for 15-year-old me to be painting Hoppa’s and Norts.

With sci-fi, I still use my usual method of building a model so the end result is based on something real. So, I built a model of an adapted OV-10 Bronco using plasticine to get an approximate shape to match Paddy’s interior art. In a random chat with Rob Williams, he suggested the Hoppa’s were based on Bronco’s but since then I think they’re based on Cobra gunships, either way both aircraft are from the same period and influenced Colin’s designs. I completed a few variations on the same idea then went to paints once one was selected.

Short and sweet there from Keith, but the obvious joy is there! Congratulations on this first cover Keith.

Now, here’s a work through of his process, starting with Keith’s roughs, the ‘variations on the same idea’ he talks about…

And it was that final image that made the Tharg-approved cut. After that it’s over to the adapted Bronco-model for final staging and reference, before hitting the paints… it’s amazing what you can do with an Airfix kit, some plasticine, and a hell of a lot of artistic talent…

And finally, what Keith describes as ‘then went to paints’ but we can imagine involved plenty of hours of painstaking work to produce something that looks this damn good…

Huge thanks to Keith for sending all that along to us to show you – it’s a cracking debut Prog cover, hopefully the start of many, many more! And it just goes to show you, it’s never too late to be a Tharg debutante!

The Hoppa-tastic cover will be on the shelves right now, available absolutely everywhere Thrill Power is sold, whether that’s your local newsagent, comic shops, or the 2000 AD webshop.

For more from Keith, be sure to get hold of the final Johnny Red tale running monthly in the pages of the 2024 Battle Action series right now. And speaking of Battle, do take a peek at the other Covers Uncovered he did for us, back in 2020, this stunning wrapround cover for the Battle Of Britain Special. Finally, there’s a couple of great interviews with Keith Burns for your reading enjoyment – in print here talking the Battle of Britain Special along with Garth Ennis, and there’s a Thrill-Cast here you get Burns, Ennis, and Patrick Goddard in sound and vision chatting about all things Battle Action 2022.