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 stunning Prog cover now from Stewart K Moore, wrapped around Prog 2373 with Dredd astride an absolute beast of a Lawmaster…

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Although he initially dabbled in comics in the 90s, Stewart K. Moore’s career didn’t really being until the 2010s, starting with a project that would take him a decade to complete – Project MKUltra: Sex, Drugs & the CIA. He’s also completed his Tragedie of Macbeth adaptation, initially self-published, but then released in 2023, again from Clover Press. Finally, there’s the two amazing series in David Lloyd‘s digital anthology Aces Weekly – The Boötes Void and Thrawn Janet. And of course, his immediately recognizable art first appeared in the Prog with Pat Mills’ Defoe: The Divisor in 2019 (Progs 2150-2161), followed regularly with some great work on Dredd, along with plenty of stunning covers, just like this latest.

So, on we go… Stewart K. Moore with his latest Prog cover, a typically gorgeous wraparound piece that looks an awful lot like this…

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SK MOORE: In Block Mania written by John Wagner and Alan Grant, Steve Dillon drew a panel that sums up dystopia in the world of Judge Dredd. It begins to rain and Dredd looks up because he now knows where the terrorist is. He knows because rain is not scheduled.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in Scotland, a place where it’s usually scheduled to rain, but I always considered this scene a darkly funny moment. For my purposes on this cover, the rain here is just a dramatic element. It’s an easy way to give a still scene movement. It gives it life. Here it’s a steamy summer or early autumn rain.

I have a hard-bound black A3 sketchbook, it looks like an enormous moleskin, it even has the elastic black band of a moleskin notebook. In it, I do only Mega-City One stuff, where I try and sharpen my act on everything that might be found in the city.

I think, looking back, I may have taken for granted that I knew Dredd’s world well enough to just go ahead and draw it for 2000 AD. Well, I do know it well enough but what I don’t have [when a script hits my desk] is time to hone things, to find the best shorthand for me for say a Mega City truck or ‘Starscraper’, so this notebook is a place to practice those things.

I’ve said it before but reading Dredd inspired me to become an artist – I imagined drawing it decades before I ever did. I’d think a lot about the best way to approach the subject. And one thing I always thought slightly intimidating was the Lawmaster bike.

This bike has to be as imposing as him – its best images seem almost like a steamroller/road roller, but it also has to be fast and capable of dynamic jumps. Initially I tried to draw a fairly traditional Lawmaster, but I’ve noticed art droids putting interesting design spins on it of their own invention. Over the years these moments of artistic freedom have contributed to an evolution of the design that I think keeps the subject evergreen and at its best.

So, to notebook! What can I do with it to make it work for me?

For me any of my Lawmasters simply can’t deviate too much from the classic – I don’t have permission or the desire to deviate too much – but it does have to do the job in a way that convinces me. After all, if I’m excited by it it’ll show on the page. The inverse is also true, I cannot draw what I’m not interested in and if I feel the drawing looks stupid it’s over, I lose heart and it becomes a struggle [or a greater one, because it’s always a struggle!] It’s a big personal failing, I can only draw what interests me.

So in my notebook, the bike has been changing and growing. I’ve referred to the main sketches a few times in different ways, initially as a prospective cover pitch that I didn’t actually pitch.

The time finally came in late 2023 but I reduced Dredd and the bike to a silhouette and submitted the idea to Tharg…

I moved Dredd’s arms, adjusted the angle of the head and the posture from my original. I draw all these things without models – you can use posable digital models, or apps to generate forms, or you can use photo references, anything goes. But I feel while they can help they can also add awkwardness. I’ve tried them but tend not to and didn’t with this, going the traditional way – from doodles to sketches, to finished art.

I combined three or four things to punch things up a bit for the bike. First, I like drawing horses and I thought of the Clydesdale workhorse, a massive beastie. And if you look at the arch of my ‘gas tank’ you may see it evokes an arch a bit like the neck and main of a horse. But the handlebars suggest a bull’s horns, so that’s why the engine pulls down, like the deep chest of a bull too.

With these animal similarities, I have a weighty and powerful ride but I still don’t have extreme speed and dexterity. That came when I thought of a wasp.

Don’t tell anyone because I might get into trouble for doing this but I articulated the back wheel. I draw it in a way that allows it to move independently of the main chassis. I’m not a biker, I may not have my terminology ’down’ but you can see that articulation in some of my pages.

On the sketchbook page below you can see how I worked all that out on the page.

Only, I didn’t – that’s a big fat lie – I did all the animal stuff in my head and just scribbled this, right now, to satisfy the odd art lecturer that might be reading this.

‘Show your work?’ I did the work in my head.

There’s often a rifle on the side of the bike, a riot gun. Here I thought about the Widowmaker design. I think it was first drawn by Carlos Ezquerra and later, for the Karl Urban film, by Jock (I think). So I drew something in that range for the rifle, I put it in a clear holster because, A) I had a selfish desire to show it all off and, B) because I was too daft to realise it didn’t need one. Next time there won’t be one.

I took chances with the punk, I drew him a bit more graphically than normal, not real. I drew him twice in fact; the first time was bloody awful and I had to put it down, that part of the drawing sucked and I went away a bit depressed. I came back later, deleted that crap and drew this new fella…

I started to feel like the scene was shaping up like an animation cell. I drew the bike on the back a bit like the great design in Akira. To be honest though, this kind of happened by accident, I only painted it red once I saw what I’d done, the design similarity. I love that film, so it’s always in there somewhere I guess. But here I was really preoccupied by all the trees in the holographic orchard.

Yes trees. Yes holographic orchard.

Not sure if it would work, I drew this thinking about extinction in a world where the trees are holograms with leaves programmed to fall in autumn. I knew I was going off the rails and so I did all the trees on other layers in case it didn’t work – and it really didn’t. Tharg had the option to use or delete.

An important lesson – learn to love throwing it all away; there’s always the next panel and the next and the next. Let the idea find its place down that endless line of pictures. Do that with failures too, keep going, make it better next time. In comics there’s always the next panel.

In the background I drew trucks I was very happy with – pure luck. Sometimes I think drawing comics is best when you feel you are drawing a kind of toy world, toy-like things and toy-like people, animate toys. Some of my favourite artists draw this way. I think.

I have a central casting or ‘dept. of freaks’ and some of them are in the background here, if you look closely. They’re onlookers, gawkers. The keen-eyed might see their same cousins elsewhere in my work such as on my MK Ultra 3D glasses, I had been working on those around the same time I started this picture and there is a clear family resemblance – a kind of backwoods, ‘I’m My Own Grampa’ kinda resemblance. A way-too close for comfort ‘Deliverence’ kinda family resemblance.

Process wise this project went like this :-

1. Transfer sketch to 2000 AD page template in Manga Studio, grey it out, and draw over it on a new layer.

2. Next I began thinking I needed engine details and Dredd details, so I added more details and it stopped being a strict silhouette – that wasn’t working for some reason.

3. I drew the city as a black mass, faded it out, and added a new layer for details. I drew the skyline first in other words. It’s maybe my best MC-1 so far. Just luck. It worked for a change.

I paint it all in Photoshop, grey out, darken, spatter, delete spatter, spatter again, feel angst and wander off for a coffee and when I come back it somehow looks better. Like machine elves have come in and fixed it or I’ve forgotten the bits I struggled with.

Finally – art tip – With everything I do, I start with the big shapes and slowly work in to the smaller shapes. Painting a city? This! Painting a head of hair? This!

Thank you so much to Stewart for another fascinating look at how it all gets put together – you can find it on the front (and the back) of Prog 2373, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop.

And he’s right – in art, and in life, you’ve got to learn to love throwing it all away, not being so precious, letting the idea find its place, keep going, embrace the failures as well as the successes, and make it better next time.

As for more from Stewart, there’s plenty of his 2000 AD work we’ve covered – Covers Uncovered pieces for The 2000 AD Encyclopaedia, Prog 2179, Prog 2239, Prog 2340, Megazine 440, his 2020 Sci-Fi Special poster, and a fascinating look at the artistic process with his two-part Covers Uncovered for Surfer here and here. We’ve also interviewed him twice now, first about his work on Defoe: The Divisor here and his Judge Dredd: Ascension Day strip here.

As for Stewart’s other work, find and follow him on Twitter and Instagram, read his bio here at Lambiek, and buy all his works including his The Tragedie Of Macbeth adaptation and the damn fine MK-Ultra: Sex, Drugs & The CIA, all about the shadowy world of government conspiracies and covert ops with the CIA’s mind control program.

It’s now available in a complete collection of volumes 1 and 2, with orders from Mission Comics San Francisco and Gosh Comics London coming with an extra 3D original sketch to go with Stewart’s new 3D cover for the book – and don’t worry, you also be getting Stewart’s aforementioned dept. of freaks on the 3D glasses that come with the book.

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!

Today we have the return of Dredd artist Tom Foster to talk about putting together his web shop exclusive hardback cover to the collection of his and Ken Niemand’s zarjaz Dredd trilogy – A Penitent Man.

We all make mistakes – but when you end up on the wrong side of the Justice Department, is there any way of making things right?

That’s the big problem facing former Judge Kyle Asher on his return to Mega-City One after 20 years on Titan’s penal colony. Under close scrutiny from the Law and with Dredd taking a special interest, will there be a way for a penitent man to get by in the big Meg, or is his fate already sealed?

This is a collection of Niemand and Foster’s trilogy of A Penitent Man, An Honest Man, and A Fallen Man, all of which came out to great acclaim in the Prog. This is one of the best recent Dredd tales, leaning hard into the classic Dredd themes of justice and simply getting by in a system where the rule of Law can be absolutely brutal and unforgiving.

Tom’s come a long, long way since winning the 2013 2000 AD Art Portfolio Competition at Thought Bubble. After his first 2000 AD work, the Tharg’s Terror Tale: Done Deal, written by Alec Worley and published in 2000 AD Prog 1886, his distinctive and classical style, reminiscent of Bolland and Chaykin but developed into a style very much his own, meant further work co-creating and illustrating the first Storm Warning series. But he really came into his own on these three longer Dredd stories, with his art deservedly praised by all who saw and loved it.

So, without further ado, over to Tom to tell you all about putting together this cover for the web shop exclusive hardback of Judge Dredd: A Penitent Man. And, as usual, he’s already putting himself down…

TOM FOSTER: I’ve been accused in the past of denigrating my own work in these Covered: Uncovered features – but then again, I’ve also been accused of producing covers that aren’t very good – so, in the interests of even-handedness, I’m going to waver in my appraisal and try desperately to please everyone.

Things started out positively enough, with word from the editorial team that they were planning on releasing A Penitent Man collection and a request to produce a cover for the webshop exclusive hardback. I was genuinely very flattered to be asked and started sketching a prelim.

This first concept of Asher and Dredd looking at each other over their respective shoulders was rejected. It was felt to be too subdued and not enough of a contrast with the paperback cover. Something with a bit more action was required.

This presented a bit of a problem, as the story contains very few action scenes that contain both Dredd and Asher – and those that do often don’t really reflect the dynamic of the story as a whole. So, I decided to try a montage of action beats from the story, centered around a motif of Asher looking at his blood-stained hands – with Saturn and, more pertinently, Titan as a unifying compositional element for the background vignettes.

Hearteningly, this idea was rejected with less enthusiasm than the first, and there was a sense that we might be getting somewhere. It might, I was told, even be good enough to be approved at the editorial meeting, but, for the sake of certainty, it was advised that I produce something entirely action-oriented, even if it meant straying from the text a little.

So, finally, I produced the sketch that went on to be the basis for the finished article. I didn’t want to just completely invent a scene that doesn’t happen in the book, so settled on something that was quite obviously supposed to be non-literal – something that suggested the themes while clearly being a bit abstracted.

I borrowed the Saturn/Titan element from the previous design and made it a more explicit backdrop, representing Asher’s past exile, with the man himself vainly fleeing it. Dredd is in close pursuit and, amassed behind, a bevy of the book’s other antagonists give chase to them both.

It’s perhaps as well that Asher has no nose to speak of, else it might have been crushed by the weight of my symbolism.

With this idea approved, I went about doing a more detailed pencil drawing. I had already more or less made up my mind to paint the cover, both to differentiate it further from the paperback version and in an impotent attempt to try and give the whole thing a sense of prestige, so this was more of a value study than my usual pencils, which are designed to be inked.

For the painting, I decided to work at a larger scale than usual, in hopes of producing a more finely-detailed piece. I printed out a scaled-up version of my pencil study on two sheets of A3 printer paper and taped them to tracedown paper, which I used to transfer the basic outlines to a large piece of claybord, with a painting area somewhere between A3 and A2.

Then I did an underpainting in burnt sienna acrylic ink, trying as best as possible to match the values of the pencil version.

With that done, I started to add colour with soft-body acrylics. It had been a while since I’d done any painting, and my experience in the medium is limited, so this process took a while.

I couldn’t land on colours or tonal values that I was happy with and, for a day or so, I felt like maybe I had made a bit of a mistake in assuming I could paint well enough ensure any level of professional finish.

After a while of trying different things and remembering lessons I’d learned on previous paintings, things started to look a little better – but, as so often happens, the more detailed and dimensional the rendering got, the more I started to realise the weaknesses in the underlying drawing.

Proportions that had looked okay to me at previous stages now started to look odd and unrealistic and I began to regret not using any photo reference. Even a quick selfie might have helped, but at the outset I had felt that use of reference might only serve to take some of the dynamism out of the pose. Now that I was trying to give it some level of (albeit heightened) realism, the liberties taken with form only served to compromise their sense of weight and depth.

The trial-and-error process required to try and compensate for my inexperience in painting ended up eating pretty heartily into my time, so I couldn’t really afford to start the whole process again.

Plus there were elements that I quite liked. Asher’s face seemed, if not exactly bursting with life-like detail, at least appropriately lit and coloured. In fact, the whole effect of having the front of the foreground figure seemingly in shadow, while in reality being quite deliberately lit for clarity and impact, seemed to have been managed effectively. Also, the planet in the background had the oddly luminous glow I was aiming for, without competing too much with the figures. So, I decided to finish the painting up as much as I could in the time I had left and try to learn from it.

I think, compositionally, it more or less works. The colour palette, while it wouldn’t look out of place on a calendar in a Chinese takeaway, has a certain old-fashioned appeal. The figures have motion in them. Generally, the flaws are not things that leap out at first glance, but which become more obvious the longer you look at it. No one detail is so well-painted that it draws the eye, but no one element is so completely off as to be distracting.

So, there you go, I’ve managed to avoid saying definitively what I think of it. That should keep everybody happy.

Oh Tom, Tom, Tom, always putting yourself and your work down. It’s almost as though Tharg drills it into his art droids that they’re not quite good enough to keep them all in their place! Needless to say, it’s a great, great cover!

You can grab Judge Dredd: A Penitent Man from everywhere ghafflebette graphic novels are sold from 13 March 2024, including the 2000 AD web shop. The softcover is here, with Tom’s artwork on the cover, but even better is the hardback here with the exclusive cover he’s just shown you!

You want more from Tom? Well there’s plenty of Covers Uncovered from him – 2000 AD Progs 1986, 2225, 2281, 2310, 2341, his great Storm Warning cover for Megazine issue 450 and his just as great Surfer cover for Megazine issue 454. We’ve also interviewed him a couple of times – he talks about his 2013 Thought Bubble talent search win here and the Judge Dredd: A Penitent Man strip here. Finally, if you want to see and hear him, there’s his 2000 AD Thrill-Cast Lockdown Tapes appearance here and his far too funny From The Drawing Board video can be found 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 for another Covers Uncovered – this week we have the return one of Tharg’s cover specialist droids for the cover of Prog 2372 – it’s Alex Ronald with a ghafflebette look at the thrills and dangers to be found in Thrill Tilt Boogie…

Now, Alex has been a dedicated cover art droid for Tharg since he returned to 2000 AD Towers after leaving to start a second career in the computer graphics industry. Before that, he’d been drawing interiors at 2000 AD, getting his break on a Judge Dredd back in Prog 984. More work on Dredd followed, along with runs on Dredd, Vector 13, Rogue Trooper, and Sinister Dexter before he headed off into the sunset. But Tharg has his ways of pulling droids back into the Prog and the Ronald droid was no exception, bringing a very different digital style to his covers ever since!

This is another of Ronald’s Full Tilt Boogie covers for the series written by Alex De Campi and drawn by Eduardo Ocana. It’s glorious space opera stuff, epic & expansive, and packed with action and adventure against some really solid worldbuilding and beautiful art from Ocana to make the whole thing fly.

This second book of the adventures of the good ship Full Tilt Boogie finds our heroes grounded, in need of repairs themselves – although that hasn’t stopped Tee managing to get herself into a hell of a lot of trouble, as you can see from Alex’s fabulous cover, all pulled from the incredible visuals of Eduardo, just like this…

ALEX RONALD: For this cover Matt had asked for a recreation of the scenes with the character trying to break out of the Cryo-chamber. Specifically he wanted it to look like she was breaking out of the Prog cover.

And Alex sent over all the references he was working off, showing just how much trouble Tee had found herself in… this couple below as well as the stunner above!

ALEX RONALD: Although I knew I would have to work close in on this one, working in 3D I built a portion of the tree trunk with the glass canopy as you can see from the reference comic pages.

ALEX RONALD: In the end very little if any of the tree was visible in the final art but It helps me to have all elements there. The 3D figure was posed into position and I partially filled the chamber with a 3D fluid plane.

Once everything was in place I lit it for best effect then spat out the rough render to sketch over.

ALEX RONALD: Once Matt had approved the rough it was onto painting – my favourite part! In the end, I tried to put more fear into the characters face than was in the rough.

Using the 2000 AD logo, I curved it very slightly to follow the contour of the glass and then broke it along the lines of the cracks to try and reinforce the character ‘breaking out’ from the Prog.

I hope you like it.

Oh, we think the readers aren’t going to like it Alex, they’re going to love it!

And hands up how many of us noticed the slight curve of the logo this week? And hands up how many of us are even more impressed with Alex’s cover now we’ve seen it and loved it?

Thanks to Alex for sending all of that over to us – it’s out right now on the shelves of all ghafflebette newsagents and comic shops, as well as the 2000 AD web shop.

As for more from Alex, there’s been plenty of covers uncovered from one of 2000 AD’s modern cover specialists… Prog 2191, Prog 2206, Prog 2255, Prog 2294, Prog 2306, Prog 2353, Prog 2365, and for Megazine 435 and 462.

And finally, just a bit of a blow-up to go close to Alex’s art to really show you the amazing details he gets into the covers, from 3D render to rough through to the finished, on the shelf 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!

We’re looking at the new Judge Dredd Megazine for this latest Covers Uncovered – with Megazine 465 featuring the return of the deliciously dandyish,  voluptuously vampish (not to mention vampiric) Mr Devlin Waugh, as brought to life by Mike Dowling for the cover…

Inside Megazine 465, we have the return of everyone’s favourite Brit Cit bon viveur, Devlin Waugh, with Aleš Kot returning to write Nightclubbing alongside new series artist Steven Austin, where we’re checking in with Devlin and his plastic pal Titivillus. The trouble is, Devlin’s struggling a little to get his shit together right now after his most recent troubles in dealing with a curse on his bloodline.

Here’s just a little of what to expect inside, with art by Steven Austin…

But before you get the delights of peeking inside at Devlin’s latest exploits, time to chat to Mike Dowling about putting this great new Megazine cover together, complete with a sneak peek at a Devlin cover in Mike’s rough ideas that we might well be seeing later in the year. As is often the case, it was another example of the art droids throwing themselves on the mercy of The Mighty One for work. Or, in this case, Tharg’s Earthly representative…

MIKE DOWLING: I’d got in touch with Matt Smith to see if he needed anything and he suggested A Devlin Waugh cover. I sent over 3 rough ideas and handily for me, Matt went for 2 of them.

I started with the big portrait of Devlin. I’d tried to do something like this before and it hadn’t worked out. I was keen to have another go at it and at least get it mostly right this time!

Looking at the original sketch I decided it just wasn’t dramatic enough. I originally thought the scale of the head would be striking enough but I quickly decided I needed something more – something in the lighting to give it some drama. I remembered a picture of James Cagney from Angels with Dirty Faces – he has such presence in the photo – I thought I could lift the lighting from that publicity still wholesale. I wanted some menace in the picture, which Cagney has in spades but I also needed something a bit carnal – It’s Devlin after all!

After that decision it was all pretty straightforward – I put together the pencil drawing, adding another shadow to better frame Devlin’s left eye and made sure it would all fit with the logo.

I’ve moved from the dark tones to the light, trying to find the right balance. 

With all the tones in place, I spent a while trying to sneak up on the right colours for the piece. Normally I would have a colour idea in place when I got started, but as this was not part of a scene or larger story I had to deal with the worrying possibility of the colour being ‘anything I wanted it to be’.

Existential crisis aside I added some paper texture, Made sure it still sat happily with the logo and considered it finished.

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And that’s it – it always sounds nice and simple when droids like Mike lay it all out that way, missing out the hours and hours of blood, seat, and tears that go into putting something worthy of a cover together!

Our thanks to Mike Dowling there for sharing the art there to this latest gorgeous Devlin cover. You can find it on the front of Megazine 465, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop right now.

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!

You’ve seen it on the shelves or popping through your letterbox already, but we’re going back to last weeks’ spectacular Clint Langley cover to 2000 AD Prog 2370 now – it’s Judges Death and Fire comin’ at ya’ on a bike from hell…

It’s Clint’s latest foray of fear and horror in Deadworld and the Dark Judges, showing us the delights of Kek-W and Dave Kendall’s ongoing The Fall of Deadworld series, which roared back into Prog 2370 with the continuation of the Retribution storyline.

Clint’s got biking form with the Dark Judges as well, with this cover acting as a homage of sorts to his own cover of Prog 2025 where it was Judge Fairfax and Jess Childs roaring out of the cover at you. So, hang onto those helmets one and all, let’s get into the putting together of this latest Langley bit of brilliance!

There’s not too much art to show you with this one, as Clint works pretty much direct with inks and brushes – like he told us when sending the art across, ‘I tend to go straight into the art!’

He did have this to say though – ‘I really enjoyed working on the Deadworld covers. Love the Deadworld strip in the Prog. Getting to draw such classic 2000AD characters is always a pleasure.’ And a pleasure it is to see you on the cover Clint!

As with all of Clint’s covers, he’s old school, hand-drawing the covers with ink and brush, A2 sized (which must just look stunning to behold in all their fearful majesty!) After that, it’s scanned off to the computer and then digitally coloured with Photoshop. So here’s that fully inked cover to feast your eyes on…

Thank you so much to Clint for sending all of that along – Quaequam Blag, just absolutely stunning as always, the sort of thing that leaps out at you, grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go – it’s the thrill-powered way!

You can find Clint’s cover on the front of Prog 2370, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop – available right now! For more of Clint’s incredible work, check out the great Art of Clint Langley Facebook page.

Now, as an added extra, Clint was good enough to send over some of his finished inks for his previous Fall of Deadworld covers – all done in the same style and the same fashion, huge direct inked pieces that just boggle the mind…

We start with Clint’s first Deadworld, giving us all the grotesque delights and absolute horrors that you’ll find in the strip – the cover to Prog 1980

Next came Prog 2025 with the cover that Clint’s homaging in his way with this latest – showing Judge Fairfax and Jess Childs doing their damnedest to escape the clutches of Judge Death and his grotesque group, an escape that we all know just isn’t going to happen – it’s called the FALL of Deadworld after all!

And finally, we have Prog 2092, with a quite wonderfully wicked and unbelievably unholy look at the main man himself – Judge Death!

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

This week it’s 2000 AD Prog 2369, featuring the finale to Book Three of Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman’s Enemy Earth – which is also the finale to the entire Enemy Earth saga. Fittingly, series artist Horsman gets the cover…

There’s always something very special about the covers that do something different with the 2000 AD logo – don’t you think?

Anyway, across three series of Enemy Earth, we’ve had a world gone mad, fauna and flora mutated and out to kill any human that’s left alive, and we’ve seen a very unusual found family come together to triumph over all the problems that this world can throw at them (and that’s a hell of a lot!)

So, one last time for Enemy Earth, here’s Luke Horsman talking about an Enemy Earth cover… and as usual it all starts with Tharg beaming his magnificence into the presence of an unworthy art droid and telling them just what he’s after for this latest cover…

LUKE HORSMAN: Starting with the rough – I was asked to produce a cover image inspired from a scene in the previous episode of Enemy Earth, with Zoe hanging upside down by Jules’ mutated tentacles.

That would be this scene…  

And this is the sketch that Luke worked up for the cover…

Okay then, with the sketch all sorted and approved and art droid Horsman still shaking from being in the presence of The Mighty One, it’s time to get back to work, with Luke bringing us a great cover, complete with that customized logo…

LUKE HORSMAN: Once all was approved, I laid down the line work as usual.

LUKE HORSMAN: Next, working up the title treatment I had in mind to work into the image...

LUKE HORSMAN: Now on to layers of colour work. I wanted to frame the main aspect with some basic silhouette designs so everything popped in the right way…

LUKE HORSMAN: And finally drop the title back in…

And there you have it – a final fabulous Luke Horsman cover for Enemy Earth. You can find it on on the front of Prog 2369, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop.

As for previous Covers Uncovered from Luke, he talks Enemy Earth covers for Prog 2303, Prog 2307, and Prog 2329. We’ve also interviewed Luke three times – here along with Cavan Scott about the very first Enemy Earth in 2000 AD Regened Prog 2256 and here for a chat with them both for the first series of Enemy Earth that began in Prog 2301. And finally, there’s an interview here with Luke and writer Mike Carroll about another Regened strip, Action Pact, from Prog 2220.

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!

On the front of 2000 AD Prog 2368 we have the latest Thistlebone cover from Simon Davis as The Dule Tree, the third series of his and TC Eglington’s folk horror fear-fest, reaches part five and the fear is rising and rising…

In the first two series of Thistlebone, we’ve seen the way that the horrors of the past have infected and infused the tiny village of Harrowvale with a madness expressing itself through modern-day cults and personal psychoses.

Now we’re back to the 70s and a film based on the 18^th Century witch trials that happened in Harrowvale, which is every bit the terrible idea that you think it would be, given all we know already about Harrowvale and Thistlebone.

And the film poster look is something Davis is leaning into heavily on this current series, both in the covers he’s doing and this early promo work…

Last time, Prog 2364’s cover, it was the Hammer classic, Dracula AD 1972 that Simon used as a basis for the cover. This time… well, we’ll let Simon tell you…

SIMON DAVIS: When Tom and I first discussed doing Thistlebone in 2020, it was mainly born out of our love of Folk Horror films.

A particular favourite of mine is The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). It has a great poster by the genius that was Arnaldo Putzu so this absolutely had to form the basis of a cover design.

That’s the poster for the UK version of the film, complete with its absolutely terrible reproduction of Putz’s artwork. As Simon explains…

SIMON DAVIS: I sent that as it has a better reproduction of Putz’s artwork…the later version, where it’s called The Blood on Satan’s Claw (the one I have) has a wisp of hair to cover the woman’s modesty!

Robert Wynn Simmons wrote the screenplay (and only recently the book) of The Blood on Satan’s Claw. I think we’d be on safer ground if we just said Blood on Satan’s Claw, The Wicker Man, and Witchfinder Genrel are considered the unholy trinity (as they are referred to) of Folk Horror Movies and were a huge influence on Thistlebone.  Satan’s Skin was deemed an inappropriate title for the UK release so The Blood on Satan’s Claw was used instead….Piers Haggard, the director, disliked it intensely!

Anyway, Simon sent along the film poster for the other version of the film, Satan’s Skin, where the poster art did a much better job of showing you that Putzu artwork…

Okay then, back to Simon…

SIMON DAVIS: I felt the original poster was perfect to be adapted into a Thistlebone cover, with Yvonne Kier’s Agnes Green character replacing Linda Hayden’s Angel Blake and the Behemoth being replaced by Thistlebone.

I went to the British Museum and took reference photos of the antler head piece that Thistlebone is based on and again decided to hand paint the 2000 AD logo.

And here’s that first rough for you, followed by Simon’s pencils and the painstaking and beautiful process of adding paint to it all, first Yvonne Kier’s figure and then the looming menace of Thistlebone itself…

SIMON DAVIS: It was a relatively uncomplicated painting process as the Thistlebone figure was mainly there to act as a contrast to the figure.

One final photo – the finished piece on the easel, with an original The Blood on Satan’s Claw film poster that hangs in my studio...

There you go, another fabulously fear-inducing Simon Davis Thistlebone for you! You can find it on on the front of Prog 2368, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop.

There’s plenty more Thistlebone, here at 2000 AD.com – our interview Eglington and Davis here and you can find all of Simon’s previous Covers Uncovered Thistlebone pieces here as well – Prog 2223, Prog 2232, and Prog 2364. And of course, there’s also the essential reading of the first Thistlebone collection that’s available in all good comic shops and 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!

This week, it’s art droid Patrick Goddard giving us the rundown on putting together the cover for the new Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley cover.

Garth Ennis and Patrick Goddard breathed new life into Rogue Trooper with the 13-part Blighty Valley in 2000 AD Progs 2326 to 2339 and now it’s getting its well-deserved collection, out on 2 July 2024. You can pre-order the collection now!

There really was no one better to get deep into the sci-fi war story of the blue-skinned Genetic Infantryman than Ennis. And in Goddard, we have an artist evoking memories of classic Rogue Trooper artists such as Dave Gibbons and Steve Dillon, someone bringing both intense action and a deeply human aspect to this incredible tale.

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Created by Gerry Finley-Day and Dave Gibbons and debuting in 2000 AD in 1981, Rogue Trooper is the last of the G.I.s – Genetically-engineered Infantry – fighting in the brutal war between his Souther creators and their deadly enemies the Norts. Engineered to be able to survive the poisoned badlands of Nu Earth, Rogue and his fellow G.I.s found that the real danger came from one of their own and he’s now a lone soldier on the hunt for the ‘Traitor General.’ His only help in this final mission comes from three fallen comrades, whose personalities are encoded onto bio-chips inserted into his helmet, ‘Helm’, backpack, ‘Bagman’, and rifle, ‘Gunnar’.

Blighty Valley is set at Night’s Horizon, the annual event where Nu Earth’s orbit carries it closest to a nearby black hole. The Norts call it Zvartchvintern; the first settlers knew it as Lightfall. Things have a reputation for going a little… screwy around this time. Now, Rogue and his bio-chip buddies are about to experience those effects first-hand.

So, here’s Patrick with the images and a few words about putting together the cover for the Blighty Valley collection…

PATRICK GODDARD: ‘My original brief was to have some sort of split image for the cover, showing Old and Nu Earth with Rogue taking centre stage. I drew out a couple of ideas…’

Actually, a couple of ideas ends up as six ideas…

But those are a little small, so here they are blown up for you, all the better to see the wonderful line to Patrick’s work…

But that’s nothing like the final cover, right? Well noticed dear reader.

What actually happened was that Patrick showed the ideas to Garth and, well, let’s hand you back to Patrick here…

PATRICK GODDARD: Garth suggested another route, having Rogue with the Blackhole prominent behind him come across the devastation of the British and German bodies all merged into one with the landscape.

Not just that, but Garth got his artistic head on and sent Patrick a thumbnail idea of what he was suggesting…

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So, with that in mind, Patrick worked up another rough…

And that worked, except, there was just one more change needed –

PATRICK GODDARD: Rogue was originally going to be smaller, but they wanted him with a larger presence for the cover which I can understand.

So, with the cover layout decided on, it was time to head to pencil stage…

Next came inks and tones and effects…

And that’s it! Complete and done. Just one more stage…

PATRICK GODDARD: Then it was off to Dylan to work his magic with the colours!

And Dylan Teague did indeed work his magic with the Blighty Valley cover! As always!

Thank you so much to Patrick for sending along the art there. You can find Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley wherever Ghafflebette comics are sold from 2 July 2024, including the 2000 AD web shop.

For more from Patrick, there’s plenty to catch up on – Covers Uncovered for Progs 2185, 2205, 2219, 2244, and 2264; we interviewed him about Judge Dredd: Special Relationship (with 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.

And remember to follow Patrick on Twitter and Instagram.

And to finish with, as a bonus… the opening pages from Rogue Trooper: Blighty Valley…

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 yet another The Devil’s Railroad cover by Rufus Dayglo to share with you – the third for the series!

With the end of the 14-episode Devil’s Railroad happening in Prog 2366, Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo are bringing things to a spectacular conclusion. Will our two young lovers, Constance and Palamon, find sanctuary on Earth for their unborn child, or will the dangers of the Devil’s Railroad prove too much?

Well, for that you’re going to need to pick up the Prog! Let’s just say that Milligan and Dayglo have really managed to bring all the best of 2000 AD out in The Devil’s Railroad, something that hits hard, something that’s full of political undertones, yet something that’s packed with humanity.

So, one last time, time to join the young lovers – who are really having a bit of trouble with Sister White…

This one was another cover that came about fairly simply, or at least that’s what we’re assuming, as Rufus sent just the one cover rough along for this one…

And if that rough is ringing a few bells with you, particularly if you’ve a little knowledge of Euro comics in general and the genius of Jean Giraud in particular… well, there’s a reason for that… over to Rufus to spill the beans…

RUFUS DAYGLO: This cover is a pastiche of Moebius’s Arzach, which my wife bought me in a second-hand bookshop in Lyon.

I liked the Idea of Palomon entrapped by Mother White (the main gangster whose son Palomon killed). I added lots of very reptilian texture just to make the embrace even less appealing.

See, all very simple – do a homage cover, hero in peril, lots of nastiness in the incredible details of the inking and colours… job done. And what a job it is!

First of all, here’s the Moebius cover that Rufus was homaging…

And here’s where Rufus took things… inking and colours… complete with so much incredible, and rather disturbing detail…

And there you go! Devil’s Railroad cover #3 all completed. But we’re not quite finished yet, as Rufus was kind enough to send along a few of his unused cover ideas as well – you’ll just have to imagine what might have been…

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Thank you once more to Rufus for this third Devil’s Railroad cover – we’re already looking forward to seeing where it all ends! It’s been another great debut series in a year that’s been stuffed full of them.

You can see Rufus’ final Devil’s Railroad cover on the shelves of your local newsagent, comic shop, or anywhere that stocks the Galaxy’s Greatest, including the 2000 AD web shop.

You can find more about The Devils Railroad in our interview with Peter and Rufus here and read about how Rufus put together the two other covers for the series here and here. And for previous chats with the Milligan/Dayglo team, there’s an interview on their dystopian cyberpunk thriller Counterfeit Girl here and we talk Bad Company: Terrorists here.

Counterfeit Girl‘s available in a collection whilst Bad Company: First Casualties can be found in Progs 1950-1961 and as a digital collection. Bad Company: Terrorists can be found in Progs 2061-2072. And for more of Milligan’s Bad Company, The Complete Bad Company, with art by Brett Ewins, Jim McCarthy, and Steve Dillon is essential.

And finally, because the detail of Rufus’ work on this one was so good, we figured we’d show you a few blowups of the artwork… 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!

Right now, we’re heading to the new Judge Dredd: Megazine for a first-time Megazine cover by artist Lee Milmore. He has the cover to Megazine 464 and gets to show us the masked man from his new strip, Tales of the Black Museum: The Ugly Stick.

Just as with every visit to the Black Museum, The Ugly Stick sees undead guide Henry Dubble showing you around the Justice Department’s exhibition of relics from bygone crimes – and this time it’s a very black tale of a very familiar name in the annals of MC-1 history.

Artist for both cover and strip Lee Milmore was the winner of the 2000 AD Thought Bubble artist talent search in 2021 and since then he’s appeared a few times in the Prog, first with the art to Relict, the Future Shock written by his fellow talent search winner Honor Vincent. After that, Milmore’s art’s adorned a Terror Tale, In The Wood, written by John Tomlinson, in Prog 2311 and the two Tharg’s 3Rillers introducing us to the supernatural troubleshooter and his dog, Herne and Shuck, with writer David Barnett, first with The Crawly Man (Progs 2297-2299) and then in Maxwell’s Demon (Progs 2343-2345). If you loved those, and we’re pretty sure you did, you’re going to be very pleased that there’s an eight-episode series for Herne and Shuck in production right now.

But before then, you get to enjoy his artwork on this new Tales From The Black Museum, The Ugly Stick, again written by David Barnett, where Milmore gets one of those dream come true moments of drawing Judge Dredd, even if only for a couple of pages.

But enough intro already, time to let Lee take you through his process of doing his second 2000 AD cover, this time for the Megazine….

LEE MILMORE: Last year was momentous for me, not only did I get to do my first cover for 2000 AD but I also got to do my first cover and story for the Megazine. Pinching is avoided at all times in case I wake up.

My partnership with the hugely talented David Barnett continues in this month’s Meg as we bring an old favourite back from the vaults in a self-contained Tales from the Black Museum called The Ugly Stick. To find out who it is you’ll have to pick up a copy Earthlets.

As soon as I started working on David’s strip I just knew I had a decent cover to offer. In my mind’s eye it was a mash-up image of the Third man and The Invisible Man filtered through the world of Judge Dredd. (NO PINCHING ME…)

As with most things I do they begin as an appalling doodle somewhere, usually on a scrap of something, whatever comes to hand...

It’s a bit embarrassing really, lots of artists’ work is so good at this thumbnail stage you could almost print it and be done, but this is the general quality of mine for my sins.

That being said, in terms of the concept it’s pretty much all in there. You may be able to make out the Judge’s boot, the drone street lamps, even the rain on the sked.

I can tell from the squiggle at the end of the cane that I hadn’t settled on an ugly stick design at this point so it was probably concurrent with drawing the first page of the strip.

Here’s a set of concepts I did whilst working out what the ugly stick should look like, not directly to do with the cover process but it might be fun to see.

Then there’s the final design for the Ugly Stick, quite typically for me scrawled on a A4 lined note pad. I love the quality of that paper to draw on – it’s soft and non-precious.

Okay, back to the cover.

So I’ve got a pretty rounded idea in my head but so far that’s all it is.

Next up, Ulp…time to ask The Mighty One for permission to do it. For that I need to do something a little less embarrassing, not wanting to have to report to Mek Quake to be compacted for my impudence.

I did a little more detailed sketch – again really rough but concentrating on getting the composition working and all the elements being included.

I try to establish a colour palette, I want it to be noir but with quite a bold palette – that’s purple right??

Note the addition of the day stick and the balance between the two. Also the Juves from the strip have been added to try and amp up the jeopardy that the central character is in. I chuck in the logo to help it feel like a real cover option and, holding my breath, submit this to Tharg, prostrating myself before him in a frankly piteous display, grovelling for his approval.

With a look of righteous disgust he agrees…possibly just to make the pathetic stop. Hey, a droid has to make a living!

So now it has to be a cover image for real. I start working a little harder on the quality of the image I’m making. I like to use a lot of reference when I’m drawing – it helps me with everything and even though I know I probably overly rely on it once I accepted that it was part of my process I started to improve as an art droid.

So here’s a picture of me with toilet roll wrapped around my head...

I work primarily in Photoshop on a Cintiq but always want to find ways to work on paper more. The first page of The Ugly Stick strip I did traditionally on paper and I loved it but I lost confidence as the pages got more complicated and ran back to my Mac with my tail between my legs.

For this cover though I decided that the drawn elements, all the way up to the colouring, was going to be done on paper.

Here’s the pencils I settled on with most of the elements in place. I seem to recall doing a number of drawings to this level and this one won out...

Because I wanted a moody, noir feel for this and because the strip traditionally uses grey scale finishes, I decided that I’d approach the cover drawing in the same way. I did this in black (& white) acrylic paint, possibly a little pen (Microns) and some white out for the rain.

Looking at this now I almost wish this had been the final piece. Still I had colour plans.

I scanned in my drawing and dropped it into Photoshop. I coloured the image and edited the bad drawing. I wasn’t happy with the rain ripples and the city blocks didn’t quite work. Also, I added back the spotlight drones which I just generally thought I’d do better in PS.

And then it was finished – though I just endlessly think about what could be done better (everything, yeah I know). 

I hope you like it and I’ve done the Judge Dredd Megazine justice (pun intended).

Oh, we think he’s definitely done the Megazine justice! Our thanks to Lee Milmore for sending that one along. You can find Judge Dredd Megazine issue 464 wherever you find your ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop right now.

You can find our interview with Honor Vincent and Lee Milmore about their talent search-winning Future Shock, Relict here. We also did a Creator Profile with Vincent here. We interviewed Milmore and writer David Barnett about the second Tharg’s 3Riller staring Herne and Shuck, Maxwell’s Demon, here. Finally, there’s Lee’s very first 2000 AD cover for Prog 2344, that he described, quite perfectly, as ‘a possessed meat machine with an HR Giger vibe’ that featured as a Covered Uncovered here.

And finally, just because you deserve a treat for the New Year, here’s a preview of Barnett and Milmore’s Tales of the Black Museum: The Ugly Stick…