Who judges the judges? Prog 2027 sees Judge Dredd give his final assessment of Harvey, one of the fearsome, more advanced Mark 8 Mechanismo Units. These new and improved versions of the Justice Department lawbots are no less deadly, yet more empathic versions of the Mechanismo droids we’ve seen before. Has Tek Division got it right this time?
Tharg asked exceptional artist Matt Ferguson to provide one of his trademark ubercool covers for the series and, of course, Matt didn’t disappoint!
Below we see Matt’s rough sketches for the image. In a nod to his sold out Vice Press Block War print and his seminal Prog 1984 cover (a few prints of these are still available over at Vice Press,) we see the law machine against a glorious, ad-free moon!
Below are Matt’s initial sketches…
Drokking Hedgehogs!
Harvey’s back seat driver didn’t last very long.
The chosen idea is refined for maximum coolness…
“No tailgating Creep!”
With the composition sorted, work begins on Harvey…
Bike-cop-on-it Exploder (sorry.)
Harvey REALLY starts taking shape – terrifying!
Ugh! He’s got oil patches under his armpits!
Next the background elements are added. Squaxx will recognise at least one of those names, that of the magnificent Mr Chris Weston who gave Matt some feedback on the buildings and general thoughts on composition. Matt modestly said “It’s always good to get feedback from people, they always spot stuff I can do better!”
The other block name is that of fellow artist Mark Englert, whose exceptional Taco Belvedere blog is well worth a few hours of your time!
Will Dredd keep death off the roads?
And with that, this astounding cover is finished. Huge, huge thanks to Matt for sending the impossibly cool images. Please check out his awesome website at http://www.cakesandcomics.com/
Hold on to your helmets as Clint Langley brings us the making of his zarjaz cover Deadworld cover of Prog 2025, and Good Grud, what a cover it is!
The cover shows Fairfax and Jess desperately trying to escape the omnipresent clutches of Judge Death and his twisted brethren in what must be one of the darkest strips in 2000AD’s rich history. Clint was kind enough to send his images of his mind boggling process which simply MUST come with the following health warning – set Thrill Buffers at Maximum Earthlets!
Done that? Good, because here are what can only be described as Clint’s eye meltingly terrifying inks…
Good Grud, the cycling proficiency tests on Deadworld are harsh!
Those inks are drawn A2 sized and I bet are an absolute wonder to behold.
With the inks complete, tones are digitally added to make it look even darker and creepier!
Hiiiiiiiighway to Hell!
So finally, Clint digitally colours the image proving once again that he is probably the best in the business!
“Look once! Look Twice! Keep an eye out for Motorcycles (and giant genocidal maniacs!)”
Thank you so much to Clint for sending the images. This cover is an astounding testament to his talent – stunning composition and digital effects mere squaxx cannot comprehend. For more of CLint’s work, those who are on Facebook should check out The Art of Clint Langley, it’s wonderful!
Trial by Machine is back! John Wagner and John McCrea bring full metal justice to the streets of Mega City One in the blistering new Judge Dredd thriller Harvey, beginning in Prog 2024. With justice department resources at an all time low, Chief Judge Hershey looks to the troubled Mechanismo Programme to help bring some order to the Chaos. After the previous catastrophic failings of the robotic judges, have Tek Division finally got it right?
I asked celebrated artdroid John McCrea to tell us about his creation of the brilliant cover for the opening episode. He said “The story focuses on a Mechanismo robot called Harvey, and as the film Harvey, starring Jimmy Stewart and his eponymous 8ft tall invisible rabbit, is one of my favourite movies ever ( though a lot of Jimmy Stewart’s films are in my favourite list!) I thought a tribute to the movie poster would be cool…“
Jimmy Stewart loved Easter…
“So I roughed out a sketch (I thought about having Dredd sitting down but didn’t have the artistic chops to pull it off) and plonked the logo on it to give Tharg an idea of the finished cover. It got the green thumbs up.”
Barry Manilow visits Megacity-One
And with a nice logo added…
Dredd outside Isaac Asimov Block
“I printed out the pencils and inked them on a lightbox. Then I went and had a sandwich. Beetroot, humous, basil and pepper, lightly toasted. Honest, it’s fantastic. And a cup of tea. I walked back to the drawing board, looked at the inks, hated the Dredd figure and started again.”
Here are the inks that John hated, maybe HE should go and see Dr Sanderson…
Behold! The unloved inks of the monster that is John McCrea!
“I wanted the Dredd figure to be more dynamic- he was a little to startled looking in my previous attempt. Dredd is never startled. Pissed off, annoyed, grumpy maybe, but never startled, surprised, shocked etc…”
A more pissed off, annoyed and grumpy Dredd.
” I decided to use more of an ink wash finish this time round ( I’d been doing a lot of that on my Dreddwolf story for IDW and I had some spare ink left on my mixing plate (49p from Ikea… ))”
Dredd and his shadow, shooting up the avenue…
“I then send the art to Mike Spicer in Americaland and shortly thereafter it returns, looking lovely and ready to print. Total time, 2 days. Hope you like it, Earthlets!”
A cold, hard law machine and a robot called Harvey.
Awesome! I love this cover and John’s interiors are amazing! We are totally spoilt at the moment as this week also sees the release of IDW’s “How of the Wolf.” This Deviations tale asks what would happen if Dredd remained a werewolf after the events of the famed ‘Cry of the Werewolf’ tale.
HUGE thanks to John for sending the images and excellent write up, this Dredd tale is going to be wild!
Welcome to 2000 AD Covers Uncovered, where this week we offer you a double whammy from fan favourite Ryan Brown! Ryan has delivered two covers to the Nerve Centre recently, Prog 2018’s ‘The Order’ cover and the prestigious cover of Prog 2020, Judge Dredd’s 40th birthday Prog!
I asked Ryan to tell us about his recent covers, starting with his terrifying Order cover of Prog 2018. Ryan said “Heres the rough for ‘The Order’ cover, I wanted to have a war of the worlds style image , a little B-movie looking, it is a giant worm after all!”
The Judge Dredd Blobs/Order crossover cover
Ryan’s zarjaz digital art has, quite rightly, been blowing fans away for some time now. As a long time 2000 AD fan himself, Ryan is aware of the thrill of appearing in the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic and is keen to bestow this honour on fellow Squaxx. Like a modern day Santa Claus, Ryan put two of his friends into the painting. He said “Here’s some reference of two of my friends I used for the fleeing victims. They are called Laurence and Mark and are two massive 2000 AD fans!”
Mark and Laurence before being eaten by a giant beastie!
So below you can see Laurence and Mark being rewarded for their years of devotion by being murdered by a giant, mutant Wyrm. Oh Ryan, you’re so nice!
“Whisht lads, had ye gobs ah’ll tell ye’s all an awful story…”
Ryan also painted the cover of Prog 2020, the 40th Anniversary of the first Judge Dredd thrill! The cover is for new Dredd tale “Thick Skin,” which finds MegaCity One’s premier lawman investigating a strange case of melting celebrities!
Ryan said “Tharg wanted me to do a cover where Dredd was surrounded by people with melting skin, but they couldn’t be scary 🙁 So i gave them strange melted noses which gives them more of a silly look I think! I did’nt want Dredd looking threatening, just a bit agitated. Here’s the rough…”
The Planet Replicas ‘Hands on the Judge Costume’ competition entered it’s third week…
Again, Ryan used a fan for reference for the picture, he said “I’ve included an image from a Dredd cosplayer I found on the web. I liked his pose so wanted to do something similar.”
The Butler is it!
With a bit of detective work, I managed to find out that the cosplayer is none other than Dredd fan, Jared Butler, aka Max Replica! Not only is Jared the body of Dredd in this recent cover, he acually provided the VOICE of the lawman for the awesome Judge Minty fan film! Jared is a professional voice over artist, notably being the ‘voice double’ for Johnny Depp in several official Pirates of the Caribbean projects and other Depp vehicles. Jared was thrilled to be used on the cover, he said “That is so cool! The photo was snapped when I was walking back to my hotel room from San Diego Comic Con. You can see my bag in my hnd, it’s like Dredd just finished his shopping!”
Jared sent a more official photo, which I am thrilled to share below…
“Drokkin’ weather control is on the fritz again!”
You can read a great interview with Jared on his experience recording the voice of Dredd over on the excellent Judge Tutor Semple blog.
Finally, Ryan found another reference that he couldn’t resist using. He said “I also found an image of a melting womans face which I liked 🙂 he he he!” Let’s hope the police never have a reason to check Ryan’s internet history, he’ll have a lot of explaining to do!
“Plastic surgery? Moi? I don’t know what you mean dahling!”
And here’s the finished cover, awesome!
The more attractive attendees of the 40th Anniversary Celebration.
Massive thanks to Ryan for sending the images. Be sure to check out Ryan’s website to see lots more amazing 2000 AD related images!
Rejoice Earthlets as the 40 Year Special is finally ready to be beamed to your Optical Receptors! The mighty one has pulled out all the stops to bring a Prog jam-packed with some of the very greatest Thrills from the very best creators!
With veteran artdroid Carlos Ezquerra providing the cover for the 40th Anniversary special, it was going to take someone pretty special to produce an alternative cover. Enter award winning cover artist and Dredd fan, David Aja! David produced this gritty Dredd cover that sums the character up perfectly!
David was thrilled to be asked, having been a fan of Dredd since he was seven years old. Below, we see his thumbnail fo the cover…
“I just picked it up and it went off!”
Of course, the thumbnail was accepted by the mighty one, however, David did submit an alternative idea which looks awesome! Check it out below…
“Last one to the hottie stall is a Simp!”
Here are David’s wonderful digital pencils, like the Gruddamn Statue of Judgement!
The Lawrod – when you absolutely, positively have to kill every Motherdrokker in the room.
With the pencils done, David begins to ink using a specially prepared mixture of Indian ink, grit, coolness and pure unadulterated Thrillpower…
A stickler
With the image inked and coloured, David has a play with logo placement, to give a feel of how the finished cover will look…
“Hey Joe! Your head is covering the Lo-” “BAM!!!”
And finally, the finished piece. Grud on a Greenie, that is an outstanding image. Pure, unadulterated Dredd!
He really IS the law.
David was also kind enough to send a Dredd head he did ‘for fun,’ how cool is that!?!
In a league of his tone (Alpologies for that pun, terrible by even my standards! PWLS)
MASSIVE thanks to David for sending the images, be sure to check out his awesome blog here.
The 2000AD 40th Anniversary Special is ON SALE NOW!
Rejoice Earthlets as the 40 Year Special is finally ready to be beamed to your Optical Receptors! The mighty one has pulled out all the stops to bring a Prog jam-packed with some of the very greatest Thrills from the very best creators!
There are few artdroids that could do justice to such a monumental Prog, however it is all in a day’s work for the daddy of both Judge Dredd and Johnny Alpha, the mighty Carlos Ezquerra!
Below, we see Carlos’ sketch for the cover, featuring three of the most iconic, not to mention grumpy, faces in British comics.
The 2000AD ABBA tribute album gets a cover.
After studying his handome features, the Mighty One approves the rough and instructs the Ezquerra Droid to “Get on with it!”
Note, the Ezquerra jaggies in full effect here. Each one is lovingly raised on a farm in Andorra before being carefully placed on Carlos’ artwork…
Tharg about to play with his ThreeA figures
Then the Ezquerra droid, a pioneer of computer coloured comic artwork, digitally colours the piece. It is a little known fact that every time Carlos does a cover, the computer he uses has to be replaced as it explodes with pure Thrillpower.
The mean, the green and the machine
Not content with providing the cover of the 40th special, Tharg also created an exclusive print for Vice Press, to be sold at the excellent 40th Anniversary Celebration in London. The print featured Dredd from 1977 having a chin off against Dredd from 2017! How fashion’s change, eh? Here’s the rough…
“A word of advice, look out for a juve called Maybe…”
Set your Thrillbuffers at maximum for those amazing inks – swoon!
“Hey Joe, you remeber the codpiece years?” “No.”
Lastly a bit of tone and text for the final print, absolutely Lawsome!
Who the hell’s gonna mess with them?
Huge thanks to Carlos for sending the images and for attending the 40th Anniversary bash. He sketched ALL day, chatted to fans and was as kind and gracious as ever.
Here’s to another 40 years of Carlos characters and covers!
The bumper end of year Prog 2011 saw the debut of new strip Kingmaker by the dream team of Ian Edginton and Leigh Gallagher. This fantasy/Sci-fi mash upis become an instant hit with the readers, thanks to a hilarious script and stunning visuals by two top creators. Kingmaker follows the struggle of white wizard Ablard and his unlikely orc companion Crixus as they battle against an invading alien race known as The Thorn!
Leigh made an excellent video for the Mighty One’s zarjaz new “From the Drawingboard” series which you can follow on Youtube. You find it here.
However, Leigh was kind enough to send his files to 2000 AD Covers Uncovered too. He said “Even though this was a cover for part 5 of Kingmaker, with it being our first, I wanted to make it an introduction to the aliens versus Middle Earth concept by Ian Edginton and myself.”
Below are Leigh’s approved roughs…
Orc-some!
Leigh continues “As you know this cover process was recorded for the ‘From The Drawing Board’ video series on Youtube. The thing is, that video was actually my second attempt, as seconds before I was about to send 2000 AD the original video, I made the mistake of showing it to my wife. Upon viewing the opening minutes, she had her mouth covered in utter horror and disbelief and told me that I can’t show that to anyone!”
“It may have been the extended screen time given to the “PJ Holden doll”,or the highly amusing banter to the camera, or the video cutting to me eating a mince pie for 30 seconds in the middle of the montage, or it may have been that after I added “Playgirl centrefold model” to my list of credits I had a half naked photo of me flash up on screen for half a second…. we’ll never know….”
“In any case, I went in a mood for half a day, then redid the opening of the video to what you see now. Hope you like it!” We certainly do Leigh, though I for one would be keen to see that mince pie montage…
Next we have Leigh’s “fairly loose” pencils, as he will be inking the cover himself…
“Up above… and below… sorry, you’re too slow!”
The pencils are scanned then inked on Leigh’s fancy new Ugee drawing tablet. Previously, he’d have used more traditional methods however, as he was recording for Tharg, he went the digital route…
Orc-estral Maneuvres in the Dark Ages.
With the image inked, it was time to digitally colour it to really make the cover pop!
Orc and Mage, stuffing!
Middle Earth sized thank you’s to the beautiful Mr Gallagher for sending the images. Please be sure to check out his work at http://leighgallagherart.blogspot.co.uk/
Tsk – quite literally 2000 AD Covers Uncovered as Jake Lynch has Dredd destroying the cover of Prog 2017, for shame!!! The Lynch droid was firing on all cylenders as he gave us this arresting cover and has kindly provided us with a sequence of images to show how this cover, quite literally, came to life. Below we see Jake’s thumbnail sketches, nice and loose and full of raw Thrillpower…
Jake ponders the correct approach for bursting through paper…
With the general pose decided, Jake goes on to produce his rough, using the 2000 AD cover template as his trusty guide…
“Cover me!”
General layout in place, it’s time for those gritty inks…
Rip Torn?
Next tone and lighting is added. Either that or Jake spilt his milk on the picture…
Dredd the Ripper!
Jake then uses his digital crayons to colour the image.
Drokk, Paper, Sizzles!
And finally, the special effects are added to make Dredd rip out of the Prog! Please note, Tharg does not take kindly to Prog rippage of any kind! Any perpetrators will find themselves on the painful end of a Rigellion Hotshot!
No Progs were harmed during the making of this cover.
Huuuuge thanks to Jake for sending the zarjaz images! You can see a video of how Jake begins putting a page together on 2000AD’s excellent ‘From the Drawing Board’ series on YouTube – enjoy!
Prog 2016 saw the introduction of a fascinating new character in Dredd’s world, the super speedy, super resourceful mutant Paradox Vega. It was obvious that in the recent Dredd arc ‘Deep in the Heart’ that Dredd and Paradox have previous, but writer Mike Carroll isn’t ready to tell us how they met just yet…
Who better to bring Dredd’s capture of Paradox to life than fan favourite cover droid Alex Ronald? Alex, who was trying out a new, looser style, was instructed to call upon Robin Smith’s iconic cover of Prog 495 for reference…
“Oh no you don’t!”
Alex said “Since the summer last year I’d been trying to change my style a bit starting with a couple of covers I did for the Walter Hill crime book Trigger Man…“
Water way to go.
“Hey Love, I finished work earl…”
Alex continues, “I’ve been keeping it a bit more loose than usual and leaving in pencil lines, etc.” Below we see Alex’s gorgeous roughs which have almost as much energy as Paradox herself!
If you have to get shot, you should get shot by the best!
As soon as I saw this cover, I thought the Ronald droid’s software had been given the MacNeil92.exe patch, to channel the painterly style of Colin MacNeil. Alex said “When I did this Dredd cover I tried out painting it with a colour palette along the lines of Colin MacNeil circa early 90’s Mechanismo era. This was to help me get a more painterly feel and bring up my colours to a more vibrant level than the usual dark blue tones I’ve used in the past…” Mission accomplished Alex, it’s glorious!
“Stop or I fire, Crazylegs!”
Alex was also kind enough to send his roughs and finished version of his recent Anderson cover of Megazine 379. Thrill buffers at maximum Earthlets!
She looks ready…
Psi-Ex!
Huge thanks to Alex for sending the covers, we can’t wait to see his next one! Be sure to check out Alex’s amazing blog here for more eyepopping artwork!
Super artdroid Neil Roberts paints us an awesome cover for Prog 2014 for time bending strip, The Order. In the strip, the mighty Medieval droid Ritterstahl must save his future self in 1641 in the era expanding War of the Wyrms!
Neil is amazingly proficient artist on the computer however for this cover, like his other Order covers, he chose lush, fully painted artwork. I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s is to die for.
I asked Neil to take us through the creation of the cover, he said “For this particular cover Tharg suggested I start off with the key moment from Kek-W and John M Burns’ strip…”
“Alas, poor Ritterstahl, I knew him so well.”
Neil continues “From there I started looking at some artwork as inspiration, in this case, Dave Gibbons classic Prog 175 robot cover. I mean, c’mon! Just look at that draughtsmanship, the lighting and colour palette – sooooo lovely!”
My Other Ride is a Gaaarglespladger
“And also Wally Wood, for his solid rendering of robots…”
Wally’s cockroach problem was getting out of hand so he called in Robokill.
“Then I drew up a thumbnail based on all those elements – I wanted to go for something more contemplative and still, rather than full-on action. That’s one of 2000AD’s greatest strengths, it has that freedom to explore many different moods and styles…”
Oof, you’ll get piles sitting on that cold rock…
“Once approved, I spent a few days painting up the final piece…”
“Hey there future self, you’ve lost weight!”
“Then it was off to Tharg and his droids for putting on the front cover! Yours, Neil Roberts, or should that be Kneel Robots? Or in this case, Sitting Robots?”
Ho ho ho! He’s a card isn’t he? Neil will be at the 2000AD 40th Bash so feel free to say hello.
