Tag: 2000adcoversuncovered

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!

Surfs up for Zane Peeks in Judge Dredd Megazine 441 as the dream team of Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague wipe us out with this incredible cover! It features star surfer Zane Peeks kissing sky as he prepares for his role of body double for Jako Strutt in the forthcoming Supersurf 7 movie.

As ever, Cliff hasn’t skimped on a single detail as he puts a dazzling amount of time and effort into the MegaCity One architecture, simply incredible!

The cover began with some reference material kindly supplied by the mighty one. Cliff said “Here’s an excellent Colin MacNeil reference page that I received from Tharg…”

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Cliff then searched down the back of his sofa, behind his ear and under park benches to find enough old chewing gum to make this amazing reference figure! Cliff says “Here are some action photos of my handmade poseable model figure, and a truly ZARJAZ surfboard made from a piece card!”

As a result, Cliff is now the subject of a bidding war between Hot Toys and Sideshow Collectables to be chief sculptor. 

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Next, Cliff demonstrates just why he is the best in the business by somehow taking his featureless little sculpture and turning it into an incredible prelim, in three eyeball-meltingly zarjaz steps. Incredible!

He says “These are A4 sized printouts with tracing paper overlays, unfortunately featuring the wrong logo!” Sadly, Tharg did not take too kindly to the use of the incorrect logo and poor Cliff spent an afternoon being ‘schooled’ by Mek-Quake. Thankfully he has managed to retrieve most of his brushes and pens, and given them a good clean…

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Cliff continues “The prelim led to the finished rough which Tharg okayed…”

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Ever the perfectionist, Cliff was not happy with some elements of his image and felt the need to make some adjustments. He said “I had just eyeballed the perspective for all the buildings. I think it shows too…”

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Cliff then converts the rough to blueline, ready for his immaculate inking. He said “Here’s the Blueline printout. I inked Zane and the board first, then gradually pencilled and inked all the buildings using a Hunt 102 crowquill pen and a Rotring Isograph.” Don’t worry dear reader, I’ve checked and he hasn’t just made those things up.

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And now, let’s just take a few hours to pour over those sublime finished inks which are absolutely incredible! Cliff is unsarcastically coy here, he says “The finished line art! How long did it take? Don’t ask! I did enjoy working on it though.”

I have it on good authority that he enjoyed it for the first 1000 hours…

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With Cliff now presumably reduced to a pile of sparking circuitry and burnt-out diodes, it is time for the mighty colouring machine that is Dylan Teague to step up to the plate – and step up he did! Like all of us, Cliff was extremely happy with Dylan’s exquisite work. He said “Dylan Teague’s colouring of this cover is amazing! It’s absolutely beautiful.”

And here’s how the cover should look on your newsstand, just before you pick it up and buy it! Absolutely outstanding!

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A HUGE thank you to Cliff for being kind enough to send his, and Dylan’s, incredible images. The skill, talent and care that have gone into this cover from both formidable artists is palpable!

You can find Megazine 441 everywhere Thrill Power is sold from 16 February, including the 2000 AD web shop!

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, adorning the front of the Galaxy’s Greatest with a pulp-infused, Moebius-influenced Proteus Vex cover… it’s the return of art droid Neil Roberts for 2000 AD Prog 2268 – out wherever you get your Thrill Power on 9 February.

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Neil’s one of Tharg’s cover specialists responsible for making the Prog pop from the shelves for many years now. And with Prog 2268, he’s turned his hand to the latest series of Proteus Vex: Desire Paths by Mike Carroll and Jake Lynch. It’s outer space action packed with mystery and adventure perfectly captured by Neil right here! And, as Neil’s about to tell you, it all started with Tharg just telling him… ‘Proteus Vex vs Robots.’

NEIL ROBERTS: As always, it starts with a brief from Tharg – basically, “Proteus Vex vs Robots” and a couple of pages of the amazing strip art. From there, I worked up a few initial ideas.

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For this piece I really wanted to go for a Moebius/ Giraud feel – so I used AI to give me a few pointers:

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Being one of Tharg’s many art droids, what’s fun is seeing how a purely AI art-bot thinks. I love using/ messing about with new Earth technologies to try stuff out. “Art is a progression” and all that kinda human stuff.

With the thumbnail chosen, I set about doing the work, sitting and painting until it was finished.

With that – it was sent to Tharg and put on the cover of The Galaxies Greatest Comic!

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And that’s it! One stunning Vexatious cover from Neil Roberts there! Thanks so much to Neil for sending that one along.

You can find 2000 AD Prog 2268 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop.

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, the return of one of the legends of modern 2000 AD, co-creator of Sinister Dexter with Dan Abnett… it’s David Millgate! David’s been working here at the Galaxy’s Greatest since 1995 and he’s back for a classic Judge Dredd here on the cover of Prog 2267… which looks rather like this…

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DAVID MILLGATE: The first thing to mention is that I did this artwork in late December 2020, so it’s been over a year since I last looked at it. Sometimes I’ll look back at a particular drawing or painting and I don’t remember much about doing it, or what was going through my head at the time. However, luckily this is one piece for which I have total recall!

I wasn’t officially commissioned to do a Dredd cover, but sometimes I’ll set myself a ‘phoney’ brief by inventing a tagline for a potential cover. I like to come up with an initial concept or some vague semblance of a beat that could be from a story. To be honest, anything’s better than looking at a blank sheet of paper, which is often the instant death of any inspiration for me. It just helps get all those creative juices flowing! I’ve done this a few times in the past and the art has ended up on the cover of 2000 AD and luckily that was the case with this one too.

My tagline for this one was ‘If Looks Could Kill’, but in hindsight that was maybe too murderous, even for Dredd. As a character, he’s always hard-as-nails, but he’s still basically a guy who’s upholding The Law. I think the one that the editor Matt Smith came up with, ‘The Look of The Law’, works much better.

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I’ve always thought that Dredd is such a strong visual character, even when he’s not necessarily in an action pose. Some of the most iconic images of him through the many decades have been when he’s been sitting or just standing there with that chin protruding out from beneath his helmet-visor. I wanted the viewer to feel like a perp would when Dredd turns to stare down at them. They know the chase is over…the game’s up…and they’ll be doing a long stretch in an Iso-Cube!

With my potential Dredd cover approach firmly in my mind, this makes doing the actual artwork that much easier, as the image is already 70% rendered in my head, before I’ve even picked up a pencil.

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As a result I didn’t bother with thumbnails, but started by doing a quick rough sketch that was pretty much 80% there already and getting near to the image in my mind. However, I wasn’t all that happy with Dredd’s face or the visor section of his helmet. In the past I’ve gotten away with not even drawing his nose. If you’re careful this can sometimes work great with Dredd, but you have to be very careful, as it usually only works from certain angles (*budding artists please take note as the margins between this technique working and looking totally wrong are very small).

The fact that we never get to see or have to worry about what his face looks like is such a cool and mysterious aspect to Dredd’s persona and character (Err…Sly Stallone removing his helmet anybody???)

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Anyway, I didn’t think completely leaving out his nose was really working here, as it made him look badly drawn at best or at worst oddly deformed. I decided that for this idea to really work I was going to need the visor to look see-through. In so doing this would reveal the end of his nose and make the face/stare less comic-booky and hopefully much more believable.

I also changed the angle of the light-flashes on Dredd’s visor too. I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but it always seemed to me that those lightning-bolt type flashes on his visor were just the classic 2000 AD era line artists way of suggesting light reflecting off of his visor, but in a rather simplified and stylised way. It’s a bit harder to render reflections convincingly with just black and white line art.

Over the years they became ubiquitous and even in the fully painted era – when achieving realistic light effects became more do-able – you’d still often see them rendered as simple, zig-zag flashes. Did all of us ‘lazy’ artist’s not really think it through in a logical way? I felt that this piece required the light-flashes to look much more like interior light being cast into the room, which is then reflected back off a shiny, translucent/transparent surface. At the same time, we can also see Dredd’s nose and a hint of his face through the visor. It sounds like such an obvious thing, but once I’d changed those few details it made a really big difference to the impact of the face and the whole feel of his stare, which as a result really made the cover art come alive! 

Oh yes, it’s a cover that really comes alive – another classic cover to adorn the stands. Thanks to David for letting us into his creative process!

2000 AD Prog 2267 is out now – get it from anywhere Thrill-Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

Now, as a little bonus… David’s cover to 2000 AD Prog 2051 (you can read his Covers Uncovered on that one here)…

And to end, here’s a little really early David Millgate for you. First, his very first art in 2000 AD, from 1995’s Prog 927 – Future Shocks: The Subliminals.

And now, one of those very first Sinister Dexter‘s, co-created by Millgate, from 2000 AD Prog 981.

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 art droid extraordinaire, Leigh Gallagher for the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2266 – out now!

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With writer Ian Edginton, Gallagher’s responsible for the new series of Kingmaker, Falls The Shadow, where their series, that began as something along the lines of ‘aliens invade Middle-Earth,’ has gone in a dramatic new direction, with Ichnar the Wraith King returned and the threat against the Nine Kingdoms is now worse than ever. Against him, it’s Crixus the Orc and Princess Yarrow… the odds are not great.

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For the cover, we get a classic looking Gallagher image, the iconic Crixus shot – Now… over to Leigh for the lowdown on bringing the cover together…

LEIGH GALLAGHER: Ok, so Tharg tasked me with a cover based on this episode 5 page of Crixus alone, facing the alien army. THANKFULLY, just Crixus alone with no background, as right now I still have a bunch of episodes to finish with it out in shops!

I did a pencil rough and scanned it in to Clip Studio, making it easier to work on another layer to figure out the cloak movement.

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With it being a full figure image, I didn’t know how they wanted to crop it, so I just drew the full cloak blowing in the wind to give them more options.

Usually I ink by hand, but with my schedule so crazy I inked on my HUION drawing monitor. As you can see I’ve included all the stages from flats, shading, and adding his mystical glowing armour.

Just in case, I gave Tharg two final versions: one clean and one battle damaged, covered in alien blood.

Right, bugger off now and let me finish this story for you!

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Okay then, buggering off right now!

As Leigh heads back to the drawing table, we’ll send our thanks to him for taking time out and sending us all those great images for his cover. Kingmaker: Falls The Shadow continues each week in the pages of the Galaxy’s Greatest and Prog 2266 is out on Wednesday 26 January – get it from wherever Thrill-Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

If you want more from both Leigh Gallagher and Ian Edginton talking Kingmaker, be sure to take a look at our interview with them from 2019.

And finally, because Leigh’s a grand bloke, he also sent along a page from the episode from Prog 2266 with Crixus doing his thing… complete with cape flowing, sparkles going, and a damn big blade…

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 2000 AD Prog 2265 and the return of the opulence of turn-of-the-century Parisienne sci-fi fantasy thriller, Saphir from Kek-W and artist David Roach. First seen as a Tharg’s 3Riller back in Progs 2197-2199 for the first 3-part Saphir: Un Roman Fantastique, where we were introduced to the strange world of Inspector Alphonse Mucha of the Surete – expect lush looks and plenty of otherworldly weirdness in the new series, the 5-part Saphir: Liaisons Dangereuses!

You’ve thrilled to his work in 2000 AD over the years on Nemesis, Judge Dredd and Judge Anderson over the years, you’ll have been amazed and entertained with the whole history of comics in his Masters Of British Comic Art and now you get to be blown away by his Saphir cover on the latest from the Galaxy’s Greatest – it’s time for Covers Uncovered and the lush lines of David Roach…

So, over to David…

DAVID ROACH: It is one of the vagaries of my comic art career that despite being the regular Dr Who cover artist for Panini, I’ve rarely been asked to draw covers for 2000AD. Admittedly that’s mostly been my own fault because I’ve always been so slow that asking me to draw a cover for my strips would only have made each Anderson , Dredd or Nemesis episode even later than it already was.

So perhaps that’s why each time I am asked (and this is only my fourth- including a pair for classic 2000AD) it feels like an immense honour.

In this case it’s doubly special because Saphir is a special project for Kek W. and myself and being given the cover feels like a big step in trying to establish the series at the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. Saphir was something we cooked up together and then begged The Mighty One to commission, and amazingly he said yes. Twice!

As soon as I’d sent in the last episode of the current storyline Matt asked if I’d like to do a cover, the only stipulation being that it had to be a movie poster style- with various pictorial elements, rather than a particular scene from the first episode.

This suited me just fine since it was pretty much the same concept with all my Dr Who covers, and since there wasn’t long to do it, it meant I could shamelessly pick things that were fun to draw without taking a lifetime to finish. It’s odd but true, at least in my case, that putting even the roughest sketch down on paper can feel hard to deviate from, so whenever possible I like to compose each image in my head first, moving around the various parts to create a nicely balanced image. Of course, what constitutes a harmonious but exciting picture is almost impossible to define and much of the time it feels like I’m making it up as I go along and hoping for the best. For this cover I put together an extremely rough sketch (as you can see) and promised Matt it would all come together in the end. Thankfully he gave it the OK so off I went.

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I like to work big and this image actually expanded as I drew it, as more and more of the art overlapped the logo I had to constantly expand the borders to fit everything in. The final picture almost fills an A2 piece of paper, which is the size British artists typically drew at up to the early ‘80s but is quite an anomaly these days. By contrast, Phil Winslade draws at what looks like A4, pretty much print size.

As the star of the strip, I wanted Inspector Mucha to be more or less the central image but he ended up getting squashed to one side a bit by our bald, coral-armoured baddie Viridian on his flying creature. Hey, these things happen. The Inspector himself is modelled on my musician friend Anthony Reynolds who is a life-long 2000AD fan so I felt it only fair to make him look suitably heroic, hence his determined stare and pugilistic posture. Viridian’s pose is largely taken from an interior panel from episode2, just because it turned out so well, and I tweaked some angles so as not to create any jarring vectors with bits of the creature.

It’s a constant frustration that the rough sketch has a lovely dynamism to it that can so easily be lost in the finished drawing, and I ended up redrawing this relatively small figure endlessly to try and get it right. The monster ended up having hands in the strip, but I was never fully happy with them so I obscured them on the cover!

Even in my earliest thoughts about the cover, I wanted to feature a large portrait of Lady Sofia but it took a little while to decide on the background. In episode 1 we have a sequence where Sofia conjures up a whole universe in her sitting room so that seemed like a striking image to include and featuring characters against a black background can really make them pop. Planets are great to draw as well- use a template, compass or small plate, draw around them and bingo- a planet. I just doodle away at them with a brush in the inking stage to create random patterns and depth, add sponge effects for milky ways and white paint for stars and there we are- a suitably cosmic background. That’s the plan anyway.

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The foreground is a little bit of a cheat since it’s a scene that doesn’t actually happen in episode 1, but I really wanted the statuesque chauffeur/Alien Warrior Jorg to be in the picture. I felt she should be doing something dramatic so I brought forward her battle with the skeletons from episode 2 and hoped that nobody would complain. The poses came through pretty quickly in the sketch so I more or less carried them over to the finished cover with some minor tweaking. There were other characters in the episode who I was initially going to include but I ultimately decide that I wanted to Delay that surprise for inside the comic. Hopefully it’s going to be a real “What the..?” moment.

Putting an image together can be quite an organic process, at least the way I do it, and all through the process I try to be conscious of the tonal contrasts across the picture. That is; aiming to have light areas set against dark backgrounds, or vice versa, and playing different sorts of tones, lines, and textures against each other so the eye is never confused at what it’s looking at. Artists can create depth by putting a white halo around a figure, but that just feels like cheating. For those interested in the minutia of an artist’s tools; the whole thing was drawn with a B propelling pencil, inked with number 1 and 2 Pro-Arte Prolene brushes (Very cheap- in fact, Ian Gibson once told me off for my shoddy art materials!), Joseph Gillott dip pens, Winsor And Newton inks, ropey old bits of sponge and Pitt permanent markers on smooth, 220 g/m A2 Daler Rowney paper.

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A few days after I sent the cover scan into the Nerve Centre I popped round to give my chum Dylan Teague a Christmas Card and he mentioned that he’d just finished colouring the cover, so you can see the turnaround was extremely fast. I didn’t know Dylan was going to colour it- but I’ll never pass up the chance to work with him, even if I didn’t have any say in it! I always compose in lights and darks and perhaps because I’m colourblind I rarely imagine what colours might work best, simply hoping the colourist knows what he or she is doing, because they’re bound to know more than I do. Dylan is one of the best so I knew I was in good hands

Drawing the 2 series of Saphir has been some of the most enjoyable experiences of my career and getting a cover feels like a real vote of confidence. Kek and I would love to do more but it’s entirely in the hands of the readers so it’s very much a time of crossing fingers and hoping for the best. At the very least I hope everyone enjoys the cover and picks up the latest Prog to see what’s inside….

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And that’s it – all that work and crossed fingers from David’s side pays off as we all get to see something that looks just stunning on the shelves this week!

Thanks so much to David for sending the work along – you can find that cover as well as the first part of the fantastic and fantastical Saphir: Liaisons Dangereuses in 2000 AD Prog 2265!

Now, a little more of that gorgeous Roach line to make gooey eyes at…

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!

And this week, we’ve a real treat for you, with the return of Stewart Kenneth Moore to the front (and back) cover of the Judge Dredd Megazine issue 440 – out 19 January. Stewart’s write-ups for Covers Uncovered are almost as wonderful as the covers themselves… and he certainly doesn’t disappoint here.

Now, over to the artist for the story of the cover… SK Moore…

SK MOORE: As a contrast to the high-octane highway shoot-out I previously did for 2000 AD Prog 2239, I pitched this concept of Dredd just idling in a watching bay. This one is several nods in one.

Here’s Stewart’s pitch to Tharg for this one…

‘A Meg or 2000AD cover pitch homaging several classics. A dramatic uplit image of Dredd in a watching bay, prominent badge ‘ engine parts…but subtle lighting. City lit by lights…carpet of diamonds.’

And the accompanying visual to the pitch...

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SK MOORE: One nod I didn’t mention is from The Graveyard Shift. The first time I recall seeing a watching bay in close up. Note the impossible angles by Ron Smith – I did a little bit of that here on the back cover.

In this image I’m still trying to find my Dredd, to draw him in the best way and most suitable way for my hand. This version is more stylistic than the Highway shoot-out, which is more of a classic image.

I’d like to come up with a Dredd that is fairly quick to draw, that can work in any story. I could lean more realistic but I think we lose some of the unique and elastic language of comics when it becomes too cinematic or noirish. I feel that today anyway, next week I may feel different.

I’ve moved the zipper toward the eagle, this is how Carlos Ezquerra drew him, zipper off-centre. You can’t just flip a Carlos character, they are asymetric and, for that, far more interesting to look at and more difficult to draw.

With Batman and Spider-Man and many others, if you have a composition issue you can flip the figure to open up various spaces, but you can’t do that with Alpha or Dredd.

I’ve done the moody palette thing to death. That started 30 years ago. In recent years I’ve looked at classic comics, so my current method used colour to full comic advantage. But here I have subdued things a bit.

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Oh yes, told you this one was a great one, didn’t I? Stewart just doesn’t ever under-deliver, not in his art, not in his covers, and certainly not in talking about his art either.

Here’s a few close-up shots from the cover, just to get you salivating a bit more…

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Thanks so much, as always to Stewart for that one. And you can catch that cover to the Megazine 440 on 19 January – run (do not walk) to the comic shop, the newsagent, or jump online and order it from the 2000 AD web shop right now.

If you want to see more and read more from Stewart, you can go salivate at the Covers Uncovered for 2000 AD Prog 2179 and the sort-of Covers Uncovered for the special poster in the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special 2020. And you’re also going to be able to see his art on the 2000 AD Encyclopedia, coming at you in February 2022.

You can (and should) follow him on Twitter, go look at his website, and his incredible Graphic Novel, PROJECT MK UlTRA: Sex, Drugs, and the CIA Volume 1 is available right now.

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As for the works and looks he’s referencing… well, the Carlos Ezquerra Lawgiver and the whole Ezquerra look you can find across Dredd from the ages – but maybe take a look at The Art of Carlos Ezquerra.

Likewise, if you’re after something to showcase the incredible work of Mick McMahon, look no further than the Mick McMahon Apex Edition.

And as for Judge Dredd: America… well, that’s a stone-cold classic of Dredd by John Wagner and Colin MacNeil.

Finally, there’s Judge Dredd: The Graveyard Shift, by John Wagner, Alan Grant, and the incredible Ron Smith, the first time Stewart remembers seeing the classic ‘Watching Bay’ look that this cover’s all about. There’s not (yet – but keep your fingers crossed!) a collection of either this or a bigger Ron Smith collection. However, it’s from 2000 AD Progs 335 – 341 and you can see it in the Judge Dredd Case Files Volume 7.

If you don’t already know it, boy, you’re in for a treat. Wagner, Grant, and Smith at the height of their game, just telling the tale of a Judges team on an eight-hour night shift, an absolute storytelling masterpiece of Dredd.

So, as a special treat – the first episode of Judge Dredd: The Graveyard Shift by John Wagner, Alan Grant, Colin Smith.

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!

Borag Thungg and Happy New Year Earthlets, are we all ready to plunge into another year – after all, it’s got to get better some time right? But no matter what the world throws at us for 2022, we’ll be here giving you the very best covers in the Galaxy with 2000 AD Covers Uncovered!

This week, it’s the return of art droid extraordinaire, Patrick Goddard, and colour droid Dylan Teague, whose art graces both the cover and inside 2000 AD Prog 2264 – out everywhere you can get your hands on the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, including the 2000 AD web shop, from 12 January!

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Patrick’s giving us the cover to go along with his Judge Dredd strip, Working Girl, where poor old jobbing skysurfer Mona Plankhurst finds herself on a job that’s put her on the wrong side of the law. It’s full of thrills and skysurfing action, with Patrick delivering epic MC-1 scenes from the skies as Mona does her best to escape the law on her tail. Plus, trouble with babysitters and the classic line from writer Kenneth Niemand – ‘Uh, currently? Lodged tight inside Dave Cameron…’

To find out just what gets lodged inside Dave and why, you’re going to have to pick up the Prog. But right now, it’s over to Patrick for the making of another of his Ghafflebette covers… and it all starts with a quick brief from Tharg and with Patrick grabbing a bit of photo reference for that bloody great Manta Tank on Mona’s tail.

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PATRICK GODDARD: As usual, it was all fairly straightforward, the brief was to have Mona being chased through the city by the Manta Tank just like in the episode.

I drew up 6 ideas for Matt and number 2 was picked the winner!

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I changed the angle of the tank to make it that it wasn’t so in line with the city in the sketch, to try and give it a bit more movement.

I drew a fairly detailed A4 prelim to help with scale and then blew it up on my photocopier to A3 and light boxed it onto the artboard.

From the inks it went onto Dylan to work his colour magic once again and it was all done!

And here’s both the pencils and inks for the cover…

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So many thanks to Patrick there for sending along the images. He always manages to make it all sound so simple, but we all know there’s a hell of a lot of hard work goes into making a cover look that great.

You can see Patrick’s art on the cover and inside 2000 AD Prog 2264, out on 12 January!

Patrick was also kind enough to send along his finished page one of this second episode of Judge Dredd: Working Girl for our delight…

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!

Borag Thungg and Seasons Greetings Earthlets, time to get the stockings up and start thinking about presents! Maybe a subscription to the Galaxy’s Greatest? How about a copy of the Regened or Cor!! Buster collections or a sub to the new Monster Fun for the junior Earthlets?

But before the annual Turkey-based (or vegetarian/vegan alternative) activities commence, there’s still the huge matter of the final Judge Dredd Megazine of the year to deal with! Issue 439 is out everywhere Zarjaz comics are sold, as well as the 2000 AD web shop, from 15 December.

You definitely won’t be able to miss it on the shelves, thanks to the Ghafflebette cover from art droid Lee Carter!

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LEE CARTER: It was great to be asked to do a cover for the Megazine, especially since it was my first cover! Well, except for the Rogue Trooper Loot Box Special, but that didn’t count as it was a panel from the strip.

And a huge bonus in that it was the Christmas issue. Both the 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine festive covers are much like the Radio Times Christmas issue for me, one of the joys of Christmas…

So, I produced two pages of thumbnails, probably a bit overboard but I wanted to give Matt a wide choice, no doubt many ideas have been used before.

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I really loved the old Victorian Christmas village scenes that used to be on greeting cards, so I went for a Victorian theme park robots running amok, mutant reindeer maybe, Dredd in a Blizzard, Dredd in a toyshop chase… or a suspect lineup featuring various mutant Christmas archetypes.

Thankfully, Matt went for the simplest one… Dredd knee-deep in the snow…

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I drew the line work digitally, drawing it on Photoshop for me is like penciling and inking at the same time, you just draw it in black but unlike inking you can undo and rub it out.

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Once I’m happy with the line I do a few layers of grey tones, keeping it all on separate layers means I can reduce the opacity if I want to change .

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The colour work begins with simple flats which I put under the line and grey tone layers. When it’s all together I can change the tonal layers to colour and add a bit more interesting mix of colours to it all. The background was various photos of snow from my reference folders, composited together and painted over. Then more painting into the background – added some fogged-out buildings and more texture… and of course blood.

And that’s that for the cover! So, as the spirit of the law makes his way to your door through the snow to tell the kiddies to tell them to be good or it’s five years in the iso-cubes, we’ll take our leave.

Thanks to Lee Carter there for a perfect end to what’s been a particularly great year of Megazine covers! You can find Megazine issue 439 on shelves of the finest comic shops and newsagents, as well as the 2000 AD web shop, from 15 December.

Sure, the year itself might have been a bit crappy, what with, well, you know… *Gestures broadly at everything* – but we’re sure the quality of the work in the Galaxy’s Greatest comics has been something to make things that bit better! We’ll be back with more Megazine treats with Covers Uncovered in 2022 – meanwhile, thanks once more to Lee Carter and have a Zarjaz time this Christmas and New Year!

The secrets behind the greatest comic book covers in the galaxy – revealed in a brand new annual!

Every week, 2000 AD Covers Uncovered takes readers of the 2000 AD website behind-the-scenes on the covers of both 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine. From idea to pencils, from inks to colours, 2000 AD Covers Uncovered reveals the processes behind the jaw-dropping, genre-defining art that graces the covers of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comics! 

For the first time, this new annual collects the artwork for every 2000 AD and Megazine cover from a single year in a square-bound bookazine format. Each cover is presented without logos and cover furniture, allowing readers to savour each image in all its glory.

Alongside, step-by-step images such as wireframes, pencils, inks, and inspiration are presented alongside commentary from the artists themselves, providing fascinating detail about the process behind their covers

Written and curated by blogger Richard Bruton, the 2000 AD Covers Uncovered Annual 2021 is not only an enthralling collection of stellar art but also an indispensable insight into the artistic process.

ORDER NOW FROM 2000AD.COM >>