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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Toby Willsmer has ‘way too much shoot ’em up fun!’ with Rogue Trooper for Prog 2397

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, cover superstar Toby Willsmer returns to give us Rogue Trooper exploding into action for your regular dose of thrill-power!

Inside the Prog, we have Geoffrey D. Wessel, Paul Marshall, Pippa Bowland, and Jim Campbell giving us the latest Rogue Trooper thriller – Recon, with Rogue finding out that not every E.T. is as cute and friendly as Spielberg’s.

This Rogue cover is just the latest from the Brit-born, New Zealand-bard artist who’s never lost his love of 2000 AD, no matter how far from the UK he goes! He’s been a regular cover artist since he first caught Tharg’s attention as the winner of the January 2021 Art Stars contest. Since then he’s given us some really dynamic painted covers, none more so than this one with Rogue very literally exploding from the cover, right into your face…

So, let’s have at it Toby…

TOBY WILLSMER: I’ve been a fan of the Rogue character since it appeared in the prog in the early 80s. So when Matt asked if I’d like to do an action charging Rogue Trooper cover, I was instantly down for that.

As a kid I never really understood the story back then but marvelled at the badassness of Rogue and the uncompromising space marine vibe it gave me as a youngster. Getting lost in Dave Gibbons’s artwork was pure escapism for me at that age, something I’ve always loved about comics.

I had an idea that I thought would be a cool dynamic and set about getting Rogue to have a mid-charge pose that I liked…

I took the idea I had, plugged it into the good ol’ cover template and roughed it into something that Matt could mull over. I had a couple of charging ideas that I liked and In the end it was the legs that gave me the different ideas for Matt. He chose the lovely legs of number one.

I went ahead and put together a colour scheme for Matt to give him an idea of the direction of what the finished piece would look like.

I love this stage of doing a cover and felt like I was a kid again, reading Rogue Trooper and shouting ‘charge’ and making ‘pew pew’ noises as I put it all together.

With Matt happy with the direction it’s going, I went ahead and drew up the line work and added some basic shadows and values. At this stage, I changed Rogue’s face to give him a more gnarly ‘charge’ expression. Kinda how I used to imagine it when I was a kid looking at those early Rogue strips.

As I had planned the background to mostly be an explosion I left that out as I’d just paint that in. I added some battlefield carnage shapes to the sides to help frame the action and add some depth.

From there it’s onto all the good stuff, adding the lighting, water splashes, firing bullets, motion and details until I reach a point where I feel it’s all done…

Another one where I had way too much shoot ’em up fun!

Another stunning Willsmer cover right there, with everyone’s favourite blue GI really ready to rock and roll! And if the artist has that much fun doing it, it always comes out looking great.

You can find Toby’s latest cover for Prog 2397 everywhere the Galaxy’s Greatest is sold, from 28 August 2024, including the 2000 AD web shop.

As for our growing collection of his work at Covers Uncovered – take a gander at these – Prog 2240Prog 2262Prog 2269Prog 2318Prog 2332, Prog 2352, Prog 2374, and Prog 2389 . And to see what it was made Tharg sit up and take notice – here’s Toby’s winning Art Stars entry that started all this off! And finally, go say hello to Toby online here.

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: It’s a Dimension-Hopping Department K with Neil Roberts for Megazine 471

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 this month’s Judge Dredd Megazine, packed full of more zarjaz thrills than ever, including the conclusion of Department K: Mecha-City One by Ned Hartley and Mike Walters, where MC-1’s wildest department of Tek-Div find themselves parallel jumping to stop Mecha-City One’s Chief Judge Atlanta. And just a little bit of what they’ll find on those parallels is here on a fabulous cover by Neil Roberts

Long one of Tharg’s cover specialists, Neil’s also an art droid guaranteed to deliver something rather special for ever cover he turns his impressive digital painterly skills to, and this latest is absolutely no exception. The rainbow explosion of colours, the dive into the next dimension, the fighter plane, and surely a breakout character of 2024, Judge Grrrrr, all pulled together on a cover that pops!

NEIL ROBERTS: The brief from Tharg was quite straightforward – a dinosaur and a fighter plane chasing characters through a time portal. Simple enough, right?

Although, this had to be a quick job for me since I was about to head off on a family holiday and needed to move fast.

Tharg sent over some reference materials of the latest Department K, and I got to work sketching out a thumbnail, which he quickly approved, phew.

So, here are those bits of reference that Tharg sent over from the Department K: Mecha-City One, art by Mike Walters, first giving Neil an idea of the main characters from episode 1…

… and then the inked Mike Walters page from the third and final episode giving you just a hint of the madness you can expect…

All of which led to, as Neil says, a rather wonderful idea for a cover…

After sending that off to Tharg and getting approval, it was time for Neil to work his digital painterly magic on the cover…

NEIL ROBERTS: Then came the painting, using 3D references to nail the shapes of the fighter plane and pose of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, followed by more painting to achieve the result I was looking for!

NEIL ROBERTS: On a side note – I went on my holiday, and the first person I met by the pool was a lifelong 2000 AD fan reading the latest issues of the Prog and Megazine.

Gotta love this job and everything – and everybody – that comes with it!

So say we all Neil, so say we all!

More painterly magnificence from the Roberts droid there – and you can find that technicolour marvel on the shelves of your local Megazine-selling emporium right now, as well as on the 2000 AD web shop!

For more Covers Uncovered wonders from Neil, do check all these out – a trio of Proteus Vex for Prog 2214Prog 2268, and Prog 2315, the 2021 Sci-Fi SpecialRegened Prog 2196, Dredd’s tummy-tooth-terror for Prog 2189, the Law riding out for Prog 1991, and a restful Ritterstahl for Prog 2014.

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Riding out with Andy Clarke for Prog 2396

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!

Another week, another zarjaz cover to overload the thrill circuits! This week, showing us some of the action in John Wagner and Colin MacNeil’s incredible new Judge Dredd: Machine Rule, we have cover specialist art droid Andy Clarke…  

It’s been (incredibly) more than 25 years since we first saw the Clarke droid’s art, with his first Sinister Dexter pages blasting into the Prog in 1998. He spent six years making the gunsharks his own, alongside runs on DreddNikolai DanteShimuraThirteen, and Snow/Tiger, those last two co-created by Andy.

Making such a splash at the Galaxy’s Greatest got Andy noticed Stateside, leading to runs on AquamanDetective ComicsBatman Confidential, and many more. But Tharg has a way of drawing errant art droids back to the confines of 2000 AD Towers, and Andy’s no exception, coming back to become a specialised covers droid for both Prog and Judge Dredd Megazine over the last few years. How does Tharg get the droids back? Well, that’s a closely guarded secret. But there is a rumour that he’s bugged the art droid’s cubicles and isn’t afraid to use the incriminating evidence!

So, over to a snot-filled Andy Clark and a short tale of Lawmasters…

ANDY CLARKE: I went with the nearest Lawmaster reference to hand, so that was Brian Bolland’s cover to the Origins paperback and Colin MacNeil’s art from the Machine Rule story pages that Matt sent through for reference.

Which, of course, gives us the perfect opportunity to show you that great Bolland Origins cover and some of MacNeil’s incredible artistry from the pages of Machine Law

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Okay, back to Andy…

ANDY CLARKE: I did do a brief web-search to get a better overall feel for it – and to save a lot of time bodging about trying to get the angles right trying to draw it, I made a quick model in SketchUp, positioned it and used it as the basis for the drawing. 

I wanted to keep the city as background – not really draw much attention to it – so left the buildings as silhouettes. And so it vaguely looked like somebody lives there, I dropped in some lights.

There you go, short, sweet, and full of snot right now! Get well soon Andy!

As for the actual putting together of it all, it was what seems like a pretty simple one, starting with the aforementioned SketchUp model of the Lawmaster…

From there, it was time for the familiar pattern of sketch, Tharg’s approval, pencils, and main figure inks…

After that, as we’ve seen before with Andy’s work, everything really happens in the greyscale stage, where all that incredible detail and texture first appears…

That greyscale image then gets worked up for colour, with Andy colourising the greytones first of all to give him the colour flats stage…

And all of that is followed with the final colour stage, where everything comes together with the addition of those final colours – not to mention the gun blasts, gradients, highlights, blurring, and just plain digital magic that sees the final cover looking like this…

Thank you so much to Andy for sending along the art for this one – a perfect cover showing you all the action going on in Wagner and MacNeil’s Machine Rule!

You can find Dredd riding out on the cover to Prog 2396, out everywhere the galaxy’s greatest is sold, including the 2000 AD webshop.

And if that’s got you wanting to see even more of Andy’s artwork for his covers, make sure you go through all his past Covers Uncovered pieces – Megazine 444, Megazine 470, Prog 2287Prog 2290Prog 2312, and Prog 2388. Plus, there’s the three covers he did for the soon to be collected Smash! – issue 1, issue 2, and issue 3. You can get hold of Smash! The Broxteth Devil on 11 September.

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Covers Uncovered – Sometimes you’ve gotta make the first move – Frazer Irving on getting Prog 2395’s cover

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!

Another welcome return to the cover of the Prog this week for Prog 2395 as art droid Frazer Irving is back at 2000 AD towers after a long time away with his cover of the Baroness DeSilva from Mike Carroll and Joe Currie’s new thrill, Silver: Unearthed

Oh yes, as things hot up in the Carroll/Currie droid strip where the last hope of humanity subjugated by the alien Sepsis may lie with the mysterious and deadly Baroness, it’s time to welcome back Frazer IrvingR-ving around 2000 AD towers – to the front cover. And what a cover!

Frazer started in the service of the Mighty One with a first appearance back in 2000’s Prog 1205, before getting to work on Dredd, and then co-creating two incredible thrills with Gordon Rennie in Necronauts and Storming Heaven (recently collected in volume 3 of the Best of 2000 AD series). He’d then go on to amaze on Sinister Dexter, Judge Death, and The Simping Detective. After that, it was over the pond to work at both DC and Marvel on the likes of The Authority, Klarion the Witch Boy, Iron Man, X-Men, and a memorable run on Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin.

But like so many, R-ving knows you never really leave the house of Tharg, and he was back in house for the Scream/Misty Halloween Specials taking a trip up to The Thirteenth Floor.

But it’s been a long while since we last saw Frazer on the cover or inside the Prog. Why? Well, as he’s about to tell you, sometimes you need to let Tharg know you’re available to make a welcome reappearance…

He’s sent over process images, but he’s also gone above and beyond with two videos of the process – first we have the initial iPad sketch sent over to Tharg…

FRAZER IRVING: How did it come about? Well, it’s been a while since my last contact with Tharg and I figured he’d forgotten all about poor ol’ R-Ving over the years, but at MCM Comicon I spoke with David Baillie who suggested that maybe Tharg just assumes I’m mega-busy, and that I should send an email.

So I did, and within a day or two I got the offer to do a cover for this new thing about a Vampire. I was sent a page of internal art and a basic synopsis, and that was it.

Normally I’d wait a day or two before tackling the sketch, allowing the idea to simmer in my head for a while, but this time I decided to do the sketch straight off the bat, as soon as I read the email.

Matt had suggested the idea of the Baroness slashing at the reader, so I knocked out a sketch on my iPad in about 15 minutes...

FRAZER IRVING: That was sent off within an hour of getting the gig, and was green-lit straight away.

(And that’s why R-ving’s currently getting the cold shoulder from the rest of the art droids – oh, they hate it when one of them gets a green light without having to sweat through at least three different attempts to lay before TMO!)

FRAZER IRVING: I had some Flash Gordon covers to finish off that week, so I let the Baroness simmer on my iPad for 5 days, and then on the last day of May I decided to take the sketch to the next level.

Okay then, here’s the next process video, taking that first sketch and taking it, as the man says, to the next level…

FRAZER IRVING: As you’ll see in the process video the first step was to raise the resolution of the document and then bring some detail to the face.

Drawing in Procreate allows for symmetry drawing which is great for faces, and it worked a charm on this occasion. The reference art I had been given was fairly vague regarding details of outfit and facial features due to the style of the illustration, and in this regard, I had to make assumptions about eye size etc, and so I was pretty much just winging it at this stage, figuring that I could always fix it in photoshop later.

One aspect of digital art that has always appealed to me is the ability to emulate art styles that otherwise would require years of training in specific materials, and here I noticed that my loose sketch of the Baroness’s outfit had many textural similarities with the painted art of the late John Burns, an artist whose technique was an absolute marvel right thru to the end, and this gave the art a greater dynamic range when contrasted with the Photoshop contributions later on.

The arm was going to be a Photoshop job, mainly because I wanted to get some contrast in there, and using the different brush engines of the competing apps does that automatically, and also because I was sick of drawing on the small screen of my iPad Pro. There’s only so much Procreate I can take before I need a dose of potatoshop.

The red streaks were going to be redrawn, but partially out of eagerness to complete the art and also because I instinctively saw that they already had the energy that I was looking for, I retained and manipulated the streaks I’d sketched in over the initial doodle.

The colours were very simple, allowing the redness to unify it all, and not bother the painterly textures with any superfluous illustrative waffle.

The face was where much of the attention would go from here. Making the eyes crisp gave the figure that creepiness, the almost uncanny valley aspect that makes monsters work, and adding the blood over the top of the lips reinforced the idea that this is a vampire not just an old lady with bad skin.

Finally, the raking mitt. This was drawn rather swiftly so I could send the art off to Tharg before the close of the day, and where I would normally take a nice long break I decided to just bash out the hand...

The brushes I used for this had a very different feel to them than the procreate brushes and this gave that hand the nastiness, the Judge Deathness that it needed to be more than just an old lady’s hand, though I confess I have no idea how on-model it is when compared to the interiors, but I liked it.

The streaks were then tweaked to fit the nails, followed by a quick idiot-check to make sure I’ve done what was actually asked (believe it or not, but there are times when one forgets critical details of a commisssion such as “no mask” or “wearing original costume” that one only finds out once the work has been done), and I mailed it out to Tharg for approval. And approve it he did!

It was nice to tackle some 2000 AD stuff again, I always remembered the variety of subject matter to be one of the most appealing aspects of working for the Prog, and I’m looking forward to seeing it in the Prog!

Well, thank you so much to Frazer for sending all that along – any art droids wondering why Tharg’s not been in touch lately, take note! Sometimes you’ve got to not be shy and make the first move!

Let’s all hope that it’s not too long before we get more from Frazer, both on the cover and inside the Galaxy’s Greatest!

Prog 2395 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop

And for a final little bonus… the complete Shaun of the Dead prequel strip drawn by Frazer back in 2004, and written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

There’s Something About Mary serves as a prequel to the critically-acclaim and BAFTA-nominated movie, which has since acquired a cult following. The story takes one of the minor characters from the beginning of the film, a young shop assistant called Mary played by Nicola Cunningham, and shows how she came to be one of the first of the undead horde that Shaun, played by Pegg, and Ed, played by Nick Frost, must battle to survive. In just a few pages, the comic shows how her story becomes interwoven with that of Shaun and eventually leads her to one of the movie’s most hilarious scenes!

Shaun of the Dead: There’s Something About Mary – Published in 2000 AD Prog 1384, 7th April 2004. Script: Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright, Artist: Frazer Irving, Letters: Annie Parkhouse

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: ‘When creativity is effortless it becomes a form of magic’ – The return of Simon Harrison for Prog 2394

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!

Something a little bit special this week, the return of one of Tharg’s droids who’s been absent from the Prog for just shy of 30 years! Yes, it’s the return of the unmistakable, and quite simply brilliant Simon Harrison for this weeks’ cover…

The cover features the bad guy from David Barnett and Lee Milmore’s Herne & Shuck, a delicious slice of folk horror, as one man and his (demonic) dog go traipsing through the magical realms of England.

As for Simon, well, it’s an absolute pleasure to see him returning to the Prog. Like we say, it’s been very nearly three decades since we last saw his art in here. Fiercely distinctive, wonderfully individual, Simon was one of those art droids to hit the Galaxy’s Greatest in the late 80s, working on the madcap, anarchic teen Bradley, taking on one of Strontium Dog’s most memorable moments, not to mention the absolute psychedelic fever-dream that was Revere.

To say Simon’s had an interesting life in art and beyond is really underplaying things. After his stint at 2000 AD in the late 80s and early 90s, he went far, far away – travelling extensively in Ukraine, Northern Africa, Asia, South America, and the Indian subcontinent. He’s also a martial arts instructor and has spent time as a bodyguard in war zones in Crimea and Israel. So, no, not your average art droid at all! He currently works as a collaborative fine artist in BECKERHARRISON, exhibiting in Berlin, London, Washington, and New York.

He’s splitting his time between that and working on the production of a TV show, whilst also concentrating on personal projects exploring the function of human consciousness and more, including DOGON, a really fantastically strange visual Sci-Fi tale that ‘explores the atavistic racial memories all humans hold within their genetic code.

Oh yes, you can, you should, you MUST, dive deeper into all that he’s done and is doing.

But first… let’s talk Covers Uncovered…

SIMON HARRISON: There isn’t much initial documentation on the first stages of the cover because I was moving house when Matt emailed me about it so I kind of did it on the fly. But here’s a breakdown of the process. This is some real nerdy shit so prepare yourselves viewers!

This is Lee Milmore’s reference Matt sent me from the story Herne and Shuck: Suffer The Children

The brief was… ‘A shot of the bald guy in glasses, grinning evilly towards the reader, surrounded by the equally evilly grinning kids. Very unnerving/eerie. Does that sound OK? Best, M.’

So, I thought I would create an image that conveyed the eeriness of the imagery and the blunt threat of the gun. Pretty straightforward really.

I liked the dramatic lighting on the top-right image and took the entire painting in that direction.

First, here’s the original foundation painting. As you can see it’s black and white as I intended to digitally colour it. As I said I was moving house!

It’s 300gsm rag fibre paper stuck on an IKEA shelf with masking tape. I start by painting the whole paper acrylic black. Then sketch the outline image on with white pencil.

I used acrylic liquitex ink, Posca acrylic paint pens and a mixture of paint brushes to complete the work. The acrylic pens have a really good density of pigment in the white so they suit this technique very well…

If you look closely at the details you can see where the different densities of white pigment create spontaneous shading. Especially around his face…

It’s an outcome of the absorption of ink into the paper. A drawback really, as it means if you want pure white you need to paint over it again but it gives a blueish tint when it absorbs. This is what prompted me to use a blue/green in the final colour scheme.

The gun was inked quite mechanically with pens only, to preserve the straight edges as much as possible...

The textures on the bad guy’s tunic were created using a standard approach with the pens and brushes and then dry brushing over the areas with white or black to get the desired effect.

Dry brushing was also used to create a sense of shading on the edges of the creases on the garments and on his weapon hand. It breaks up the white quite nicely.

Very fine detail was added in with a number 2 sable brush. The type you nerds use to paint your board gaming figures. Finally, I used a tooth brush to flick white and black flecks where needed to finish it off. I don’t know why, but I feel this somehow adds a sense of dynamism to an image. I use it all the time.

Maybe it’s the sheer randomness of the splashes? Who can say?

Once I had the painting done I photographed it and created a digital file. This was then edited, still in black and white. This is mainly a clean up stage, straightening lines and perfectly circling circles. Real pedant stuff.

It’s also necessary because when digitally colouring an image it’s a lot easier to select areas from an image with clearly defined regions.

What I did next was drop the digital image into the 2000AD template. This was to check the positioning with the logo and barcodes. I let the main bad guy’s head clip the logo because I knew it would look cool and jump the image forward.

When it was ready, I sent it to Matt and waited with bated breath in case he didn’t like it. ( Not really… I knew it was good!!!)

By now it looked like this…

I liked it a lot. It had a very classic feel to it, which I thought was appropriate as it was the first cover I’d done for 2000 AD for 30 years.

It almost seemed a shame to have to colour it so I decided that when I did, I would preserve as much of this original feel as I could.

The first stage in colouring is a colour lighting check. I add a faint airbrush glow to the figures where lit and add some exploratory colour to find a direction for the different colours. This can obviously differ from the global lighting as is the case here where the light is from the left but the warm hues will be coming from the right. So I had my colours. Red, turquoise and orange…

Normally, if I was painting the hard copy, I’d do the background first but as it’s a digital file now, I can cut the figures out, isolate them from the background and just go to town on them. So I started on the main bad guy first. I have a rule when using digital media. Never do anything that I can’t reproduce using ink and paint brushes. So I use only limited tools in procreate. The studio pen, the airbrush and the dry brush. I don’t follow any systematic order. I just paint the part that interests me at the time.

I gradually build up the colours. All the time I’m paying attention to the need to not obscure the initial drawing. I want to maintain its dark weight as much as possible.

As the colour creeps across I begin to feel the kids are too dominant in the image. Their hair is too bright. It’s causing a lack of depth. I want them to drop back a little and give the main guy some room.

So I use a darker layer to semi-obscure them. It’s a typical airbrush trick which originally didn’t translate well into the old 2000 AD printing standards. It would tend to look really muddy.

That seems to do the trick. I can still discern the fine detail in the hair but it’s not grabbing too much attention.

Time for the background colour. I wanted an eerie glow. Something that was somehow burning and diffuse.

I’ve always liked vignettes so I went for one. Mainly at the top of the image to mirror the light creeping into the figures.

At the last moment I decided the whole image could do with being muted a little. I guess I was looking for a more antiquated, sepia feel to convey Matt’s description of the story as folk horror.

That’s one benefit of digital work. It’s very versatile. Changes are easy to achieve. This would be a huge ball ache otherwise.

Finally, I reduced the size of my signature as it was too large. So this is the finished image, sans logo…

Here’s an example of materials and an idea of scale. The image is approximately A2 in size but obviously 2000 AD format…

Overall it was a very enjoyable experience. Matt was very pleased with the initial design and green-lit it without a hitch. The entire project was very smooth and free of any real technical difficulties.

People have asked me why I came back to 2000 AD. You can blame Molcher to a certain extent.

[Simon’s talking about his recent interview on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast – it’s a great interview and one you HAVE to listen/watch!]

SIMON HARRISON: The interview prompted me to take action on an already present and growing inclination but mainly it was due to correspondence from fans who have stayed in touch over the years and plagued me with requests to contact the editorial staff again. Their response to my interview was so overwhelmingly good and warm-hearted that I just wrote Matt an email quite soon after.

He got back to me right away which I really appreciated. He said he would shoot me a script over when one came up. A few weeks later he emailed me out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to do a cover. I responded ‘Sure thing…’ and he said ‘Good stuff.’

You asked me if I was lured with cash. Ha! No… it didn’t even cross my mind. When I finished the cover I blatantly asked Matt how much I should invoice for as I had no idea so no, it certainly wasn’t the money!!!

I’ve been asked what got me into art or comics. I’ve been asked this many times, especially by people who’ve read DOGON as it seems to prompt a deeper introspection in viewers than my comic work. I’ll supply you with an answer from DOGON itself as an explanation as to why I have an interest in art and what its purpose is for me.

‘+++ This is a complicated question +++ DOGON will give you the best answer possible through this limited format +++ Art is not just a question of creating imagery +++ Obstacles need to be removed first +++ The first largest obstacle a creator faces is one of [Time] +++ Time is needed to investigate and analyse the creative process +++ Time is needed to create +++ Creativity must become an overriding priority +++ And obviously the amount of time one has at one’s disposal is directly linked to the choice of lifestyle +++ thus most artists are considered unconventional hermetic or non participatory +++ time is also needed to remove the obstacle of [physical competence] +++ Whatever the discipline whether sculpting painting drawing music or photography one must have competence and sincerity +++ so time is needed to practice +++ The technical ability need not be perfect but it must come easy and it must come from the heart +++ A painter like Edvard Munch does not have the same technical stance as Caravaggio but the merits of the two artists are unmistakable +++ Ability can be naive but still inspirational +++ One must finally remove the obstacle of [style] +++ If the style used to create the image is not thoroughly automatic there will be difficulties in conveying exactly what is witnessed by the creator to the viewer +++ Style is the physical technique used coupled with the particular psychological idiosyncrasies of the creator +++ So when physical technique meshes perfectly with thought the imagery is expressed almost perfectly +++ What was seen is what is conveyed +++ When this occurs the perception roams freely in the mindscape without hindrance or fear +++ The mind gains access to imagery and ability not normally available and the results are often extraordinary and revelatory +++ This is the essential point of art +++ Not only does it create a shield for the creator or the viewer between themselves and societies mediocrity but it also creates conditions where the internal information flows outward so freely that it appears as if from nowhere and is often as surprising to the creator as it is for the viewer +++ This is not some hypothetical grandiose explanation of the creative process +++ It can be done +++ When creativity is effortless it becomes a form of magic +++.’

Over the years people have wondered where I was or what I’ve been doing. The answer is I’ve been travelling the world as a bodyguard or training in a monastery.

When I wasn’t doing that I was working on DOGON. A very weird visual SCI-FI story (hand painted sequential airbrush art), that explores the atavistic racial memories all humans hold within their genetic code.

I’ve also been working on a mainly digital project called Tao. It’s a black and white graphic novel using collage and drawing. It’s about Kung Fu and the supernatural. A psychic detective’s investigation into a string of brutal gangland murders spirals out of control when she stumbles onto a hidden world of government corruption Karmic assassins and magic.

While travelling I worked as a fine artist with my friend Carolin as BECKERHARRISON creating conflict art. I’ve been in war zones and beautiful places.

If you want to know more just watch the interview with Mike Molcher here!

That’s all folks.
Seeya,
Simon Harrison

Well, now that was a GREAT Covers Uncovered, don’t you think? Simon’s process and his art laid bare for you – and it’s a cover that just dares you not to pick up the Prog!  

Prog 2394 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.

Thank you so much to Simon for letting us into his process there, absolutely enthralling stuff. You can find more from Simon across the Internet here – DOGON – Instagram: @dogon.a.i.135, and BECKERHARRISONbeckerharrison.com

And you absolutely must, MUST, give the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast where Molch-R chats to Simon a watch/listen. All the relevant links to that are here. In it, Simon talks about his life and career, getting work at 2000 AD, all the incredible places his art has taken him, and all with a view on the world and on art that’s simply a fascinating listen/watch.

As for getting hold of Simon’s 2000 AD work – of which, hopefully, there’ll be more in the future! – you can still pick up the digital edition of the collected (and incredible) Revere, written by John Smith. For his Strontium Dog work, pick up The Final Solution, written by Alan Grant and John Wagner. And as for the strip he might well be best-known for, Bradley, well maybe it’s time to ask Tharg is we could possibly get hold of a collection any time soon? It’s well past due!

Oh, and there’s also some fascinating early work of Simon’s recently published by Dark & Golden – the demonic misadventures of Shuk & Doode, co-written by Tim Crowfoot.

And finally… a little Bradley… Tharg? Sir? How about that collection????

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Hannah Templer Walks Us Through Her Cover for Roxy!

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 – but right now we’re headed away from scintillating sci-fi to take you into the realms of romance with ROXY!

On to the second of the three incredible talents gracing the covers of our new contemporary romance anthology that’s packed full of love, romance, and even a little bit of spice – it’s Hannah Templer!

The first ever 2000 AD/Rebellion Kickstarter is named after the classic British romance comic from 1958. Taking all the classic ideas of romance and love in British girls’ comics of the era, this new version of Roxy brings all the style and heartbreak, all the fabulous romance tales but updates it for the modern age with a perfectly love-struck anthology of four very modern tales to inspire a new generation to fall in love with romance comics.

Available in digital, paperback, and hardcover, the new 80-page Roxy is packed full of heartache, forbidden love, supernatural liaisons, and more with some of the finest storytellers of today’s comics…

GLAAD & Eisner-nominated writer Magdalene Visaggio and Sterric (De Vloek van Rood) take us back to Regency times for a Bridgerton-esque love story. Then we’re zooming into the far future as Nadia Shammas (SquireMs. Marvel) and Jaws Stone (Dames Zine: Magical Knights) spin a tale of love between man and mech. Artist-writer Sarah Gordon (Vicious Creatures) takes us on a spirited walk in the undead woods. And we’ve got the Dracula, Motherf**ker team of Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson reuniting with a brand new supermodel heist thriller. Now that’s enough romance for anyone, surely?

And all this under any one of three incredible covers from Tula Lotay, Hannah Templer, and Marguerite Sauvage.

Hannah’s spectacularly busy but still found the time to send along some of her process for putting together her cover, from the first rough idea for something beautiful…

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From there, she takes it through pencils…

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And then to inks…

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And finally, we have Hannah’s colours – always a feature of her work, getting so much life and drama into things.

First we have the flats and then the real colour work, getting all the tones and subtle details to give us that beautiful final piece that you’ll be loving on the cover of ROXY!

Our thanks to Hannah for sending them along – another simply fabulous cover for a simply fabulous book!

We’ve made Roxy to be the perfect bit of love and romance in your life – bringing back the spirit of classic British romance comics right into the here and now, with something to fall in love with for everyone!

Roxy is raising funds for publication right now on Kickstarter – pledge your romantic little hearts out!

You should all know Hannah’s incredible ‘gays in space’ series Cosmoknights, an epic series that she describes as ‘the story I would like to have read when I was 12 to 15 years old, where queer women and lesbians get to be the heroes of the story.’ This spectacular tale of a ragtag band of space gays, determined to beat a patriarchal system and find their own freedoms in this neo-medieval world, can be found online at Cosmoknights.space but you really need to be buying the print collections of Book One and Book Two right here.

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Lee Carter’s Debut Prog Cover for Prog 2393 – Rogue’s Return!

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 Earthlets, time to take a look at another zarjaz cover for the Galaxy’s Greatest, featuring the return of everyone’s favourite Genetic Infantaryman. Inside, we have Geoffrey D. Wessel and Paul Marshall begin a new multi-parter with Rogue Trooper: Recon, And to mark that special occasion, we have a debut Prog cover from art droid Lee Carter

Lee’s been a regular at 2000 AD since his very first strip, a Tharg’s Terror Tale: Bad Blood, written by Arthur Wyatt, in 2007’s Prog 1539. Since then, his art’s appeared on Dredd, Grey Area, Rogue Trooper, and he’s the co-creator of Dead Eyes, Necrophim, and Angelic. His most recent appearance inside the Prog was earlier this year with Kek-W on Indigo Prime: Black Monday.

But despite all of that, amazingly, this is his very first 2000 AD Prog cover – but what a cover it is. And if you’re thinking it looks a little familiar, you’re absolutely right, it’s this classic pin-up from Dave Gibbons…

LEE CARTER: Matt had asked me to do a cover based on a Dave Gibbons pin-up, which had Rogue’s face in full shadow black hole and holding his gun…

So, in terms of thumbnails, I really didn’t need to do too many, due to the pose being basically the same.. which was great as I do tend to do way too many thumbnails…

The placement of the black hole was the only thing that really needed to be decided so I did do a few roughs to pass over to Matt...

Once everything was ready to go I tried a few different amounts of shadow on his face and moved away from Dave’s fully shadowed Rogue.

Starting with line work which I do digitally in Photoshop… I then add greys and add some form and tone to the image.

Normally I use flat colours in strip work to give everything a consistent look throughout, I did the same with this cover.

Everything is on layers in Photoshop so I can turn on the line layer, colour flats, grey tones etc, also adding scanned-in paint textures gets away from Photoshop’s clean colours.

With the figure done, I moved on to the background, the background is a mix of photos from Whitby beach, which I took years ago, some old WW2 beach forts.

I basically photobashed and painted into the image.. then colour-corrected it all so it fitted with the figure.

As far as debuts go, that’s a cracker! Thank you to Lee for sending that along! You can get your hands on that cover and that Prog from all the usual places, including the 2000 AD web shop.

For more from Lee, do check out his first Judge Dredd Megazine cover, the 2021 Christmas blowout issue 439, and have a listen to him on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast here, again from 2021, chatting about working in video games, drawing military hardware, secret story reveals, and reimagining classic Judge Dredd villains.

Find Lee on Twitter: @MrLeeCarter

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Marguerite Sauvage Brings Style to her Roxy Cover

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 – but right now we’re headed away from scintillating sci-fi to take you into the realms of romance with ROXY!

One of the three cover artists for this new contemporary romance anthology designed to get your heart racing is the incredible Marguerite Sauvage whose cover is just the loveliest love letter to romance comics…

Named after the classic British romance comic that launched in 1958 and ran for some 288 weekly issues, this new version of Roxy brings all the glorious romance, every furtive glance, and every chaste kiss of the originals and brings it very much into the now, with a love-struck anthology of four very modern romance tales to inspire a new generation.

The new 80-page Roxy can be yours in digital, paperback, or hardcover, fit to make your heart burst with four tales of romance, love, and even a little lust from some of the best storytellers in comics…

There’s a brand new supermodel heist thriller from Dracula, Motherf**ker power couple Alex de Campi and Erica Henderson. We’ve got a spirited walk in the undead woods from artist-writer Sarah Gordon (Vicious Creatures). GLAAD & Eisner-nominated writer Magdalene Visaggio and Sterric (De Vloek van Rood) take us on a trip back in time to the regency era, and we blast into futuristic romance with a tale of love between man and mech courtesy of Nadia Shammas (SquireMs. Marvel) and Jaws Stone (Dames Zine: Magical Knights).

And all this under any one of three incredible covers from Tula Lotay, Hannah Templer, and Marguerite Sauvage.

First up, here’s a little from Marguerite on romance comics along with art from her beautiful wraparound cover…

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MARGUERITE SAUVAGE: Romance comics right now are a thing and that’s pretty obvious in graphic novels, Mangas or on Webtoon for example.

This genre should spread in its new form more and more within the classic comics industry, losing the archaic cliché of being looked down on as ‘feminine’ and ‘retrograde’.

Emotions and feelings, are a big part of everyone’s everyday life and now that we have a more inclusive and progressive non-binary vision of what romance could be, it’s full of potential.

The Roxy anthology totally understands and embraces this new definition of romance, and I enjoyed being called to work on a cover for it!

Also, this cover is a big opportunity to bring back my skills as a fashion and editorial illustrator, my first career before moving to comics, so that was a thrill to illustrate on this theme: I love drawing people who have style!

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Thanks to Marguerite for that – her cover is just absolutely gorgeous and a real window into the sort of vibe Roxy represents – passionate, inclusive, romantic, and bringing the spirit of classic British romance comics into the 21st century and beyond!

Roxy is raising funds for publication right now on Kickstarter – pledge like your heart depends on it!

And as a special treat… let’s go in super close to really get the most out of Marguerite’s art here…

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Mike Perkins targets Dredd in the deadly cover for Prog 2392

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, two very special events… the return of John Wagner and Colin MacNeill with a brand-new Dredd multi-parter, Machine Law, and the return of Mike Perkins to the cover of the Prog for a Zarjaz Machine Rule cover…

After getting his break at 2000 AD in the early 1990s with Future Shocks, a Terror Tale, Judge Dredd, and Vector 13, Mike headed over the pond to begin what’s been a glittering career working for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Cross Gen. He’s most recently been absolutely blowing fans away on DC’s Swamp Thing and Batman: First Knight.

But, as we’ve seen before, the lure of the Galaxy’s Greatest is so, so strong for those who started out here, and that’s why Mike’s always happy to make a reappearance on the cover… and what a cover it is, marking the start of Machine Rule, sure to be yet another epic tale, as Wagner and MacNeil show us just what happens when Dredd and the Mechanismos butt heads.

MIKE PERKINS: Colin MacNeil has long been an artistic inspiration for me. His work has always been nothing short of stunning and his work on the beginning of the Mechanismo saga stands in the echelons of Dredd royalty – if a fascist regime can be said to have royalty (probably MORE likely than not!)

So, my first impression was to wonder why Colin wasn’t illustrating the cover for this issue and then I figured I’d better shut up and just enjoy the opportunity I’d been given…and what an opportunity!

Dredd as a target for the robot judges themselves…well, hold on, there’s the cover right there!

I have no idea what’s coming up in this saga but I bet it’s going to be brilliant!

Mike, we have seen what’s coming up – and it’s just… WOW!

MIKE PERKINS: John and Colin back together again – deconstructing the structures they have put in place and built up into a regime that the citizens – and Judges – of Mega City One have embraced… all except Dredd, who’s pretty much grudgingly accepted the addition of the Mechanismo droids to the judicial forces. I’m excited!

I submitted a couple of ideas but knew which direction I wanted to go in and the addition of the crosshairs pushed the cover into that design element structure I was after.

And here’s those couple of ideas from Mike…

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And then the addition of the cross hairs – he’s absolutely right, it does make the image pop…

MIKE PERKINS: This depiction of Dredd is one I may stick with in future jobs. It’s always been an intriguing proposition to “cast” Dredd and it’s veered, for me, from Clint Eastwood to Pitch Black era Vin Diesel through to the shark-eyed No Country For Old Men Javier Bardem who serves as the influence here.

And just to show us what an influence, Mike sent this along…

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MIKE PERKINS: Those craggy features that show no emotion, pity or sympathy. The perfect foil for the Mechanismo unit towering behind him.

I’m such a fanboy when it comes to Colin and John!

Oh, we all are Mike, we all are!

Thank you so much to Mike for sharing that cover with us – Prog 2392 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop. Trust us, you don’t want to miss a moment of Machine Rule!

If you want more Covers Uncovered from Mike, there’s not that many but what there is is just… wow! His most recent was the 2024 Sci-Fi Special with Judge Alpha here, then there was the cover to the 2023 Christmas Judge Dredd Megazineissue 463, and finally there’s his cover homage to Futures Past for the 2017 FCBD 2000 AD here.

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2000 AD Covers Uncovered: Andy Clarke Gets Recycling With Megazine 470

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!

Over to this month’s Judge Dredd Megazine now and another zarjaz cover from veteran art droid Andy Clarke – one of those perfect for any cover Dredds…

Andy’s something of a veteran amongst the art droids, with his first 2000 AD work coming in 1998’s Prog 1088. That means he’s been at this for more than a quarter of a century!

As with quite a few artists of the time, the Clarke droid first appeared in the pages on Sinister Dexter, a title he’d make something of his own in the next six years. His art also graced the pages of Dredd, Nikolai Dante, Shimura, Thirteen, and Snow/Tiger, the last two co-creations by Clarke.

After that though, the lure of the bright lights of those super-types beckoned and he headed off to DC Comics from 2005, where he’d have runs on Aquaman, Detective Comics, Batman Confidential, and many more. There’s also been work at Marvel, and Aftershock over the years.

But the lure of the Prog and the Meg is strong and there’s not many who can resist it. Also, the fact that Tharg does have a habit of taking photos of the droid Christmas parties seems to help. And so it is that Andy’s now something of a regular covers droid over the last couple of years, giving us that gorgeous, stylised line and magnificent textural work, you know, just like this latest Dredd.

So, over to Andy…

ANDY CLARKE: I think this was a general inventory-type Dredd cover – something that wasn’t tied to any particular story.

I tried scribbling up a few different ideas – none that I was happy with – until I decided to see if I could rework one of the discarded sketches for the Dredd Garbage Grinder cover. I always liked the pose (nothing special about it really, but I liked how Dredd’s face and helmet came out in the pencil rough) and luckily it got approval from Matt, so I went with it.

And here it is, a handy bit of recycling going on, as we have this discarded sketch from Prog 2287 (and you can see the Covers Uncovered for that one here) that Andy managed to find fresh use for here…

Following that, Andy’s happy to report that everything went rather simply and easily. No nightmares, no frustrations, no starting over, all rather boring really he says!

So it was the usual route of taking that initial sketch and re-doing it…

… then going from pencils to inks…

… and then adding all of that characteristic detailing you see on all of Andy’s covers in the greyscale…

ANDY CLARKE: The only thing different I can think of is that once it was all done, I colourised the greytones – turning them red to give the colours a warmer feel.

And here’s the colour flats that come from colourising those greytones, followed by the final stage, the fiddly, lots of work stage where he adds all the FX, the details, gradients, highlights, and the background, all of it with that typical Andy Clarke texturing that you can see…

Thank you so much to Andy for sending along the art that all went into creating such a great cover that you’ll find on shelves galaxy-wide from 17 July, as well as the 2000 AD webshop.

As for more Covers Uncovered action from Andy, be sure to have a look at his covers for Megazine 444, Prog 2287Prog 2290Prog 2312, and, from just the other week, Prog 2388. Plus, there’s that perfect thematic triumvirate of covers for the soon-to-be-collected and rather excellent Smash! that Andy was responsible for– issue 1, issue 2, and issue 3. You can get hold of Smash! The Broxteth Devil on 11 September.

And finally, a special treat for those of you who scroll this far down… blow-ups of Andy’s cover to show you all that absolutely superb detailing that goes into making Dredd look that good…