Rejoice Earthlets as the 40 Year Special is finally ready to be beamed to your Optical Receptors! The mighty one has pulled out all the stops to bring a Prog jam-packed with some of the very greatest Thrills from the very best creators!
There are few artdroids that could do justice to such a monumental Prog, however it is all in a day’s work for the daddy of both Judge Dredd and Johnny Alpha, the mighty Carlos Ezquerra!
Below, we see Carlos’ sketch for the cover, featuring three of the most iconic, not to mention grumpy, faces in British comics.
The 2000AD ABBA tribute album gets a cover.
After studying his handome features, the Mighty One approves the rough and instructs the Ezquerra Droid to “Get on with it!”
Note, the Ezquerra jaggies in full effect here. Each one is lovingly raised on a farm in Andorra before being carefully placed on Carlos’ artwork…
Tharg about to play with his ThreeA figures
Then the Ezquerra droid, a pioneer of computer coloured comic artwork, digitally colours the piece. It is a little known fact that every time Carlos does a cover, the computer he uses has to be replaced as it explodes with pure Thrillpower.
The mean, the green and the machine
Not content with providing the cover of the 40th special, Tharg also created an exclusive print for Vice Press, to be sold at the excellent 40th Anniversary Celebration in London. The print featured Dredd from 1977 having a chin off against Dredd from 2017! How fashion’s change, eh? Here’s the rough…
“A word of advice, look out for a juve called Maybe…”
Set your Thrillbuffers at maximum for those amazing inks – swoon!
“Hey Joe, you remeber the codpiece years?” “No.”
Lastly a bit of tone and text for the final print, absolutely Lawsome!
Who the hell’s gonna mess with them?
Huge thanks to Carlos for sending the images and for attending the 40th Anniversary bash. He sketched ALL day, chatted to fans and was as kind and gracious as ever.
Here’s to another 40 years of Carlos characters and covers!
Following reports that producer Adi Shankar claimed he is working on a sequel to the 2012 movie DREDD, co-owner of Judge Dredd and one of the film’s executive producers, Jason Kingsley, moved to ensure fans aren’t being mislead:
“While we truly do appreciate Adi’s enthusiasm for Judge Dredd, he has no involvement with the franchise and any future cinematic or small screen outings.
“Claims of him pushing forward a sequel to DREDD are not true and we don’t want fans to get excited only to have their hopes dashed. 2000 AD and Rebellion continue to work hard to bring the future’s greatest lawman back to screens.”
The fan-led petition for a DREDD sequel or TV series based on Judge Dredd has hit more than 150,000 signatures while the Facebook community continues to thrive!
Prog 1998 spells certain doom for a major Dredd character, but for whom does the bell toll? Dredd has finally pushed serial, serial killer PJ Maybe over the edge and he has promised to murder someone close to the lawman. Who will it be? Dredd’s niece Vienna? Lovely Old Mrs Gunderson? Bob, the sector 13 hottie stall vendor? Please, please let it be wubbish old Walter!
Below we see a couple of Paul’s initial, very imaginative ideas. Firstly a wonderfully ominous chalk outline in Dredd’s shadow and secondly, a shot of those tight boots as Dredd surveys the scene of the murder, chilling…
Ooooooh, Vienna!?!
The third idea is the one that tickled Tharg’s Belegusian thrill bone, as our favourite lawman looks sullen at the grisly scene…
Chief suspect in the murder was Keith Haring…
With the final sketch approved, it was time for Paul to break out the brushes to ink the final image…
White liiiiiines… blown away!
With the tense scene rendered, it was beamed to colour droid supremo Chris Blthye to work his magic on…
Tsk! Bloody grafitti is getting worse…
Huge thanks to Paul for sending the scrotnig images. This is an excellent cover that has me desperate to find out who lives and who dies!
Back in Prog 1981 we were in the middle of Mike Carroll’s summer epic, ‘Every Empire Falls’, which saw an attempted hostile takeover of Megacity-One by treacherous dissenters in Texas City and Brit-Cit. Of course, Dredd wasn’t going to take this lying down, so a plot was hatched fake his death before taking him prisoner in Brit Cit. As we know, Dredd is a very hard man to kill and it wasn’t long before the battered and beaten lawman led the fight back for his beloved home, but at what cost?
Premier artdroid, Jon Davis-Hunt produced this glorious cover, which for me, is easily a contender for cover of the year. Jon is currently providing beautiful artwork for the disturbingly grisly ‘Clean Room’ for Vertigo comics, but took time out of his hectic schedule to work on a piece which had been rattling around his curcuits for a while.
He said “I originally had the idea for this cover about a year ago, but had been too busy with stuff to get any time to work on it. My idea was, to have Dredd, seated after a hard fight, with his helmet off, held between his legs. He would be sitting in a strong shadow, the angle of which, as it fell across his face, would not only obscure his eyes (as the helmet normally does) but actually mirror the angle of the helmets nose section.”
“I was heading to Thought Bubble at the end of November and I realised that John Burdis would be there. As he is such a thoroughly nice chap, I figured he would be up for posing for a reference photo. I wanted to do a really detailed version of Dredd’s suit and I figured, as Johns real-life, Planet Replicas version was so ace, it’d be the perfect opportunity. I pitched the idea to Tharg who liked it, then headed off to Leeds to find John. As you can see, he was a total gent and agreed to pose for this photo. Cheers John! :)”
This isn’t the first time that Cellar of Dredd owner John has modelled for 2000AD droids. He has also posed for greats such as Greg Staples and Laurence Campbell, though obviously those images were heavily edited to make Dredd more manly, slender and chiselled…
A thoroughly nice chap, apparently… 🙂
Of course, the above picture in no way resembles this classic Cliff Robinson cover of Prog 1194…
“I’d give that ten years if I were you…”
Jon continues “With a nice photo to help with ref, I then sketched out the pose. I exaggerated Dredd’s size and also tried to get him to hunch over a little more, to emphasise the idea that he’d just been in a bloody and hard fought battle…”
Oor Joey…
“Next came the inks. I went straight from my rough sketch to the inks, as I felt the proportions of the sketch were mostly there. As I worked on each element, I then began to ad in all the scarring, battle-marks and blood. I figured that the Judge uniform would be layered, with armoured weave and multiple layers under the surface for insulation, protection etc and tried to show this on various points. I also tried to imagine specific instances that had occurred – you’ll notice that on Dredd’s right side, his eagle and arm is peppered with shrapnel marks where I imagined he had turned at the last minute to avoid a grenade etc.”
Suprisingly, Dredd’s Megadate profile picture didn’t lead to many dates…
“With the inks done, it was time to flat out the colours. I did toy with the idea of darkening the costume and making it more gritty, maybe even adopting the darker uniform of the film (the good one, not the bad Stallone one). But in the end, decided to go with the original colours.”
He’s been shot and blown up, of course he’s flat!
“With flats done, I then move onto modelling. I tend to keep that fairly simple now, just using a few layers for highlights and a few for shadows.”
Dredd HATED those fiddly little ketchup sachets…
“Finally, lighting. I tried to emphasise the materials here, especially the gold of the armour. I also added in the suggestion of the light source (although I used a large degree of artistic license for this). 🙂 “
He just needs to pop it in a boil wash with new, improved Megsil Powder and those stains will be gone, gone, gone!
“And there you have it!”
You certainly do! Huge thanks to Jon for the images and text. Be sure to check out his site at http://www.jondavis-hunt.com/ for some truly breath taing images! Look out for the making of Jon’s beautiful Anderson cover of Prog 1995 soon!
The king of cool, Jake Lynch is back with an absolutely iconic Dredd cover for Prog 1990! Jake has been a staunch supporter of 2000AD Covers Uncovered, but sadly, most of his posts have resulted in him being a recipient of a Rigellion Hotshot from the Mighty One himself.
I was hoping things would have gotten better for Jake, it seems not. He said “Tharg has given permission for all Earthbound, Nerve Centre Staff to abuse me. To that end, CyberMatt contacted me around 11pm one evening demanding I do a cover at short notice. He made it clear that I was not worthy…”
“Of the thumbnails submitted, one was selected then quickly inked up…”
Dredd brandishes his impressive weapon…
Disgusting treatment, dammit though, I adore those stylised buildings. The cits are cool too! Jake continues “This was followed by the usual routine of tone and colour…”
Tonely the Stonely!
Jake continues “Dredd’s posture looks a bit wrong so I rotate the image a tad to try to compensate…”
“That ain’t no Pokemon kid!”
But, dear reader, I know wht you’re thinking, the printed cover was waaay different. Jake explains “After the image was submitted, CyberMatt decreed that the background was unworthy, demanded it be removed and my Rigellian Hotshot was in the post. I also used the opportunity to reduce Dredds mouth a bit.”
BANG! And the cits are gone!
“Adjustments made and job done…” DING DONG!
“Oh goody, the Postie’s here, I wonder what exciting stuff she’s got for me to-AARRRGGHHhhhh…”
Oh no! it looks like Jake has incurred the wrath of Tharg again! A monumental thank you to Jake, I’ll make sure I send some flowers to the Art Droid Mechanics on behalf of this blog!
Welcome to the first official 2000 AD Covers Uncovered – with your host, superfan Pete Wells! Take it away Pete…
Each week we will explore how the covers of Tharg’s mighty publications are created with commentaries by artdroids, exclusive images and a whole host of Grud-awful puns!
It is fitting that this inaugural cover breakdown features the debut cover of the brilliant Tom Foster. Tom kicks off the brand new Reclamation storyline in fine style with this cover that is already an instant classic. Dredd has been shot, blown up, teleported to a Brit Cit hospital, probably got infected with MRSA and is still taking the fight back to those rotters from Texas City. Yeehaw!
I asked Tom to tell us about his exciting first cover, he said “I had had the idea for a Dredd image with this basic design for a while – ever since I finished my first assignment for 2000 AD. I thought I’d do it and put it up on my Facebook page as a way of oh-so-gently implying that I might be a good fit for Dredd. Thank god I didn’t because a) It probably would have been considerably worse, given my inexperience b) It wouldn’t have been published c) I wouldn’t have gotten any money. So, when Tharg approached me earlier this year, asking for some ideas for a generic Dredd cover, I had one in the chamber ready to go. I did a 3D digital mock-up (as is my usual practice) and sent it to him along with two ideas I quite liked. I quite liked them, but they remained in the clip (this one being in the chamber), as the original idea, having had the longest gestation period, was probably the most fully formed.”
The world’s first naked relay runner…
Tom continues “Luckily, I had also taken some reference photos of a big, strapping friend of mine when I originally thought of the idea. You can see how little the basic idea really changed since then…”
That’s how he rolls…
“The pencils were done according to my usual method: basic proportions and layout traced from a printout of the digital mock-up, and then worked into heavily with reference to photography and the original 3D render itself.”
Dredd looked upon his dirty protest and was happy…
“Then inks with a sable brush. I ditched my first attempt at the inks about a third of the way through as I was a little out of practice and wasn’t satisfied with the quality, but, second time ’round, I was pleased enough with it to only make changes with white-out. Then I cut out a Frisket Film mask to cover Dredd, taped the piece to my bathroom wall and splattered ink all over it with considerable relish. This was risky and, at one point, I thought I’d completely gone too far. Luckily it sort of just worked out as those one-shot deals often do.”
“Yes! Stand in the corner Joseph and we do NOT want to see your silly face”
“After that, a scan, a colour removal, a conversion to bitmap and I was ready to rock. And by ‘rock’ I mean sit in front of a computer for hours, drawing with a big plastic pen.”
“Hmmmm, Chopper seems to have changed his MO…”
“The colours I did digitally. I don’t use a lot of layers when I’m colouring, certainly not for the purposes of rendering, as I think they can give the work a bit of a weird, translucent look and I like my rendering to look as solid and three-dimensional as possible, even if that means taking a bit more time over it.”
Dredd was SURE someone was trying to tell him something…
So, was Tom okay with the printed piece? He said “I’m very happy with the finished digital image. I think I may need to work on getting my stuff print-ready as I’m never 100% confident of how they’ll come out of the four colour ink-beast, but generally I’m really pleased with what I’ve done with it. He looks like Dredd, and that was my first priority. There are a couple of little niggles here and there, but nothing I’d have an anxiety dream about. All around, massive fun and a great little assignment to cherish as my first cover.”
Too drokkin’ right! That cover is absolutely amazing and has quite rightly received universal acclaim! Congratulations to Tom on his first of hopefully many brilliant covers and a HUGE thank you for sending the fascinating glimpse into his workflow (and kitchen!)
THE DREDD MOVIE SEQUEL COMIC IS BACK IN A TWO-PART SPECIAL!
Judge Dredd heads beyond the walls of Mega-City One and into the irradiated wasteland known as The Cursed Earth in search of a deadly assassin, who has been infiltrating the metropolis and mercilessly executing particular targets. Just what is the truth behind the murders?
DREDD: Dust is the latest US format comic-book sequel to the critically-acclaimed cult movie DREDD, from series writer Arthur Wyatt and Judge Dredd and Doctor Who artist Ben Willsher!
Issue two is out now from all good comic book stores and digitally from the 2000 AD webshop and apps!
The Dreddmovie sequel comic is back in a two-part US-format special – DUSTby Arthur Wyatt and Ben Willsher!
When Judge Dredd is called to a ruthless gang slaying, it seems a vigilante is at work, but a residue of dust left behind indicate that this is no ordinary perp and Dredd’s quest for answers leads beyond the walls of Mega-City One and into the inhospitable irradiated wasteland called The Cursed Earth!
DUST is the latest comic-book sequel to the critically-acclaimed cult movie DREDD!
Available now from all good comic book shops in the UK and May 11th from comic stores in North America – order your copy by using Diamond code FEB161726.
DUSTis also available digitally from the 2000 AD webshop and Apple, Android, and Windows 10 apps now!
Leah Moore, John Reppion and Tom Foster are our guests on the official 2000 AD podcast to talk about Brit-Cit Noir, the ghoulish new collection of two tales of the weird from the Britain of Judge Dredd’s world. Plus, writer of the DREDD movie sequel tie-in series, Arthur Wyatt, discusses bringing Alex Garland’s vision to the comics page.
The 2000 AD Thrill-Cast is the award-winning podcast that takes you behind-the-scenes at the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic! As well as interviewing top creators and famous fans, publicity droid Molch-R brings you announcements, competitions, and much more!
