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 zarjaz Nick Percival cover this week for the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2384, Earthlets, with Dredd stalking through the undercity in search of Iron Teeth…

We’re up to part three of the six-part Judge Dredd: Iron Teeth by Ken Niemand and Nick Percival, and Dredd’s deep in the undercity looking for those juves who’ve got themselves mixed up with the nightmarish urban legend made oh so real, Iron Teeth. And if you’re talking nightmarish, there’s few artists out there who do it as well as Nick does!

Nick apologises for this one being a bit of a quickie, but that’s because he was busy stealing a moment from Tharg to answer a few interview questions for us about this latest Dredd series, his art, and what it’s like to be bringing the horror to Dredd! So we’ll forgive him that. Tharg though? Well, our Betelgeusian boss might not be so forgiving and then Nick’s really going to experience a nightmare all his own!

Okay then, without further ado… Nick Percival…

NICK PERCIVAL: We’re hitting the middle of the story, so time to finally get a clear reveal of Dredd’s new nemesis, Iron Teeth.

I wanted a big, punchy close-up of the creature’s face, leaving nothing to the imagination and here he is. Of course, we need Dredd on there too, so the the image was always going to be a montage piece with Dredd on the hunt in the foreground and Iron Teeth’s ugly mug taking up the lion’s share of the piece.

As with all my cover roughs, everything is very loose, just to get the idea down quick and give Tharg an idea of what he’ll be getting.

I wanted a very different colour palette from Part 1’s cover, so went for blues as the dominant colour. Since Iron Teeth is a supernatural being, the plan was to give it a slightly hazy, mystical feel, with the swirling blue mist and so on.

Hopefully it stands out on the shelves and makes you want to dive into the spooky stuff inside…

And that’s it folks! Short but sweet… well, not sweet so much as a hideous vision of what Dredd’s having to deal with right now, but you get the idea!

Thanks so much to Nick for taking the time and sending the art over for this one. You can find it out right now everywhere Thrill Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop.

As for more of Nick’s Covers Uncovered work, there’s plenty to be looking at – start off with the most recent, his intro to Iron Teeth on the wrapround cover of Prog 2382 and then take a look at these – Prog 2247, Megazine 425, Megazine 427, Megazine 430, Megazine 433, Megazine 430, Megazine 443, Megazine 448, Megazine 453, Megazine 456, and Megazine 458.

We’ve also interviewed Nick a few times – he talks about finishing six years worth of work on the Dark Judges work here and we’ve talked to Nick and Dark Judges’ writer David Hine about two Dark Judges storylines – Deliverance here and Death Metal Planet here. And finally, Molch-R talks to Hine and Percival about all things Dark Judges in the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes here.   

Finally, as has become a thing now, time to zoom in to that fabulously horrific artwork to really send a shiver down your spine…

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, not one but two Brink covers from Brink series artist INJ Culbard – for the new Prog 2383 and his last cover for Prog 2379. Both perfectly, absolutely, brilliantly Brink…

Throughout Brink’s previous five books, Dan Abnett and INJ Culbard have delivered something perfect – a sci-fi thriller and a crime noir procedural in a universe where the last of humanity has been forced to evacuate to overpopulated space station habitats, the Habs. Against an ever-more nightmarish world of sect-crime and madness, we’ve been with Habitat Security Officer Bridget Kurtis from the start, watching with her as things get strange and as Mercury went dark.

Now we’re into Brink Book Six: Consumed, with Kurtis part of a team finally tasked with delving deeper into what happened with Mercury and where the sects come into it all. But before all that, we have Kurtis on a 10-day stopover on Belleholme Hab. Bonner’s off enjoying the golf.

Kurtis? Well, she’s always one to find trouble no matter where she is, and it’s usually sect-related…

We’ve had a few weeks of Brink: Consumed by now and two excellent Culbard covers. But Tharg has been even stricter later with the art droids and reckons they should be grateful for the regularly scheduled breaks they get – after all, what could an art droid do with more than 30 minutes every couple of weeks?

All that means that this week you get a two-for-one – two incredible Prog covers, one zarjaz artist. So, without further ado, over to Ian, starting with Prog 2379…

INJ CULBARD: I’m going to talk about the first two covers I’ve done for the Prog in relation to Brink: Consumed (Book Six). 

The brief for the first was simple. Habitat in space, the mouth we see in Book Five and on the first page of this series to be seen as if consuming (as per the title for this run) the Habitat itself.

So I responded quickly to the brief with the following image (and a brief explanation in case it wasn’t clear what I’d drawn). I have a general layout I’ve been following since… I can’t think when. Certainly, Book Five, where there’s a circular centre to the composition.

Oh no Ian, it’s way, way further back than that – right the way back to Prog 1989 we reckon.

INJ CULBARD: Part of the reason I do this is because I know that any one of these covers is likely to serve as the cover to the next collected volume and if you look at the Brink logo on those books, it has this curving crescent that cuts through it, so I’m covering all my bases. I’m ensuring it can work for either cover, for the Prog or the collection. 

I got the thumbs up to go ahead.

The initial pass was too cartoony. I think I deleted it. Gone forever. Good riddance. Instead of the heavenly maelstrom, I ended up working the fur into a dissolve into black starry background for the final thing, so here’s all that fur work… 

And then to color, working with the established palette. So, in all, a really simple process.

The next one, not so much. That was way harder for some reason. 

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Next brief: The sigils and some drops of blood from the slaughterhouse. 

So I knew we would see the faces of Bridge and Wade reflected in these drops of blood, and so I quickly sent over the following image.

I got approval and then proceeded. And what I ended up with I simply didn’t like.

I happen to still have it on my desktop so I’ll show you that now so you can see what a difference self-doubt and second-guessing makes.

It just didn’t work for me. Too messy? Too close?

So I went back to the drawing board, and took a step back both in terms of assessment but also visually, scaling the characters down so they were further away and showing more of the building behind them, warping in the volume of this blob of blood, not colouring the line… just keeping with the drawing.

Throwing in some pedestrians, giving the eye more work to do.

So you’ve got this guy (second on the left) wearing a Roscoe’s hat… if you remember Book Five, we briefly see that Roscoe’s is a no-tell hotel and everything is very pink and magenta in that hotel, so that guy’s wearing pink tinted shades, so I guess everywhere is like being in Roscoe’s for him. I don’t know about you but when I see extras/bit parts in stories I start giving them little biographies.

And then colours, again using established palettes, but I liked the way reflective surfaces are portal-like. So she’s observing and everything is back to front, kind of where she’s at in the investigation, you sort of think you know what you’re looking at but something isn’t quite right.  

Wow – two covers to double your Thrill Power! So many thanks to Ian for sending them our way. They’re both absolutely stunning, perfect covers to show off one of the greatest modern tales of the Prog!

You can find 2000 AD Prog 2383 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop from 17 August. And if you happened to miss Prog 2279 – how about checking out a subscription to guarantee you’ll never miss any more of the Galaxy’s Greatest?

Of course, you REALLY, REALLY need to have all five volumes of Brink in your life and on your shelves – a stunning series that rewards repeated reading so well – buy them here – Brink Book One, Brink Book Two, Brink Book Three, Brink Book Four, Brink Book Five.

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Finally, be sure to check out all of Ian’s Covers Uncovered pieces for Brink – 2000 AD Prog 1978 & Prog 1989, 2000 AD Prog 2039, 2000 AD Prog 2272, 2000 AD Prog 2278, 2000 AD Prog 2284, 2000 AD Prog 2295.

And now, more covers from Ian from Brink over the years – perfect to see what Ian’s talking about with the circular design features…

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 head over to the Judge Dredd Megazine for this latest Covers Uncovered – with Megazine 468 adorned by the latest incredible John Higgins art for the new series of Dreadnoughts – Nothing To Fear…

The third series of Michael Carroll and John Higgins’ Drednoughts starts right now in this month’s Megazine with Nothing To Fear. We’re right back to the very start of the Justice Department once more, right back to the difficult transition faced by America as democracy falls and the rule of the Judges takes hold.

Except this time, we’ve moved from seeing how Judge Glover dispensed Justice in Colorado and on to Judge Beckett, riding into a small town in Wyoming that’s just not ready for the new regime at all.

It’s 2035 AD – Obey the law and you’ll have nothing to fear… yeah, right…

As John will tell you in a moment, he’s not been able to send along a full set of process images for this one, just the final image worked up – it’s a case of Tharg’s art droids just keeping their heads down and drawing, drawing, drawing. Well, wouldn’t you with Mek-Quake lumbering over you threateningly?

But still – plenty of process to look at for what’s become another really quite stunning series of Dreadnoughts covers.

First things first though, it all started with Tharg’s Earthly representative getting in touch with an idea for what was required…  

JOHN HIGGINS: The cover started with Matt’s “I was thinking of a moody shot of a Judge silhouetted by rain and lightning”

We tried a couple of ideas, with full body and more abstract silhouetted which was moody but probably too abstract. I had done a depiction of Judge Beckett without his helmet, (colour by Sally Jane Hurst) and I liked the unflinching deep set eyes looking coldly out, it just sparked his character for me.

That’s this shot of Judge Beckett from a future episode…

JOHN HIGGINS: So for this cover I had him back in his Judges helm but kept the eyes. Matt felt it has the strength in the cover image he wanted, very “judgmental’ – you know that, in this guy’s eyes, you ARE found wanting!

I did a digital colour rough, I wanted to work out colour and wet detail.

The final physical painting I unfortunately forgot to photo at each stage, Sally Jane keeps telling me off for not doing that, but I was just head down going for it.

Well, Sally Jane, as always, is absolutely right John! So hopefully we’ll have more images to show you from the Higgins droid. As it is though, you have this fabulous set of process shots of the digital work, each stage adding layers and colours and details – leaving us with Judge Beckett giving us the epitome of ‘a moody shot of a Judge silhouetted by rain and lightning’ – just as requested!

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And all of that leads John to go physical for the final painting. No process of that, as John mentioned, but there is this absolute beauty of an image that we’ll end with…

Thanks so much to John for sending along this latest stunner of a cover through to us – you can find it everywhere Thrill Power is sold right now, comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 AD webshop. You just won’t

For more on Dreadnoughts, be sure to take a look at another striking image with John’s Covers Uncovered for Megazine 429. And the first series of Dreadnoughts, Breaking Ground, with another gorgeous cover for Megazine 455 and Dreadnoughts: The March Of Progress. Plus, we’ve interviewed Michael Carrol and John Higgins about Dreadnoughts in print at the Megazine in issue 425. But that was a long, long interview that just wouldn’t fit in the Meg – luckily, we were able to put up all the extras right here. And finally, some entertainment for your eyes and ears – John was video-interviewed for 2000 AD’s From The Drawing Board here and Mike and John were interviewed for the Thrillcast Lockdown Tapes here.

And of course, you should absolutely be gazing lovingly to your bookshelf right now and seeing the first collection – Dreadnoughts: Breaking Ground. If you happen to be missing that, get with the clicky-clicky and buy it now from the 2000 AD web shop!

Every week, 2000 AD brings you the galaxy’s greatest artwork and 2000 AD Covers Uncovered takes you behind-the-scenes with the headline artists responsible for our top cover art – join bloggers Richard Bruton and Pete Wells as they uncover the greatest covers from 2000 AD!

Borag Thungg, Earthlets! – 2000 AD Prog 2382 sees the debut of another great Dredd from the Niemand and Percival droids, Iron Teeth, and we’re talking to Nick Percival about a stunning wrapround cover to start the story off…

The new six-parter Iron Teeth sees Dredd investigating a mythical monster, one that’s got all the juves riled up and talking about hunting down the mysterious thing they’ve christened Iron Teeth. But when a group of juves head down into the tunnels under Mega-City One, they’re about to discover that the mythical Iron Teeth is way more terrifying than anything they could have imagined.

Written by Ken Niemand, this one has the return of the beautifully horrific or horrifically beautiful artwork of Nick Percival. They were last together on Dredd with the three-parter The House on Bleaker Street (Progs 2247-2249), where they had Dredd investigating a house with a reputation and a nightmarish holdover from Necropolis.

As Nick will tell you, he and the Niemand droid are planning on diving deeper and deeper into the horrors of Dredd’s world in Iron Teeth, all starting on the cover here for a series that Nick first trailed with this teaser painting…

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NICK PERCIVAL: Back for a spooky Dredd six-parter, so you better bring your big boy pants…

I did a teaser painting for the series first that was printed as a pin-up. This was done very early on when Ken Niemand and I were chucking ideas back and forth. The teaser was just to convey the mood and tone for the series and give us a vague glimpse of Iron Teeth – it was me basically thinking out loud on the digital art board. I wanted to experiment a little more with my style, getting a bit more scratchy and raw in places, rather than keeping everything super slick – I had a lot of fun creating that piece.

So, onto the first cover and it was nice to go for a wraparound image to hopefully get things off to a strong start.

I wanted a little widescreen movie poster feel to the layout but the content can only act as another teaser as we don’t want to give away too much or reveal our big bad properly just yet. As you can see from the extremely loose rough, Iron Teeth is all in shadow, Nosferatu style –  we get a look at the kids of the story and of course as always, grumpy bastard, Dredd looming over everything…

At this very rough stage, I hadn’t fully developed the look of the children, so it’s nothing much more than basic placeholder elements as I worked on their designs.

We talked about the film, ‘Stand By Me’ as a starting point and that fits in well with the kids’ attitudes and how we wanted to develop them both visually and personality-wise. I did briefly consider a version of that movie poster for the cover image but ultimately went with what we have here.

For the the final painted art, it’s all very much high contrast reds, yellows and orange tones – very warm. It’s kind of arty farty symbolic since, in the story, Dredd and the kids descend deeper and deeper into what is the hell-scape environment of Iron Teeth’s sinister lair.

In early episodes, the colour palette starts very cool and slowly becomes hotter as we progress. Give me that art ‘A’ level now, please.

Without spoilers, this new story does link back to our previous Dredd horror outing, The House On Bleaker Street and it doesn’t end cleanly. We have plans to expand this horror side of Dredd’s world and are sowing some dark and crusty seeds that will hopefully pay off down the line.

There will be blood…

Now that’s the sort of cover that jumps off the shelves at you, all thanks to Nick’s incredible artwork. Our thanks to Nick for sharing all that zarjaz imagery here with us!

You can find 2000 AD 2382 everywhere the Galaxy’s Greatest is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop from 15 May.

If you’re in the mood for more of Nick’s Covers Uncovered work, be sure to have a look at these – Prog 2247, Megazine 425, Megazine 427, Megazine 430, Megazine 433, Megazine 430, Megazine 443, Megazine 448, Megazine 453, Megazine 456, and Megazine 458.

And we’ve talked to Nick all about the six years of Dark Judges work he’s terrified us with here, plus we’ve talked with the Dark Judges team of David Hine and Nick about two Dark Judges storylines – Deliverance here and Death Metal Planet here. And finally, Molch-R talks to Hine and Percival about all things Dark Judges in the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes here.   

Now, a bit of a bonus thanks to Nick sending along huge images for us – giving us the chance to give you some blow-ups from various bits of the cover and teaser image to really show you just all the terrifically terrifying detail that goes into things. But first, a couple of teasers for the new Iron Teeth series…

Iron Teeth’s lair…

The foolhardy juves who go down in search of Iron Teeth…

And the man who’s going in there after them…

Now, some of those blow-ups we were promising from Nick’s incredible 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!

Borag Thungg once more Earthlets, time to take a look at the latest Thrill-Powered cover by John McCrea, adorning the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2380 with the McCrea droid showing us Aquila in action down in Hades on a hell-born steed!

Inside this week’s Prog, we’ve reached part 4 in the latest instalment of Gordon Rennie and Patrick Goddard’s sword and sorcery tale of blood and nightmares as Aquila’s time in the underworld has boiled over into all-out war in The Rivers Of Hades Book Two.

Aquila’s down in Hades to free the soul of Nero, the only one who can lead him to Ammit The Devourer, the underworld goddess of retribution. She bestowed upon Aquila the curse of immortality in return for providing the souls of evil men for her sustenance. But Aquila’s grown weary and wants to be freed of the curse – which is why we find him down in Hades right in the middle of The Battle of the Rebellion of the Dead!

And I know it’s John McCrea’s Covers Uncovered but we can’t resist sharing with you this zarjaz panel from the start of this episode by Patrick Goddard… it’s just everything you’re going to love about Aquila…

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Okay, enough going wow over the Goddard droid’s fabulous interiors. Let’s hand this over to John McCrea to tell you all about a cover that was a long time in the making – for all the wrong reasons. Strap yourselves in, it’s a good one…

JOHN MCCREA: Ok, this cover demonstrates a certain amount of instability in the McCrea droid’s circuits. The brief was to draw our hero charging forward on horseback towards a group of demons in hell.

So I immediately forgot about the horse (or never noticed) and drew Aquila running towards us, sword drawn with demons in hot pursuit…

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg ok-ed it and I prepared to ink. The following morning I woke up, looked at my drawing and hated it, so I scrapped it. I felt the figure was two stiff and upright.

[Okay everyone – let’s keep count at home – that’s one McCrea cover scrapped]

JOHN MCCREA: I then penciled this…

JOHN MCCREA: Once again, old green bonce approved, so I went to inks.

I added the same demons from the previous drawing into the background.

JOHN MCCREA: I sent it to Jack Davies, who coloured it up not realizing the horror that was in store for him. As you can see from my notes there were some changes I wanted…

JOHN MCCREA: I think it was at this point that I realized that I actually hated this drawing as well.

I felt there was no dynamic to it, even though I had really tried to put a lot of dynamism into it.

It looked more like he was going to fall over, due to the way he was carrying his swords. Maybe I was trying too hard. So I scrapped this drawing too.

[And yes, that’s cover number two scrapped – this one made it all the way to Jack Davies’s colours!]

JOHN MCCREA: I then pencilled this. I’ve always loved floating heads on covers and interiors thanks to guys like Steve Ditko and Gil Kane. However, I don’t think my heart was really in it and the heads really don’t look very good. I think I was finding it hard to focus due to the headache this cover was giving me.

JOHN MCCREA: Nonetheless, I inked it, adding flames behind the running figure and using the transform tool in Photoshop to warp the heads a bit…

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg, who I imagine was beginning to lose his patience with me, approved this cover too, so off to Jack it went.

The colours came back but I felt they were too dark and not punchy enough…

JOHN MCCREA: I did this to it, but at this point I was starting to have a gnawing feeling in my dark, shrivelled little soul that I was not very happy with this cover either.

[Of course he wasn’t – We think you’re all seeing where this is going, right?]

JOHN MCCREA: Sure enough, the next day I scrapped it as well.

[Well you all saw that coming, right? That’s three completed covers gone by now, two of which poor Jack has coloured. Who’s going to do bad things to the McCrea droid first, an aggrieved colourist or a frustrated Tharg?]

JOHN MCCREA: I went back to the original brief and realised that Matt (Tharg’s Terran name) had originally asked for Aquila on horseback. I love drawing horses so it confused me that I had missed this. I drew a demonic-looking horse, requisite flames, and shadowy hero figure.

At this point, I realised I had finally got it right.

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg once again approved, but said he would be sending Mek Quake around to my hab if I tried changing anything else! So I dutifully progressed to inks. It’s funny but as soon as my pen hit the paper to ink this, I knew I had got it right.

JOHN MCCREA: I added digital tones for a little more grit…

JOHN MCCREA: Off to Jack, who was having a nervous breakdown at this point, for colours.

Jack was obviously inspired as well as I only had a few notes…

JOHN MCCREA: And that was that. All in, it took me about a week to draw this cover. Which is ridiculous.

But I am mostly happy with the finished result.

Apologies to Jack.

Thanks so much to the McCrea droid for another ghafflebette cover and the rollercoaster of emotions he gave us in the telling of it being put together. It just goes to show, you just have to keep on going and keep trying until you get it right! And always say sorry to your colourist!

Prog 2380 is out right now and available in all the usual places you find your Thrill-Power, including the 2000 AD web shop.

If you want more Covers Uncovered from John, we’ve plenty here at 2000 AD.com to tickle your fancies – some cracking Dredds on Prog 2024, Prog 2224, Prog 2328, Prog 2351, and Prog 2361, plus his most recent for the Judge Dredd Megazine, issue 467, which is out right now as well!

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 – we’re taking you back in time now to a whole two weeks ago to take a look at the incredible cover and process Aquila artist Patrick Goddard put into the cover for 2000 AD Prog 2378…

Right now in the pages of 2000 AD you can find the latest blood-soaked sword and sorcery tale of one time Gladiator Aquila in The Rivers Of Hades Book Two.

Originally one of Spartacus’ failed rebel army, gladiator Aquila ended up with a Roman eagle carved into his chest and crucified for his part, along with 6,000 others. In his dying moments his prayers to the ancient Gods of his ancestors are answered by Ammit the Devourer, underworld goddes of retribution. Made ageless and powerful, Aquila served his mistress well, hunting down and dispatching the souls of evil men across the Empire for Ammit to feast on. But after far too many years of bloodshed, Aquila has found the price for his salvation far too high and he’s now decided he wants out of the deal.

But the only way to do that is to confront Ammit herself. And the first part of that is to find her, which is why he’s ventured down into the pits of Hades to retrieve the spirit of Nero, who knows where to find her.

And that’s where we are right now in The Rivers of Hades Book Two. Aquila, Hades, Spartacus, Demons (many, many demons), and the souls of the damned joining up into two mighty armies. It’s absolute hell – literally – and the blood is going to flow down in Hades until Aquila gets what he wants!

As for why this Covers Uncovered is a little late, Patrick apologises for the delay in getting this to us – something about our Lord and Master, The Mighty One, His Thargness himself making sure that the Goddard droid was getting the pages for Aquila in on time and had assigned Mek-Quake to make sure he didn’t do anything but draw, draw, draw.

Anyway, without further ado… over to Patrick to tell us all about putting this one together…

PATRICK GODDARD: This was one of the most straightforward briefs for a cover, a simple shot of Aquila charging the Goat type demon on horseback that features in the episode.

I sent through the usual 6 ideas, trying to work out a composition that allows the action to flow and still have enough room for any type on the cover.

Number 5 was the winner…

So I went straight into the pencils, this time at A4 and enlarged it to A3 to trace off onto the art board. I made a few tweaks to the ‘horse’ to get more of a look of their face but failed to capture the same energy of Aquila riding compared to the thumbnail (this happens all too often unfortunately!).

I added a bit of ink wash and background as I had the time, it didn’t need it, it was more of me wanting to make the original art to work a little better…

Then it was off to Dylan who did a fab job as always with the colours!

That’s super-colourist Dylan Teague and yes, he’s always going over and above to make every cover he colours absolutely pop!

Another stunning cover from Patrick that hacked and slashed its way off the shelves recently! If you missed it, why not do yourselves a favour and pick it up from the 2000 AD web shop. But better yet, save yourself the worry of ever missing another dose of the Galaxy’s Greatest by taking out a subscription – Thrill Power delivered right to your door!

And for more of that Goddard greatness, there’s plenty more online here at 2000 AD.com to delight your optical circuits! We’ve interviewed him twice, about the Judge Dredd: Special Relationship story (written by Rob Williams) here, and about Judge Dredd: Unearthed (with Williams and Chris Weston) here. For those of you who like to listen, there’s a 2000 AD Thrill-Cast here with Patrick, Garth Ennis, and Keith Burns talking Battle Action, and Patrick talks to Molch-R in the 2000 AD Lockdown Tapes here. As for more Covers Uncovered, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing Patrick’s art on the covers of Progs 2185, 2205, 2219, 2244, and 2264, plus the recent Megazine 466 and his upcoming Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley cover.

And finally, make sure to follow Patrick on Twitter and Instagram.

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 month, another zarjaz Judge Dredd Megazine cover to show you – this month it’s the return of Brit-Cit’s finest Detective Judge, Armitage, courtesy of John McCrea, adorning the front of Megazine 467…

Detective Judge Armitage first appeared back in 1991, the creation of Dave Stone and Sean Phillips. Since then, this grumpy, stubborn, opionated, and arrogant copper who’s always butting heads with his bosses has featured pretty regularly here in the Megazine, always proving he’s the best plainclothes operative in the Brit-Cit Justice Department.

Inside Megazine 467, we have the beginning of a new Armitage tale by Liam Johnson and Warren Pleece, all under this fantastic cover from the McCrea droid. So, taking advantage of one of his breaks – Tharg gives his droids one every month or so just so they can get an oil change and do some promo – here’s John to tell us about his latest cover…

JOHN MCCREA: 2000 AD has been lucky to have two of the best character designers in all of comics – Carlos Ezquerra and Brendan McCarthy. Brendan’s alternative Judge designs are incredible, so when I was asked to do an Armitage cover for the big Meg, I definitely had to get a Brit Cit Judge in there!

My first pass was this one, using a triangle design to allow for dead space on the upper right for type…

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg sent Mek Quake round to my hab to point out (in no uncertain terms) that Armitage doesn’t use a gun so I had better amend that post haste! I complied.

Ooops! One quick removal of gun later and John came up with this one…

JOHN MCCREA: Tharg forgave my oversight, so it was on to inks. I decided that the reason Armitage was so annoyed on this cover was that the barista (coffee pourer to you and me) had misspelled his name, writing Arse Wedge on his cup o’ Synthi-Joe – which is why he’s commanded the Judge to take out the offending fella.

At least that’s the stupid story I made up while inking this. What a job! After the inks, I popped on some digital tones.

JOHN MCCREA: Off it went to Mike Spicer for colors, and after a few notes we had a Megazine cover all ready to go!   

My quest to draw every significant 2000ad character (at least once) continues apace!

Well, you can tick Armitage off that list right now John!

Thanks so much to the McCrea droid for this latest ghafflebette cover – you can see it in all its glory on the front cover of Judge Dredd Megazine 467 wherever the Galaxy’s Greatest is sold – in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop.

If you want more Covers Uncovered from John, take a gander at these – with some magnificent Dredds on Prog 2024, Prog 2224, Prog 2328, Prog 2351, and Prog 2361. Now, let’s all ask Tharg to let John do more covers and, even better, return to the inside of the Prog – I think we’d all love that! After all, this is a man on a mission to draw every single major 2000 AD character!

Every week, 2000 AD brings you the galaxy’s greatest artwork and 2000 AD Covers Uncovered takes you behind-the-scenes with the headline artists responsible for our top cover art – join bloggers Richard Bruton and Pete Wells as they uncover the greatest covers from 2000 AD!

This week it’s time for another treat from our Lord & Master, The Mighty One, as Tharg gives us even more thrill-power in a bumper 52-page Prog 2375 – with Dredd, Rogue, Thistlebone, and Proteus Vex all featuring on the zarjaz front cover by John McCrea…

Inside the Prog we have continuing thrills with the crew of the Full Tilt Boogie and the beautiful madness of Indigo Prime, plus the stunning (and terrifying) finale to folk horror Thistlebone: The Dule Tree. But that’s by no means all – there’s also a one-off Rogue Trooper from David Barnett and Paul Marshall (we think we mentioned there’s a film coming out, yes?); a double-length, 10-page opener, to the latest series of Mike Carroll and Jake Lynch’s magnificent space opera epic Proteus Vex in Devious, and then a new Dredd story by Rob Williams and R.M. Guera that acts as a prologue to the new series beginning next week – Rend & Tear with Tooth & Claw, that’s been trailed as a multi-part survivor horror story that takes Dredd into the snowy wilderness of the territory which once was called Alaska.

But back to that fantastic McCrea-droid cover, one that’s a lesson in always coming back to your art and giving it a second chance. In fact, this one started with the initial rejected sketch to a previous cover of John’s, Prog 2361, this one in fact…

JOHN MCCREA: Ok, this cover started with the previous cover, Prog 2361- Dredd standing over the beaten body of some poor mega city punk.

When I was penciling that one, I thought my initial sketch was lacking in dynamics and the posture wasn’t quite good enough.

Yes, the McCrea unit comes not only pre-programmed with that great fluid line and impressive loose style but, like all of Tharg’s art droids, there’s also a hefty chunk of self-doubt in there to keep him in his place.

This is the initial sketch in question that McCrea did for Prog 2361…

And this is what he had to say about it back on the Covers Uncovered for that one…

JOHN MCCREA: It’s ok, but there’s something missing. Too straight on, not enough tension in the pose. I dunno. (Any actual wonkiness in the drawing would have been sorted out, but technical faults aren’t the problem here).

Okay then, back to the now and John talking about this current cover…

JOHN MCCREA: However after that cover was completed and a few days later, I glanced over the first sketch again and thought I could maybe make something of it. I rarely throw away any art as I hate to waste a drawing – I have realized that time can help you see the faults in a drawing that you didn’t catch before, and maybe figure out ways to improve it.

So I scanned the picture and noodled with it in Photoshop, basically cutting the limbs out and shifting them around like one of those paper dolls. I also altered Dredd’s head, fixing the wonky shape and adding a little more sneer to the face, and ended up with this…

The stance is much more interesting, the whole thing giving off a more ‘don’t f*** with me’ attitude. So I inked it…

I have always wanted to do a cover with extra characters in circles within the main picture, so quickly mocked this up and sent it to old green bonce.

Tharg loved it and agreed to get back to me when he had decided which issue it was to be fronting.

A month or so later a Regelian Hotshot alerted me to the characters that had been selected, so onwards!

I had to draw the three characters on a separate sheet of paper- I had not left any room on the art as originally I was not thinking of it as being a cover, just a cool pic of Dredd I was drawing.

I decided to make the circles containing the characters representative of the stories and this is how they turned out.

Then I scanned them and popped them onto the art, extended Dredd’s baton to fit the format and my work was done!

(And yes, you can all insert your extending Dredd’s baton gags right here.)

JOHN MCCREA: I sent it off to colourist Jack Davies and, when I got it back, had zero notes! Jack’s magic palette pulled the whole thing together!

I hope all you Earthlets enjoy this issue!

Enjoy the issue John? We think the Earthlets will be loving it – starting with your fantastic cover. You Earthlets can find it on the front of Prog 2375, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop.

If you want more Covers Uncovered from John, take a gander at these – with more Dredd on Prog 2024, Prog 2224, Prog 2328, Prog 2351, and Prog 2361.

Now, as a little treat for you, here’s a few selected crops and blow-ups from John’s art that he sent over…

Every week, 2000 AD brings you the galaxy’s greatest artwork and 2000 AD Covers Uncovered takes you behind-the-scenes with the headline artists responsible for our top cover art – join bloggers Richard Bruton and Pete Wells as they uncover the greatest covers from 2000 AD!

This week we have a pleasing symmetry for you – it was Toby Willsmer that did the ssssstunning cover to Prog 2352 where The Fall Of Deadworld: Retribution began and now it’s another fabuloussss Toby Willsmer cover that marks the finale to this particular visit to the nightmare of Deadworld on Prog 2374…

Yes, Kek-W and Dave Kendall’s The Fall Of Deadworld closes another fear-filled series as we get the 12^th and final part of Retribution in this weeks Prog. And those horrorssss to be found in the world of the Dark Judges before it became Deadworld are clear for all to see with a truly terrifying Willsmer droid cover.

Toby’s been in the Prog so often that it’s easy to forget that it was only in 2021 that he won the 2000 AD Art Stars contest. But since then he’s been a regular cover artist; his art’s graced the insides on Robo-Hunter in the zombie takeover tale The Darkest Judge, Cadet Dredd in Prog 2325, and he had a Regened Future Shock in Prog 2346. And we reckon there’s a hell of a lot more to come from this New Zealand-based illustrator and comic artist whose childhood was spent in 70s Britain, meaning that his heart will always come back to 2000 AD!

Now, here’s Toby to tell you all about his latest trip into the realm of nightmaresss with The Fall Of Deadworld, one that’s a pretty damn fine homage to another iconic cover by the late, much-missed, incredibly talented Brett Ewins…

TOBY WILLSMER: Matt asked if I could come up with a Judge Death cover with a similar composition to Brett Ewins Dredd cover from 1986. The difference being the city would be in ruins and have ‘lots of dead people’. Sounds like my cup of tea.

My usual starting point is by dumping all my initial ideas into a sketchbook to see what works best. I like to draw over things a lot at this stage to work out certain parts…

From here, I’ll choose the parts that worked for what I had in mind and draw them up into the roughs…

I came up with Mr Death firssssst (couldn’t help myself) to get the placement right then added the ruined city around him.

I wanted to have a focal point in the foreground as I planned to light and detail this part a little more than the rest of the city. That and it was a great spot for some of those dead people!

I’d planned to use some under lighting on Death and came up with a couple of options for Matt to choose from.

With Matt’s layout and colour scheme selected I’ll go onto the linework. At this point I decided to change the foreground a little to frame the top part of the layout a little better. Matt OK’d the change and I went ahead and drew up the linework and added where I wanted the initial shadows.

From here it’s my usual route of adding all the base colours to get the overall tone right. Then onto the fun stuff adding all the lighting and details until it’s all done.

I’ll never get bored of drawing this guy.

Oh yes, Toby’s never going to get tired of drawing him and I don’t think we’re going to get tired of seeing his fabulousss (one last time, I promise!) art on and in the Prog! Thanks so much for Toby to sending that absolute beauty of a cover along – you won’t be able to miss it on the shelves wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Thrill Power, including the 2000 AD web shop, from 20 March.

As for more from Toby, his ever-excellent covers have featured quite a bit here – we have  Covers Uncovered for Prog 2240, Prog 2262, Prog 2269, Prog 2318, and Prog 2332, not to mention that first Deadworld cover for this latest series on Prog 2352. Plus, you can see his winning Art Stars entry, the thing that started all of this off, here. And for more about Toby himself, just head to his site here or Insta here.

And now, a little Willsmer bonus… first of all a clean, logo-free version of the cover, followed by blow-ups of his incredible sketchbook ideas, his two initial roughs, and then the two colour roughs sent through to Tharg! Enjoy!

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 have a good look at the cover of the latest thrill-powered issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine, featuring an amazing Dredd cover by Patrick Goddard…

That cover’s pulling a scene out of the current Judge Dredd: Ravenous, by Michael Carroll and Anthony Williams, which hits its third and final part inside.

Stuck out on a rig close to Texas City with a bio-engineered beastie on the loose that uses another dimension to almost instantly repair itself, things aren’t looking too great for Dredd fight now as he ended the last episode on his way to make a huge splash in the Black Atlantic. Will he survive? How will he survive? And exactly how is he going to find a way to kill the unkillable nasty?

It’s yet another great cover from Patrick Goddard, full of the classic look and the great action we’ve come to expect, the sort of thing we saw in his art last time he was inside the Prog, for the incredible 13-part Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley with Garth Ennis, getting its well-deserved collection, out on 2 July 2024.

Okay, enough from us, let’s hand it over to Patrick to fill you in on how this latest Meg cover got made…

PATRICK GODDARD: Here’s some of the progress pics I found of the Meg Cover – the brief was very straightforward, with Matt wanting Dredd pursued by the creature from the strip falling off the rig John Woo style. I was sent a few pages of Ant Williams’s strip so I could read the scene in full and use his designs etc

I sent through a couple of rough ideas and number 4 was picked but they wanted Dredd firing back at the creature…

PATRICK GODDARD: My initial sketches had Dredd’s back fully to the reader but it just didn’t feel right to me. I think you need to see a bit more of Dredd on the cover so changed his pose a little to show more of him – although this brings up the issue that he’s a hard man to pose with those big old shoulder pads!

I just about managed to get his arms working and then went to work inking it up. Len O’Grady went on to do the great colouring and it was all finished.

In hindsight, I wish I drew Dredd blasting more heavily, taking big chunks of the creature off but I wasn’t sure if that was how the strip progressed. 

Oh, art droids, always something they’re not happy with – almost as though Tharg likes planting the seeds of doubt to keep them in their places! Patrick, Patrick, Patrick, it looks just zarjaz to us!

So, like he said, once that fourth rough was picked as the cover it was all about getting more of Dredd on the cover and having him going down guns blazing. So,lots of versions of Dredd to get it all just right…

After that was fixed, time to pencil it up, getting all that perspective right… although still there with the back of Dredd’s head that needed changing…

Next comes inks, and plenty of them plus the altered version of Dredd, giving a bit more face to you…

Then scanned in and sent across to master colourist Len O’Grady to add all those fabulous colours to really make the whole thing pop! And pop it so does…

Absolutely great cover from Patrick for you there – it’s going to be launching off the shelves from 20 March – find it in comic shops, newsagents, and the 2000 AD web shop.

If you’ve loved all that – and we’re sure you will have done – there’s plenty to be getting on with here at 2000 AD – there’s plenty of Covers Uncovered, with Patrick’s art for the covers of Progs 2185, 2205, 2219, 2244, and 2264, plus his upcoming Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley cover. We’ve also interviewed him twice, about the Judge Dredd: Special Relationship story (written by Rob Williams) here, and about Judge Dredd: Unearthed (with Williams and Chris Weston) here. There’s also a 2000 AD Thrill-Cast here with Patrick, Garth Ennis, and Keith Burns talking Battle Action, and Patrick talks to Molch-R in the 2000 AD Lockdown Tapes here. Oh yes, plenty there to be getting along with for you! And hopefully it’s not going to be all that long before we get to see his cracking art both on the cover and inside the Prog and/or the Meg!

And finally, make sure to follow Patrick on Twitter and Instagram.