Comics

2000 AD Covers Uncovered – Megazine 453 & Nick Percival – Ain’t No Party Like A Judge Death Party!

15th February 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!

It’s time for another fiendisssshly fabuloussss cover right now from Nick Percival for Judge Dredd Megazine issue 453 – out for your delight and delectation on 15 February wherever you get hold of the monthly magnificence!

It’s the latest cover to go along with the new Dark Judges storyline, Death Metal Planet, where some misguided (and that’s putting it mildly) death metallers have freed Judge Death just so he can take part in their Deathfest. Yep, it’s not going to end well, is it?

So, without further ado, here’s Nick to take us backstage at the deadliest festival you’ll ever experience, now with added father/daughter cameos…

NICK PERCIVAL: Since we’re now at the halfway point in Death Metal Planet, it was a good time to feature a cover with Judge Death on the mic, doing his thing.

We’ve been playing up the dark humour in this series a fair bit, so I wanted to reflect some of that with an image of Death really going for it and blasting out, what I’m sure is a lovely little tune.

The sketch is pretty bang on with this cover and I didn’t need to really tweak anything too much for the final painted version.

I thought it’d be cool to have the severed heads as his ‘backing singers’ – it is still a horror story after all!

I’ve stuck with the funky colour palette (ramped up blues and purples) that’s been so dominant in the series so far, to keep some continuity going.

It was good fun to do but I should warn (little tease) that things do take a much darker and somber tone at the end of Part 6 to bring us back into true Dark Judges territory as we continue. There will be many surprises and of course, blood…

[We’d expect nothing less Nick!]

Oh, and a side note -this episode features a little cameo in the crowd of yours truly…

… and also one of my daughters (hey Maddie!) as a fan of the support band ‘Runt’...

She suffers a particularity grisly fate, though. My daughter thought it was cool but my wife has been giving me hard stares ever since! (Comics, eh? – What a laugh!)

Well, I mean, what’s the world coming to, eh? If you can’t feature your own kids in your comic art and have them brutally killed by Judge Death – what’s the point of fatherhood for a comic artist?

Our thanks once more to Nick for sharing all the magnificently gruesome Dark Judges artwork there – you can find Judge Death screaming at you on the mic on the cover of the new Magazine, issue 453, on the stands and in the 2000 AD web shop from 15 February.

If you’re in the mood for more of Nick’s Covers Uncovered work, be sure to have a look at these – Prog 2247, Megazine 427, Megazine 430, Megazine 443, and Megazine 448.

Now, before we leave you, here’s a great band shot Nick sent along…