2000 AD Covers Uncovered – Paul Marshall blows us away with Prog 2293’s Skip Tracer cover
4th August 2022
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 welcome Paul Marshall once more to Covers Uncovered for his Zarjaz cover of 2000 AD Prog 2293, out everywhere that thrill power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop, on 3 August.
Prog 2293 sees James Peaty and Paul’s Skip Tracer: Valhalla get to episode seven, with the former soldier turned psi-tracker returning to the Cube, now under the malignant influence of a nearby blackstar and full of a crazed zombie army all muttering ‘Valhalla‘.
And, as you can see, the cover has Marshall pulling out all the stops to show us just what trouble Nolan Blake’s got himself into this time!
PAUL MARSHALL: Tharg asked me if I could provide a cover for Skip Tracer: Valhalla showing Nolan Blake blasting away at a horde of approaching Zombie delinquents….Obviously I was only too happy to say yes.
I submitted a couple of ideas for basic comps, one looking through the zombies at Nolan, at eye level amid the action, the other a down-shot similar to the scene in the previous episode…
And this is what Paul’s referring to… from Prog 2292, with Abe attempting to buy Nolan some time…
>
PM: Tharg went for the Birdseye view, so I got to work!… it had to be a fairly quick turnaround so I think it took a few days to complete from start to finish.
I used a Blue pencil to draw and Brushpens and Fineliners to ink. I also provided plenty of ‘overdraw’ on the image and ‘dead space’ to allow room for cropping, plus leaving room for the logo, Taglines etc.
Now, as for the images Paul sent along… first we have those basic compositions, starting with the one Tharg rejected with versions A & B…
… and now the one deemed cover worthy by The Mighty One…
All it took then was the simple (hah!) process of pencilling and inking the thing to get it to a final inked version… pretty much like this one…
Finally, it’s sent to colourist extraordinaire, Mr Dylan Teague to work his technicolour magic on it… all of which leads us to the final published cover…
And that’s it! Thanks so much to Paul for sending that one along.
You can find 2000 AD Prog 2293 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop from 3 August.
For more from Paul, be sure to look back over his previous Covers Uncovered – PJ Maybe on Prog 1753, Judge Dredd on Prog 1998, and Skip Tracer on Prog 2249.
