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…
