2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Pye Parr & PJ Holden Take On The Intestinauts For Prog 2385
5th June 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!
This week it’s not one but two art droids – Pye Parr and PJ Holden – collaborating on the brand-new Intestinauts cover to 2000 AD Prog 2385…
Pye Parr and Arthur Wyatt’s Intestinauts have returned for more bowel-bothering brilliance in their latest series – Busted Flush – that reaches part 4 in this week’s Prog 2285.
Usually called in for oral application for those tummy troubles, the Intestinauts are miraculous micro-droids who do battle in the nightmarish conditions of your GI tract. But in Busted Flush, they’ve found themselves in unfamiliar territory, as the Instestolab is compromised and they’ve no choice but to do battle with the terrifying Omega-Genocide-Four.
As for the cover and why it’s both Pye and PJ Holden involved… we’ll let Pye & PJ tell you the tale…
PYE PARR: Initially I was going to draw this myself, but deadlines being what they are (and my time-keeping being what it is…), I realised about a week from the print date I was never going to get it drawn in time, so I asked PJ if he could save me from the wrath of The Mighty One and do all the hard work for me.
Luckily he could, and did it with style!
I sent him the rough Matt had approved, plus some ref from the strip pages and we went from there.
PYE PARR: Nobody else has drawn Intestinauts before, so I was quite excited to see what he came up with. I think the only thing I asked for was the brain on a separate layer to the dudes so I could knock back the linework.
Being a TruePro(tm) he smashed it, improving on the rough by bringing one of the robots forward to give it a bit more depth. 10/10, no notes.
PJ HOLDEN: So Pye phones me, and says “Oi! Mate, can yer do me a cover, quick like, for the mighty one doth protest mightily at my tardiness!” and I says, “But you don’t have a TARDIS” and he says, “No, tardy – TARDY” and I says, “Wow, mate, I don’t think you can use that word no more, as it’s pretty offensive”.
So then he emails me, asking if I can do him a cover, and the fool that he is attaches his rough, and I take one look at it and think – but I can bang this out in 10 minutes? And he’s gonna pay me for that? What an eejit.
PYE PARR: HA!! I think the important thing is: it may have taken you 10 minutes, but it would have taken me about 4 hours, and I didn’t have ’em!
PJ HOLDEN: So then I drop his rough into clip studio, drop an image from Wikipedia of a brain over it, and then just sort of trace it and turn it around in an hour and a half (because I had to stop halfway through to have a sandwich and do some messages, and have a nap) and send him the inks.
PJ HOLDEN: Largely I just inked over his roughs, but I did think the two little ’nauty bots floating side by side could do with a bit of jussin’ up, so I drew one like he was a bit closer and one a bit further. We talked a little about trying to get some depth in to the picture.
PJ HOLDEN: My email to Pye about this read “Bit busy-looking in the centre but all elements are layered, so you can play with that a bit and blur some of it…” – i.e., fix it in the colours, mate! I knew no matter what a mess I made Pye was gonna colour it lovely and it would look great, and I was right.
PYE PARR: He did it with days to spare too, but time was so tight at my end I had to colour it on the day of the print deadline.
PYE PARR: I remember phoning Matt at about 5.30, and the way he answered the phone very much suggested he was expecting bad news…
“H-hello…”
“IT’S DONE!!”
“OH, thank God!”
Hah.
Very much taking it to the limit – but sometimes greatness takes time! Thank you so much to both Pye and PJ for taking the time. Hopefully the punishment from Tharg won’t be too damaging to mind, body, and soul!
You can see what nearly gave Tharg’s Earthly representative conniptions on the shelves, real and virtual, everywhere the Mighty One’s finest is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.
For more about those incredible Intestinauts, always there to alleviate your alimentary ailments, look no further than this interview with Arthur and Pye from 2021 and you can see & hear them chat all things Intestinauts on the Thrill Cast here and here.
For even more of Pye Parr’s artwork on Covers Uncovered – take a look at these – Megazine 443, Prog 2230, and Prog 2275. And to see how PJ Holden puts his covers together, we have these for your consideration – Covers Uncovered work, complete with the previous exploits of Chimpsky – Prog 2178, Prog 2221, Prog 2234, Prog 2301, and Prog 2308.