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!

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 Irving – R-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

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 BECKERHARRISON – beckerharrison.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????

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 (Squire, Ms. 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.

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

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 (Squire, Ms. 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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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 2287, Prog 2290, Prog 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…

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 Prog cover – this week featuring the blue boy, for the last episode of Rogue Trooper: Souther Belle, all drawn by Dan Cornwell…

Artist Dan Cornwell’s certainly come a long way from driving a bus a few years ago – first there was the email from John Wagner asking him to be part of John and Alan Grant’s Rok of the Reds (which you’ll be seeing in the Judge Dredd Megazine soon), and then he established himself at 2000 AD with some really stunning artwork, whether that was on Judge Dredd or taking over from the much-missed master, Carlos Ezquerra, on Spector. Now, he’s just finished the six-part run on the Geoffrey D. Wessel written Rogue Trooper: Souther Belle, which wraps up right here in Prog 2391.

So, it’s only right that Dan’s here on the cover of the Prog to give us the boy in blue in full-on action…

DAN CORNWELL: When Matt asked if I’d like to draw a new six-part Rogue Trooper story (which I obviously said yes to!) he also asked if I could do a pin-up to promote the story before it’s publication.

He probably also wanted to see how I’d approach the character and if my style would suit. Anyway, I asked if he had any ideas or preferences for the pin-up and he suggested an image of Rogue on a pile of dead Norts. Hell yeah, not a problem. 

I did a few sketches and sent them his way and he chose one…

And here are those sketches and the final sketch chosen by Tharg’s Earthly representative…

Yes, that’s what Dan calls a ‘sketch’ – We really need to reevaluate what sketch means here!

Okay then, with the sketch in the bag and approved, back to Dan for the next stage…

DAN CORNWELL: I then pencilled the image on a piece of Bristol board, and at some point I was losing focus on certain areas of the image, more on that later.

When I was happy with the image I then inked it traditionally. Added a few textures and splatters then I scanned it into Photoshop and adjusted the levels and generally tidied it up.

Then I laid out all the flat base colours. I knew I wanted a red background and the foreground to be a blue/green as a stark contrast. Rogue himself would be a brighter blue, so he should pop. 

For the background tank and explosion I added a new layer so I could do colour holds, effectively colouring the inks which helps push the background back in the image. 

Then I added all the highlights and effects. I also brightened the colours in and around Rogue, so it made him front and centre in the image.

When I was happy, I flattened the image and sent it to Matt for approval. It was after this I noticed some mistakes in the image. 

Sometimes you can get sidetracked by focusing on one part of the image and not noticing other mistakes in the image as a whole. In this case, there were some glaring ones.

First it was Rogue’s head. It was too high on his body, and this in turn made his shoulder too low on one side. I had also forgotten to add the other grenade to Bagman’s shoulder strap. Thank God for Photoshop. These mistakes were all rectified and I sent the new revised image to Matt. No harm done…. I hope.

Tharg can be merciful some times Dan! I’m sure when Earthly representative Matt sent him the final cover, TMO was impressed and will probably only reduce your oil rations for a few weeks over the mistakes!

And just so you can see what Dan’s talking about, here’s a zoom-in on the before and after… moving the head, adding that extra grenade…

Well, there you go, another ghafflebette cover from the pen of the always-wonderful Dan Cornwell! Prog 2391 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.

For more of Dan’s excellent covers, you should go look at the Covers Uncovered for Prog 2217, Prog 2241, Prog 2277, Prog 2279, and Prog 2345. And you can also watch and listen to Dan chat to Molch-R on the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast here, all about the bus driving, getting that fateful email from John Wagner, drawing Rok of the Reds (which is coming to the Megazine soon!), all the way through to Judge Dredd and Spector, not to mention what happened when his mum threatened to phone Tharg!

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!

Grabbing the cover and shaking it this week is Dave Kendall, giving us a glimpse into the new thrill you’ll find inside… Silver: Unearthed…

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Yes, something mysterious and brand-new starts in this Prog, as Mike Carroll and Joe Currie begin their tale of… well, we’re not going to be spoilering it for you. After all, when our Lord and Master Tharg writes in the editorial this week that he’s keeping details about Silver ‘vague’ and tells us that ‘you’ll gain the most from this ghafflebette debuting strip, Terrans, going into it knowing as little as possible, so plunge away!’ we know when it’s in our best interests to keep schtum.

All we’ll say is that it’s set in England, 2001, where a group of armed survivors have arrived in the depths of the night at the ruins of a burned-out house. They’re on a catch and cage mission, so it’s time to break out the shovels and start digging for something they’ve been told could be the key to saving the human race. 

What are they digging for? How will it help save humanity? Just why does humanity need saving? Well, all will be revealed as Silver unfolds over the coming weeks.

But, if everyone promises to tell TMO, we can share this one teaser panel from part 1 of Silver: Unearthed…

Dave Kendall’s cover gives you some subtle clues as to what you can expect, drawn in his incredible style that’s most recently made his and Kek-W’s Fall of Deadworld such a strange, enthralling, and just plain magnificently dark view of a world falling apart, something Kendall’s lushly drawn style suits so well.

But enough, time to welcome you to the world of Sliver, the latest in a series of Zarjaz new thrills that have debuted in 2024. Here’s Dave Kendall to tell you all about the cover…

DAVE KENDALL: The brief for this cover was quite indistinct. It was a new story with very little reference provided for the story. The story concerns a ███████ taking on █████ ████████. Tharg wanted a saucer breaking up under the effect of the ███████ ████.

Too much Dave! Too much! But here are his sketchbook pages… see if you can work out what we can’t have him telling you from theses…

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DAVE KENDALL: I always start with lots of sketchbook designs. It’s probably my favourite part of any process. It’s when the possibilities and excitement is highest. I tend to work purely in ink. I like the lack of safety net and the need to concentrate so you make better decisions. My sketchbook pages tend to be a flow of ideas one thing warping into another. I think keeping ideas genuinely sketchy is important.

I see so many people presenting near finished art as sketches. For me that destroys the whole concept of sketching. It has to have that meandering feel. Sometimes the best ideas will come from a mistake or random mark. I work very fast and just fill the page with designs.

The bulk of the cover is the ███████ ███ and the saucer. As I had no real reference, I just designed the elements with an organic feel. The saucer, particularly, having pipes and organic-feeling aspects.

In fact, you can see the germ of an idea for the cover right there on the third double-page of the sketchbook…

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And this is Dave’s colour workup of the saucer that dominates the cover…

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DAVE KENDALL: The brief asked for the ███ and Saucer to be front and forward. Using the sketchbook designs I put together a couple of different designs.

One is symmetrical while the other has the elements tilted. Tharg went for the symmetrical design…

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Once the final concept is decided I then pencil out the cover with full details...

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This cover is an acrylic painting with some small digital enhancements. When painting I tend to have a print out of the colour rough so the final image is as close to the approved rough as possible.

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Wow. That is a stunning cover! Thanks so much to Dave for sending those bits along and letting us into how it was made. Prog 2390 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.

For more brilliant – if disturbing – covers from Dave, check out his Covers Uncovered for Progs 2029, 2210, and 2237.

Now, because they’re so damn good, the full-size versions of each of Dave’s sketchbook pages for you…

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 the summer spectacular of stories from a sideways universe! Yes, it’s July and that means the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special is back for 2024! On the fabulous Mike Perkins cover – Judge Alpha!

It’s a 48-page spectacular of zarjaz strips with a difference – beamed from another dimension and harnessed by the power of Tharg where the five strips take familiar characters from the GGC and mixes, merges, melds, and smashes them together to give you something special, spectacular, and strange!

So expect to see the new Law in MC-1, when you get to meet the kick-ass Judge Alpha; uncover an all-new way of robo-hunting with Sinister and Dexter, the Robo-Sharks; experience Search/Destroy bounty hunting like never before as Friday is hunted for a crime he didn’t commit in Rogue/Dog; take to the high seas for adventures on the Red Wench with Stickleback; and gasp in amazement/bewilderment at the most violent sport of the future, taking Aero Ball to incredible/ridiculous heights with The Harlem Zombos!

All of that’s inside the 2024 Sci-Fi Special. But first, to talk us through a thriller of a cover… Mike Perkins…

MIKE PERKINS: ‘Judge Alpha?  Johnny Alpha as a Judge? And you’re asking if I’d be interested in producing a cover of this? – Who do I pay?’

Okay… I didn’t say that last bit but I’m sure it shot around my brain. 

Art droids everywhere wince at words such as these as they know Tharg will take note of the whole idea of the droids paying him instead of the other way round!

But we absolutely get what Mike means – who wouldn’t jump at the chance of showing us JUDGE ALPHA?!?!

Okay, back to Mike…

MIKE PERKINS: Tharg kind of knew what he was looking for, but I cobbled together a few roughs playing with established Strontium Dog images.

I, kind of, really wanted the crossed holster but it would have obscured too much of the Judge uniform.

I DID want the Westinghouse, though, and found the perfect image on the Termight Replicas page...

The single Alpha image was chosen from the roughs but the two previous recent covers I’d illustrated for Rebellion had been medium-range, straight-ahead shots, and I was wary of repeating that so I approached it as a more confrontational pose.

I did finish up a full-colour version of the cover too – but then decided on the gray and red version as it stood out much more strongly.

Johnny Alpha wasn’t in the Prog when I first starting getting it every week (from Prog 240) …probably because Carlos was busy on The Apocalypse War – BUT I was aware of him from the annuals and it wasn’t long before I’d bought all the previous issues and caught up with those other 239 Thrill-packed progs.

He’s always been a firm favourite …now if only I could get a Robo Hunter cover…

Well there you go – next up for the Perkins droid – Robo-Hunter. Tharg can make it so!

Thank you so much for Mike for sending along all that – it’s a ghafflebette cover worthy of the once a year magic that it the 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special! You can find it on the shelves right now – everywhere Thrill Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

If you want more Covers Uncovered from Mike we’ve a couple of gorgeous ones for you – here’s his most recent, the 2023 Christmas Judge Dredd Megazine, issue 463.  There’s also his splendid 2017 FCBD cover here.

Seriously, he’s just not done enough for 2000 AD! Tharg, Tharg… Mike’s after a Robo-Hunter, you can sort that, right?