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!

This weeks’ Prog 2365 sees Enemy Earth by Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman enter its endgame as the aliens behind the devastating mutations of the Earth’s flora and fauna arrive on Earth, captured perfectly on this week’s cover by Alex Ronald…

Alex Ronald’s time at 2000 AD began way back in Prog 984 with Judge Dredd, followed soon after with his first cover on Prog 1869. More work on Dredd followed, along with runs on Dredd, Vector 13, Rogue Trooper, and Sinister Dexter all pointing towards a long stint as an art droid to come. But it wasn’t to be, as he took off and switched to working in the computer graphics industry and 3D modeling. But the lure of 2000 AD was too strong, eventually pulling him back in as a cover specialist making instantly recognizable digital brilliance.

As for this latest cover from Alex, it all started out, as it usually does, with a call from Tharg and a cover brief for the latest Enemy Earth cover. Tharg was kind enough to send over a bit of alien reference from Enemy Earth, giving Alex a look at the way series artist Luke Horsman drew them making their first appearance…

>

ALEX RONALD: The brief was fairly loose, just a cover featuring the aliens from the reference image provided.

I opted for a shot of them conspiring over a relatively alien-esqe map with all the colours and mood to compliment that.

I sculpted an upper torso of the aliens based on the referenced artwork. Luke Horsman’s design of the creatures was pretty special and it was a lot of fun to recreate then in 3D. Once complete, I duplicated the model and made each into a unique pose for the cover.

>

Once posed and lit, the next stage is to take a screengrab and head into PS where I draw over the models onto a cover sheet adding tone for an idea of the lighting effects...

>

When the B/W rough was approved, I painted up the finished art adding a strong greeny/yellow uplight for the glow from the alien map. The backdrop was created in 3D using a simple subdivided plane which I sculpted from in Z brush for an otherworldly look.

>

And that’s that – another great-looking Alex Ronald cover delivered to Tharg and now to you, dear readers – 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, and for Megazine 435 and 462.

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!

In 2000 AD Prog 2364 this week we have the return of the terrifying folk horror series Thistlebone. We’ve seen two series of this one already but now writer TC Eglington and artist Simon Davis return to put another sizable shiver down your spines for the third series – The Dule Tree.

Those first two series, Thistlebone and Poisoned Roots, took us into the woods with the horrors of ancient times brought into the now with modern-day cults and ceremonial killings to chill you to the bone.

Now we’re off to a new time but one with the same old terrors and even more of the dark beauty of Simon Davis’s artwork – as perfectly captured in this early promo image…

Now, over to Simon for the making of the cover…

SIMON DAVIS: The third series of Thistlebone is largely set in the 1970’s, on the set of a horror film so I wanted the cover to have a Hammer poster feel to it so based it on one of my favourites, Dracula: AD 1972.

I did the initial rough below and decided to paint the 2000ad logo as part of the cover, to give it a more poster-like feel.

As I was to paint it in oils and as there was quite a lot of detail in it, I drew it up twice the publication size.

I drew it out and began working my way round the composition, concentrating on the individual characters and then finally bringing them all together with the white background.

And that’s how another perfectly petrifying Simon Davis cover is put together. You’ll see the cover on the front of Prog 2364, in newsagents, comic shops, and from the 2000 AD web shop.

For more on Thistlebone, be sure to check out the interview with writer TC Eglington and Simon Davis here and Simon’s previous Covers Uncovered Thistlebone pieces for Prog 2223 and Prog 2232. There’s also a great Durham Red cover for Prog 2327. 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!

It’s a brand new year of Thrill Power and Tharg’s got plenty of treats in store for you for 2024, starting with this very first Prog of the year, full of zarjaz strips and all capped off with a great Dredd cover by Steven Austin. It’s 2000 AD Prog 2363 and it’s out on 3 January.

Steven’s been a pretty regular artist here in the Prog since bursting in with a Time Twister – The Timeless Assassin, written by Rory McConville – in 2016’s Prog 1982. Since then, his distinctive artwork’s been seen on Judge Dredd, Judge Death, Judge Anderson, along with more Terror Tales, Future Shocks, Tharg’s 3Rillers, and Tales From The Black Museum. He’s also featured on a number of really striking covers over the last few years, of which this is merely the latest.

As for what to expect from Steven in the future, 2024 sees him providing artwork for a two-part Devlin Waugh tale in the Judge Dredd Megazine. But that’s rather getting ahead of ourselves. For now, let’s head back to the cover to this week’s Prog and get the skinny directly from the artist – so, here’s Steven Austin with a tale of Dredd and a pile o’ perps…

STEVEN AUSTIN: ‘I call this one ‘The Perpinator’!! It was a pitch I sent to Tharg, a good few months ago now. I’ve always quite fancied drawing Dredd atop a pile of defeated perps.

I went for a slightly low angle so you’re looking up at Dredd and to really make it pop I wanted Dredd’s head to slightly overlap the logo, as you can see in the initial rough that I sent across to Tharg.

STEVEN AUSTIN: My process doesn’t change, initial rough is blown up to A3 and then re-pencilled with an HB Technical pencil and then inked using a combination of a green (cased) Tombow brush pen and a Pentel brush pen.

And here’s Steven’s re-pencilling stage…

Followed by the inks…

But just how does an art droid get the required reference for a pile of bodies exactly? Well, that’s where pals come in handy, as Steven will tell you…

STEVEN AUSTIN: The pile of perps is made up of the usual variety of gang members and misfits you’d expect to find in MC1 but I threw a few familiar faces in there, at least to me, some of my convention and project partners in crime, Darren Stephens, Neil McClements and Chris Askham, I asked them to send me their best impersonations of being dead….or at least out cold.

>

STEVEN AUSTIN: The final inks were then shipped off to Tharg where Mr Jim Boswell used his magic colour wand to bring the whole thing to life!!’

Wow, that’s a great cover to set us off on our year of Thrill Power! You can find it on the shelves, real and virtual at the 2000 AD web shop from 3 January.

And whilst we’re talking Steven’s great covers, do take the time to look through the archives at Steven’s other great covers that we’ve featured here at Covers Uncovered over the last few years – Prog 2184, Prog 2211, Prog 2286, and Prog 2311.

You can find more from Steven at his website and there’s also StevenAustinArt on Facebook.

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 month’s Judge Dredd Megazine is wishing you a perfect Christmas with a warning – woe betide anyone who’s been naughty this year because you’re going to end up with Dredd’s daystick list, and that’s far worse than Santa’s naughty list! And for the cover, we have the return of one of 2000 AD’s alumni – Mike Perkins.

This years’ Christmas Judge Dredd Megazine is out right now and features a ghafflebette line-up of strips for consumption alongside lashings of festive feasting. There’s the return of the psychotic l’il michief maker Dollman in Judge Dredd, more from Spector: Incorruptible, and the new DeMarco P.I. series continues to impress in A Picture Paints. Bringing things to a close, there’s a double-sized finale to Lawless: Most Wanted, with Lawson and pals in a titanic showdown against Fugly’s mob.

Alongside those zarjaz series, the Megazine is packed with goodness, reprints of the Treasury of British Comics’ classic of British comics Trigan Empire, the finale to Garth Ennis and Keith Burns’ Johnny Red, and a very special Judge Dredd: Deviations strip from John McCrea and Mike Spicer asking what if Dredd stayed lycanthrope after the classic Cry of the Werewolf. Plus interrogations with Mike Collins, Gary Welsh, and Rufus Hound. All in all, 132 pages of absolute Thrill Power to end the year in 2000 AD style!

On the cover, we have the return of Mike Perkins, one of many, many art droids who got their start with Tharg before going on to light up the comics firmament.

Mike’s earliest work included a debut for 2000 AD with the Future Shock: It’s a Cold World back in 1993’s Prog 865. He’d go on to work on Dredd and Vector 13 before heading to the USA with work for every major publisher, having acclaimed runs on Captain America, Thor, The X-Men, Green Lantern, Lois Lane, and the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand. His most recent DC Comics series was his and Ram-V’s reworking of Swamp Thing.

But, as he’ll tell you, a gap in exclusive contracts has meant that he’s able to make a triumphant return to the house of Tharg. So, without further ado, over to Mike to tell us all about his new Xmas Megazine cover!

MIKE PERKINS: I’m still a big enough 2000 AD fan that whenever I get offered a cover to illustrate for them I still get that frisson of excitement in my belly. Having been constantly exclusive for the past 22 years I haven’t been able to accept a lot of those proposals – and have kicked myself every single time.

Now, due to a break in those exclusivity contracts, I have a window in which I can accept the opportunity to tackle the characters I’ve grown up with and love dearly. Without a shadow of a doubt being offered the actual Christmas cover adds that extra layer of thrill.

I pretty much knew how I wanted to approach it – the picture was in my head.  A good, simple, menacing Dredd figure – failing to exude any festive niceties whatsoever.

I did offer up another couple of ideas – and I hope I can get to do one of them for the Megazine in the future – but they weren’t necessarily seasonally motivated. Thus was pitched Dredd ‘classic’ which was accepted and went on to become the actual cover…

The only provisio being that I placed some Christmas lights around the daystick. I like to think that Dredd has just smacked a perp over the head who has been wearing nothing BUT the line of lights and that’s the only thing that’s still bright and shining!

The second one – ‘multi judge’ – is the one I want to tackle as another cover at some point – but with the amount of alternate judge divisions established I may need a wraparound. This is a huge hint, by the way.

The third one – ‘Santa and elf battle’ – would have been fun but I had the sneaking suspicion that Tiernen Trevallion had produced something similar at some point and, if that was the case, it was probably brilliant.

Mike’s absolutely right about the Trevallion droid getting there first with the Santa and his elves battle cover – it was this one back in 2011…

MIKE PERKINS: After the approval I went straight into the finished piece. My pencils nowadays are almost non-existent as most of the drawing is accomplished at the inking stage. I feel that this gives the artwork a little more spontaneity and more bounce in the brushwork.

Once that was approved I moved onto the colours. Recently I’ve moved to applying the colours in ProCreate. The first time I’d done that was the recently released hardback variant cover for The Fiends Of The Eastern Front cover (available in the webshop here) and it came out really well and it’s lovely to change the tonal value as you go along.

What an honour! A truly prestigious accolade.  Next year – perhaps the 2000 AD Christmas cover?

Mike, we’re absolutely certain that Tharg will be tapping you up, exclusives allowing, for more covers. Hey, maybe a strip as well – that multi-Judges idea sounds a great one! As for the Xmas Prog cover… well, that sort of knowledge is for Tharg and Tharg alone!

Thank you so much to Mike for sending along his cover – it’s a fine festive finale to a great year of Megazines. You can find Megazine issue 463 on the shelves of every good newsagent and comic shop right now. Plus, it’s available in the 2000 AD web shop.

We’ll leave you with Mike’s incredible cover for the webshop exclusive cover of the new Fiends of the Eastern Front collection – a perfect cover for a chilling, blood-soaked set of tales of the vampire Constanta…

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!

For a third and final time, we’re with cover artist Andy Clarke to talk about covering Smash!

The wonderful weirdness of Brit superheroes all comes to a head here with the third and final issue by Paul Grist and VV Glass. This week, we’ve got another superheroic treat for you with another Smash!-ing Andy Clarke cover to the hit three-issue series that brings together classic Brit super-types from across the ages – SMASH!

Issue 3 of Smash! brings six decades of all-out adventuring to an explosive ending, with Cursitor Doom and time-travelling Adam Eterno entering the fray as the demon trapped in the idol since the time of Janus Stark gets free – and The Spider has to choose a side! It really is the fabulous finale to three issues of incredible superheroing action the way only Brit comics can deliver it.

SMASH! #3 arrives in comic book stores and on the 2000 AD webshop and app on 20 December. Time to let Andy show us how the cover came together. So, one last time everyone, here’ssssss Andy…

For a lot more about Smash! and putting together the covers, be sure to go and read Andy’s Covers Uncovered for Smash! issue 1 and issue 2.

Done that? Good, because it will come as no surprise to you now that editor Oliver Pickles sent along more reference material for Andy to use – this time of Cursitor Doom and Adam Eterno…

>

Andy’s kept the same vibe to the third and final issue, giving them all a consistent, film poster look. But on this one, the idol that’s been the centre to the whole series really comes to the fore.

And that’s not the only element to get more focus… with The Spider taking centre-stage, although it wasn’t always like that, as you can see from the first couple of sketches…

As Andy tells us… ‘I thought a big head might work for issue 3.’

So the big Spider head enters with sketch 3, along with Cursitor Doom. Sketches 4 & 5 bring us Adam Eterno and then, with sketch 6, we’re at the final complete look of the cover…

.

Although, as Andy points out, it wasn’t all smooth sailing on this one –

ANDY CLARKE: As with #2, this one needed a bit more work to realise. It wasn’t quite there as a layout with full-figure poses, so having a big head-and-shoulders Spider at the back looking out seemed to at least have some potential. It would also make it look a little different to the other two covers while being completely in keeping with them due to the Idol being in the exact same position.’

So, with the layout sorted for this one, it’s time to get on with making the finished cover happen.

As with previous issues, Andy’s process followed a simple pattern. The sketch layout is worked up into full and very detailed pencils. Next we have an inking stage where Andy’s method involves being very sparing with the inks – only inking the outlines, only adding blacks in the bits where he’s absolutely sure greys wouldn’t work better. And it’s in that greytone stage that all the detail happens – and it’s a hell of a lot of detail! After this, the hard work of adding colours, first as flat colour and then as the glorious full-colour cover that’s going to be flying off the shelves!

Again, just like we did with issue 2’s Covers Uncovered, we want to just show you some blowups of the greytone stage – just so you can appreciate all the work that’s gone into it!

See, that’s exactly what we mean about the detail – who can say they really noticed the detailing on Cursitor Doom’s jacket? But there it is, perfectly done.

Now, on with the colours…

Now, one final word from Andy…

ANDY CLARKE: These covers were good for me – they held their own set of problems that as someone still pretty new to colouring his own stuff, took some proper noodle-scratching to work out, which is what you want really. If nothing else, I learned a few things on these and that’s always a good outcome – but whether they’re effective or not isn’t for me to say. I’m really grateful to Oliver for risking his reputation and giving me the opportunity to take a crack at them – I had a great time doing them.

And there we have it – a third and final cover for Smash! from Andy – we reckon he’s [sorry, can’t resist] SMASH!-ed it again! Thank you so much to Andy once more for sending those along.

You can find Smash! issue 3 in comics shops and from the 2000 AD webshop and app on 20 December, and there’s also the chance to pick up all three SMASH! Issues in a bundle from the webshop right here.  

Andy’s Covers Uncovered pieces for Smash! Issue 1 and Issue 2 are essential reading of course, but there’s also these to take a little look at – Prog 2287, Prog 2290, Prog 2312,  Megazine 444, and not forgetting the Prog 2350 subscriber-exclusive 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!

This week, one of the finest cover stars of all Tharg’s art droids returns for a festive Covers Uncovered – it’s Cliff Robinson’s Santa-spectacular for the 100-page Xmas Prog 2362

On a cover coloured by Dylan Teague, it’s time to bring the carnage as Mecha-Santa and his robo-elves cause chaos to Dredd, Tharg, and all the staff droids at 2000 AD towers with something that’s unmistakeably, brilliantly, Cliff Robinson.

Inside the triple-sized end-of-the-year Prog, Tharg’s blessed us with a stuffed bag full of zarjaz strips to thrill you through the festive period. It’s a Prog of two halves, with the latter half full of ongoing tales Helium, The Devil’s Railroad, and Feral & Foe. But the first seven strips in this 10-strip blowout are all pulse-pounding one-off thrills starring some of the most iconic characters in the Galaxy’s Greatest’s long history.

Judge Dredd (sort of) opens proceedings in A Matter of Life & Dredd by Ken Niemand and Tom Foster, with a seasonal tale of ghosts of the Dredd family past. We have new adventures for Rogue Trooper in Runaway by Geoffrey D. Wessel and Simon Coleby, Anderson, Psi-Division in The Game Within by Torunn Grobekk and Kieran McKeown, and a sinister and seasonal tale of blood in Fiends of the Eastern Front by Ian Edginton and Tiernen Trevallion. And Dan Abnett and Tazio Bettin’s Azimuth returns for a one-off before series two next year with an introduction to this incredible new world that’s going to blow both Dexter and you loyal readers away in surprise.

And finally, we also have a very special one-off tale of Johnny Alpha and Wulf in Strontium Dog: Alpha, with art by Dan Cornwell and a debut from long-time fan of 2000 AD, comedian, actor, and presenter Rufus Hound. For more from the Hound droid, be sure to pick up the Christmas Judge Dredd Megazine issue 463, also out right now, where he’s interviewed by Karl Stock – alongside a suitably stuffed set of strips, meaning it’s double the Christmas delights for you.

Cliff Robinson has been a mainstay in the Prog since way back, with his first interior work coming in 1984’s Prog 362 with the Future Shock, Dead Clever. But it’s as a cover artist that most fans will know Cliff, and he’s provided so many beautiful covers over the years, beginning with Prog 414 in 1985. We’re looking at something like more than 150 covers over the years – and every single one of them quite incredible, with all that clean line, highly detailed, meticulous artwork, packed with dynamism and imagination. Over the years, his covers have always leapt off the shelves and burned themselves into readers’ minds, and this Xmas Prog cover is no exception.

It all starts, of course, with an idea, this one being all about the terrifying Mecha-Santa and his robo-elves terrorising the ranks of 2000 AD Towers, with the first pencil sketch looking very much like this…

It’s pretty much all there from the off – but there’s more to add, the robo-elves on the rampage and the individual editorial droids joining Dredd and The Mighty One is escaping a marauding mech-Santa. First though, more details on Dredd and Tharg…

Next, time to get to work detailing the rogue’s gallery of editorial droids to feature on the cover – and according to Mech-Santa they’ve all been very, very bad this year…

And what better minions for Mecha-Santa than a swarm of flying, laser-blasting robo-elves? As usual from Robinson, it’s that perfect mix of characterisation – part ridiculous, part nightmare-inducing…

Once Cliff has all the elements sorted, it’s time to get them all in place and begin assembling that final cover…

After that, we need snow, snow, and more snow, plus the background details of MC-1… there’s no droid that does MC-1 quite as well as the Robinson droid.

Finally for Cliff’s part of the cover, it’s back to the character layer and time for those beautifully detailed Robinson inks before then inking the whole thing.

The only left to do is to send it over to Cliff’s regular colours droid, the ever-excellent Dylan Teague who, as usual, brings Cliff’s art to vivid life with that fabulous colouring job. And that, one and all, is how a stunning Cliff Robinson cover comes about.

Huge thanks to Cliff for sending along the artwork to the Xmas Prog 2362. It’s always an absolute pleasure for us to be able to share his classic artwork with you.

You can find the triple-sized end of the year blowout 2000 AD Prog 2362 wherever you pick up your weekly dose of Ghafflebette comics, including the 2000 AD web shop from 13 December. It’s on sale for three weeks a perfect end to yet another thrill-powered year, with the next Prog on sale on 3 Jan 2024 to start the new year with even more thrill power!

And to end, going all the way back to the Robinson droid’s very first Prog 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!

This week, it’s John McCrea back on the cover to the Galaxy’s Greatest, with a super snarling Dredd for 2000 AD Prog 2361.

John’s been a mainstay in comics since his 1989 debut here at 2000 AD with Prog 615’s Fast Forward, soon followed by his and Garth Ennis’ tale, Troubled Souls, their hard-hitting and controversial tale of the Troubles, which heralded the arrival of two brand-new talents on the comic scene.

Since then, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing John’s work pretty regularly in both 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, but you’ve had the pleasure of seeing his distinctive artwork at Marvel, DC, Image, Dynamite, and more, including the highly recommended DC Comics Hitman series from 1996-2001 with Garth Ennis. Since then, he’s worked at Marvel, DC, Image, Dynamite, and many more.

Always a pleasure to see John back on the cover of the Prog though, especially with a Dredd that really pops off the cover like this one does! So, without further ado… Mr John McCrea and the making of a great Dredd…

JOHN MCCREA: All I want to do with 2000 AD covers is attempt to draw as iconic an image as my art heroes; Mick McMahon, Kev O’Neil and Carlos Ezquerra. Nobody drew better 2000 AD covers than these guys, imho. Obviously, I have failed to come close to matching them but that’s the goal, that’s what I’m aiming for. 

So another Dredd cover. I wanted a cool standing pose that showed Dredd at his most badass. My first drawing was this…

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).

So I did this…

Basically, I rotated the ‘camera’ a bit, but I added more slouch to the pose, more angles to the figure. It seemed to work, so I drew the dead juve in behind him for a bit of visual depth and to give it more story. 

Tharg was happy so it’s onto inks…

For some reason, I inked this drawing over the pencils, as you can see here. Normally I lightbox the pencils so that I can avoid the horrible erasing process. I can’t remember why this was different.

I love the inking, it’s so therapeutic, correcting any little mistakes in the drawing and just having fun scribbling away. Over the years, my inking has loosened up and relaxed a lot, some of this was due to necessity but mostly it’s due to the influence of my favourite artists, most of whom don’t seem to mind that each line is perfect, just that the whole picture is strong.

The finished inks, all cleaned up…

I think my favourite bit in this is the smoke wisping off the gun, the way it curls round itself.

Now I add a bit of digital tone…

Again, I try not to be too exact with this, as a bit of error makes for a more satisfying result. At least, that’s what I feel.

Before I sent this to Mike Spicer, I quickly added this background in Photoshop…

I wanted to give an indication of a Mega City skyline. And I like pink. I sent this to Mike and asked him if he could ignore the pink and just add blurred city lights to the shape, using a stock image found on the Internet as a starting point…

As you can see Mike did an amazing job.

He had made the sky pink but I felt that just distracted from the city below, so I asked for him to remove it.

I hope that the final result really jumps off the newsstand, website or wherever Squaxx dek Thargo find their prog!

That’s the job of a cover artist/colourist, to create an eye catching image that will draw readers to the comic. 

Oh yes, that one absolutely launches itself off the shelf or screen John! It’s a great cover, a great Dredd, fabulously loose and full of energy.

Thanks so much to John for sending that one along to us – you can find that Dredd cover on the front of 2000 AD Prog 2361, out everywhere Tharg’s finest is sold from 6 December, including the 2000 AD web shop.

For more from John, be sure to take a look at previous Covers Uncovereds – riding out with Dredd on Prog 2224, ‘everyone’s favourite fascist’ on Prog 2328, and that very special meeting of Sam Slade and Judge Dredd for Prog 2351.

And be sure to go and have a look at John’s website, www.johnmccrea.co.uk, and his shop, The Mighty World of McCrea

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 and beyond!

This week, we’ve got another superheroic treat for you with another Smash!-ing Andy Clarke cover to the hit three-issue series that brings together classic Brit super-types from across the ages – SMASH!

Issue 2 of Smash!, by Paul Grist and Jimmy Broxton, is out on 29 November with all-out action and adventuring as we join the thrills in the ‘80s with The Spider finding himself trapped in Maxwell Tower after his heist of the demonic idol created by Janus Stark goes badly wrong.

As Robot Archie closes in on capturing the arch-criminal, the King of Crooks is up against malevolent AI Max and the terrors of The Thirteenth Floor in a thrilling second part to this celebration of all the weird and wonderful of Brit comics!

Smash! #2 arrives in comic book stores and on the 2000 AD webshop and app on 29 November and we’ve got cover artist Andy Clarke here to tell you all about putting together the cover for this one…

Of course, alongside this Covers Uncovered for Smash! issue 2, you should head back a month and check out Andy’s art and process for issue 1.

As before, editor Oliver Pickles sent along the reference material for Andy to use – focusing on Max, Maxwell Tower and Robot Archie…

>

>

So, as we found out in the process to issue 1’s cover, Oliver also suggested a look at Sean Murphy’s recent Batman covers to give a film poster feel to this trio of covers.

After that, Andy roughed up sketches for all three covers – to keep a ‘look’ going through them all. But also giving each one its period theme, saying this when we talked about issue 1’s cover – ‘As the series is set in different decades, I wanted to add a 1960s (for issue 1) and a 1980s (for issue 2) background pattern or design as a nod to that.’

The idol quickly became the one real linking element for Andy across all three covers… ‘I roughed up some sketches for all three, just really to see if anything popped out that I could carry across them all so they had a connection of some kind. Pretty soon, the Idol looked like it would be the thing that could link the covers together – the Idol also did a lot of the heavy-lifting for each layout/composition in the end, it helped tie everything together.’

In fact, the idol was so integral that Andy used it as, according to him, a bit of a cheat. Here’s what he had to say about that for issue 1 – ‘Once it was agreed the Idol would be the one element repeated on all three covers, I thought that once I’d inked the outline, done all the grey-tone, the flats, the colour and rim-lights on it for issue 1, I could drop it into the other two covers without having to redo it from scratch each time. Then all I had to do was alter the colours and highlights on the Idol for #2 and 3 so it matched the colour-scheme around it. Bit of a cheat really, but it saved some time.

Okay then, now we go to Andy and his thinking about putting together this cover…

ANDY CLARKE: I did quite a few sketches for the second cover – examples of which are included here – it wasn’t coming together as easily as the first one, so I splurged a bit on different poses and positions for the two characters – changing the size of Robot Archie in relation to The Spider and vice versa.

ANDY CLARKE: I was set on using the ’80s pattern I’d found – I broke it up a bit so it looked like it was floating around the characters, but its essentially the same kind of design that was used in the title credits on Saved By The Bell.

He’s right you know… compare and contrast…

Yep, definitely Saved By The Bell vibes! Oh, the strange places these art droids get their inspiration from. And if you want to see the whole title sequence in all its garish ‘80s glory – head here where we got the image from.

Okay, back to Andy…

ANDY CLARKE: The thing that fixed #2 was all down to Oliver. I couldn’t put my finger on why it wasn’t working that well as a composition, I just knew that it wasn’t.

Oliver pointed out that the big, singular version of Max I’d drawn up was occupying the same plane in the picture as the Idol, so he suggested having Max as a wall of TV screens instead that could be pushed back and act as the background. This seemed to fix things for the better immediately – there might even have been an audible click.

And here’s cover sketch #8 – with the Oliver-inspired fix absolutely nailing the design for the cover…

ANDY CLARKE: To fit with the setting for issue 2, I tried to make The Spider more “‘80s” – his shoulders and arms are a bit bigger and more rounded compared with #1.

I was going for a hint of that muscled-up excess a lot of superhero comics had in the late ’80s/early ’90s. I might have been a bit too subtle about it though, looking at it now.

Well, time for another compare and contrast for you! Here’s Andy’s Spider from issue 1 versus issue 2 – subtle but definitely got that ’80s bulk going…

Now, time for the various stages of putting it all together now that Andy’s fixed all the design bits and got something to work off!

As he’s told us before, he pencils, then inks – but only inks the outlines, putting black only where it wouldn’t be better served with greys (and on this one that means a lot of Max in the background!) After that, the huge amount of detail comes in with the greytones that are added. Finally, with the colouring, it’s flats first and then final colours added to really make it all pop on the shelves.

And here’s just a little bit of that detail… it’s so incredibly impressive that we wanted to blow it all up a bit to show you…

Okay, back to the process and the final stages – colours!

Another SMASH!-ing cover there from Andy (no, we’re not going to stop using Smash!-ing, it’s way too perfect a fit!) Thanks so much to him for sending it along to us.

You can find Smash! issue 2 in comics shops and from the 2000 AD webshop and app on 27 November, and there’s also the chance to pick up all three SMASH! Issues in a bundle from the webshop right here.  

Andy’s Covers Uncovered for Smash! Issue 1 is a must of course, but there’s also these to take a little look at – Prog 2287, Prog 2290, Prog 2312,  Megazine 444, and not forgetting the Prog 2350 subscriber-exclusive 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!

This week we have another fabulous Rufus Dayglo Devil’s Railroad cover to delight you on the cover of Prog 2360 – one that you’ve possibly already seen in the promotional images for this great series by Peter Milligan and Rufus Dayglo.

We’re now deep into the incredible sci-fi love story that began in Prog 2352, Milligan and Dayglo thrilling us with a tale of two young lovers living in a war zone who’ve just discovered they’re expecting. Wanting something as simple as a life during wartime and a life not threatened every day for their child, they’ve joined The Devil’s Railroad, the dangerous people smuggling route offering them sanctuary on Earth.

It’s exactly the sort of politically-infused sci-fi that 2000 AD has always been known for, a heady mix of epic love story and social commentary that has already proved a huge hit with fans.

So, time to join the young lovers once more, as Constance and Palamon feel like they’ve got the weight of the world on them in this latest cover by Rufus, such a great cover in fact that Tharg’s already been using it for publicity…

.

Compared to Rufus’ first cover for The Devil’s Railroad, this one was a lot easier, all starting, as Rufus will tell you, with just the one cover rough… this one in fact…

RUFUS DAYGLO: This cover came to me pretty much fully formed as an idea… with the World oppressively failing to welcome our desperate young refugees. 

Sometimes it really is that simple!

So the two elements of the cover were set and done… first the desperate young lovers…

And then the world above them, full of abuse and hatred…

But even here where the cover came together so easily, there’s still things that cause the art droid problems – back to Rufus again…

RUFUS DAYGLO: The only thing I tinkered/struggled with was colouring the couple! I tried various simple colour tones before fully colouring them.

The Globe on this cover is actually a Plastic toy Globe I bought at a Berlin flea market from a middle-aged Syrian refugee, who was selling odds and ends to try and make cash. He was an architect from Damascus and we talked in English.

I did two versions of this cover, one with the couple small, almost crushed by the World, and the other with a larger couple, with all the abusive graffiti behind them.

And here are just a few of the various combinations of figures and colours that Rufus tried before settling on the final cover…

All of which led to that iconic final cover – so iconic and representative of The Devil’s Railroad, absolutely stunning…

Thank you again to Rufus for all the details of this second Devil’s Railroad cover – and what a fabulous cover it is! Thanks so much to Rufus for sharing that with us. Find the cover on the Prog wherever thrill power is sold, comic shops, newsagents, and of course the 2000 AD web shop.

For more on The Devil’s Railroad, make sure you read our interview with Milligan and Dayglo, and have a look at Rufus’ first Devil’s Railroad Covers Uncovered as well, you can find that here.

And for more from 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 is available as 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.

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!

Helium: Scorched Earth by Ian Edginton and D’Israeli is absolutely blasting through the pages of the Prog right now, giving us the thrills of a beautifully strange world. 2000 AD Prog 2359 finds the forces of Ris in the skies above our heroes – as you’ll see from the latest fabulous cover by D’Israeli…

When Helium debuted for a first series in 2015, it told a fabulous tale of adventure in a sumptuously realised world where war has devastated the environment, leading the survivors to seek refuge above the toxic cloud of biological and chemical weapon smog that blankets the world below.

But as we’ve seen in the second series, Scorched Earth, there’s a lot of life both below and in the Fugue Cloud. Our heroes Constable Hodge, her deputy Sol, and the strange Professor Bloom, who claims he can transform the world, are now on the run from the forces of Ris, the city under the Fugue.

All of which has led them to the small township inside the Fugue, a township under a very weird organic shell. But any peace has been shattered as the Ris battle carrier Bellerophon looms overhead. And that’s exactly where we are on this latest cover from D’Israeli.

So, over to D’Israeli to tell you all about it…

MATT BROOKER: This image was produced using a Wacom drawing tablet and Clip Studio Paint software. The same effects can be produced in other graphics programs.

This was an unusual one for a couple of reasons – the first was the choice of cover design itself. For my whole time at 2000AD, Tharg-in-Residence Matt Smith has given me a clear brief for each cover. I’ll usually produce 1-2 interpretations of that brief, plus one complete outlier idea of my own. Matt will usually choose one of the variants on the brief and off we go.

This time, though, Matt’s brief was to show the carrier Bellerophon bombarding the marketplace of the domed town (Rough number 1), and I also produced a variant with the Bellerophon bombarding the dome as seen from the outside (Rough number 2).

We went with the brief of rough number 1, but once I started penciling the image I remembered that the clothing of the inhabitants of the dome was Middle-Eastern in style, and we were showing them being bombarded with artillery. Given current sensitivities over the Israel-Gaza crisis, I thought it best to check back with Matt, and after some thought we went with the second idea, removing the explosions from that version so we just see the huge ship menacing the dome.

That actually made the job quite a bit simpler – I’d already used 3D models to get the Bellerophon looking right in the roughs, so most of the job would be inking over the render. This cover was the first one I’ve ever done without needing to do pencils!

Or inks, technically – I was only using coloured outlines for this image, which in the old days would have been classified as “colour holds,” not inks.

Having the model to work from saved me a lot of effort in terms of setting up with structure of the drawing, but I still had to add all the gridwork on the outside of the ship.

I’d covered the model in a chequerboard pattern to act as guides for the gridwork, but it’s still a slog drawing it all in. The most difficult bit is working out how to start tailing off the amount of detail into the distance, so the density of the drawing looks consistent. If you try and draw every last girder, the drawing will look like a mess, but tail off too soon and it looks sparse and lazy…

The next step was to add blacks under the girderwork – for printing purposes, black needs to be on its own layer above the colours, so I traced off the shape of the Bellerophon in black on a layer above the linework, then selected the contents of the linework layer (CMD/CTRL + click on the thumbnail for the layer in Clip Studio) and used that to make a Layer Mask that cut out the linework from the black.

Following that, time to add flat colour and a basic grad to make it look as if the dome is glowing, all on layers beneath the black and the linework…

Next, I added modelling to the background grad, grads and highlights to the Bellerophon’s propellors (to suggest movement) and also to add yellow highlights to some of the linework on the Bellerophon to help it “pop.”

After that, the final touches – I put in a subtle grad on the blacks so the giant carrier would look as if it were fading into the mist with distance, and I added some detail to the sky – a magenta grad and blue-green streaks which help break up the background a bit. I’m not sure what this effect is meant to represent, but I’ve been putting it in since early in series 1, so there you go.

The final step (not shown) is to export the file to Photoshop, and carefully collapse the layers to give me a CMYK TIFF file suitable for printing. 

Thank you so much to D’Israeli/Matt for sending that lot across. It’s a really striking bit of cover art that you’ll be seeing on the shelves of your local emporium stocking Tharg’s finest right now. And of course it’s available from the 2000 AD webshop as well.

If you’re after more Helium, we interviewed writer Ian Edginton about Scorched Earth here and we talked of the art of Scorched Earth with D’Israeli here. And as for more from both gents… do be sure to dive into the interview archives… Fiends of the Eastern Front: 1812, interview with Ian and Dave Taylor, Fiends of the Eastern Front: 1963, interview with Ian, Judge Dredd: Babel, interview with Ian and Matt, and Scarlet Traces: Storm Front, interview with Ian and Matt. Plus, don’t miss both Ian and Matt talking on The Lockdown Tapes.