Tag: interview

Psi Judge Lillian Storm is one of Brit-Cit’s finest, is back right now in the Judge Dredd Megazine for the new series of Storm Warning, Dead and Gone.

Originally created by John Reppion, Leah Moore, and Tom Foster and first appearing in The Relic (Megazine 361 to 366), Lillian’s gone on to feature in four more series with the fifth, Dead and Gone, beginning in last month’s Megazine issue 349.

The usually grumpy Lillian Storm has the ability to speak to the dead, which would be enough to put anyone on edge in itself, but Storm also has the constant companionship of the spirits of children who’ve been with her since a demonic ritual. So, yes, it’s understandable that she’s just so ticked off all the time.

But for the new series, we start with a shocker… yes, Lillian Storm is dead.

How? Why? And what’s going to happen next? Well, for that, it’s time to talk to Storm Warning co-creator John Reppion…

John, great to chat to you, hope all is going well there with you and yours and you’re safe and well and haven’t had to start burning valuable things to keep warm this winter.

Best way to start off is have you tell us just what we’ve got to expect with this latest outing for Psi-Judge Lillian Storm and just what terrifying predicament she’s in here in Dead & Gone.

JOHN REPPION: Lillian Storm started out life at an orphanage where a terrifying occult experiment went wrong, killing the other children and tethering their ghosts to her forever. Lillian grew up but the other kids never did, and their spirits allowed her to communicate with the dead. Under Judge Campbell, who became the head of Brit-Cit Psi Div, Lillian became a Judge handling some of Brit Cit’s weirdest cases.

Now, Judge Storm is dead. Dead and Gone gives us the story of what led to her death, and what’s going to happen next.

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How many episodes do we have for this one?

JR: Six parts in all, so it’s a pretty lengthy one.

This time around, we have Clint Langley on artwork, who’s already got a little experience with Storm Warning after providing the art for Storm Warning vs Blackhawk in the 2000 AD 2020 Sci‑Fi Special.

John, you’ve already had the pleasure of two fine talents on Storm Warning, your co-creator Tom Foster, and Jimmy Broxton. But what sort of artistic delights is Clint bringing to the party here?

JR: Yes, Tom basically created the character and the world with Leah and myself, so his series are really the starting point of the whole thing. As a writer it’s great to see characters you’ve helped create interpreted by different artists and I can honestly say that I’ve loved all the different versions of Storm and her Brit‑Cit that Tom, Jimmy, and Clint have created.

I think Clint is absolutely perfect for Dead and Gone, which is quite a dark story in some ways, and I feel like you can really tell how much fun he’s having with the whole thing, especially in this second installment which has just hit the shelves.  

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Did you know Clint was returning to Storm Warning or was it one of those great surprise moments?

JR: I think I found out maybe halfway through scripting that Clint was going to be the artist. My immediate reaction was that that was going to be perfect. He did such a fantastic job on the Blackhawk crossover, and this series is every bit as mad and frenetic as that, so I knew it would work.

Without wanting to give too much away, this is a pretty monstery series – there’s lots of cool, weird baddies of one form or another, and Clint does that just brilliantly. But, also, it’s the textures and the density of the artwork. Whether we’re in Brit-Cit or the Underworld then Clint just throws everything he’s got into every little detail, so it’s a visual feast.

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John, outside of comics you have a great interest in the world of ghostly Britain and the folklore of these isles. I think it’s easy to see why the setting and themes of Storm Warning really do play to both what you know and what you obviously find interesting in the occult of Britain.

JR: Yeah, I’ve written loads of articles about British folklore and ghosts and weird history and all that kind of thing. Even a book or two. I’ve been sort of obsessed with all that stuff since I was a kid. I grew up visiting a giants grave in a little village a few miles from my house with my grandad, and playing with friends in a big cemetery, and an abandoned school, and a derelict factory… blame Scooby Doo and the Usborne books of Ghost, Monsters, etc, I suppose.

I often try to get some of that British Weird into what I’m writing (Finder & Keeper in Regened does some similar stuff in a more All Ages friendly way). When Leah and I were first asked to come up with a Brit‑Cit series then we both knew that was what we were going for; a very British spookiness.

So what is it about Brit Cit that really does seem to lend itself more to horror (with a sci-fi twist of course) than somewhere like MC-1? (Not that MC-1 hasn’t had its fair share of horrors, but to my mind I always picture Brit Cit as more steampunky and folklore-tinged.)

JR: So, for the Storm Warning world, I sort of started thinking about it all with Occult Detectives like Dr. John Silence and Thomas Carnacki in mind. That Victorian/Edwardian clash of technology and the supernatural. Brit-Cit has all of our history and all of that old British stuff buried beneath it, just as London really does. All of the ghosts and legends are still there, but there’s all this modern tech and infrastructure crammed in around and on top of it all. It’s like a place that’s overstuffed with everything and it’s all spilling out all over the place.

Finally, what else can we expect from you both – and of course you and Leah, John – whether that’s for Tharg or (whisper it quietly and he may not hear you) outside of 2000 AD?

JR: Well, Leah’s been busy on very high-profile music books, working with the likes of The Doors, Joan Jett, Tori Amos, and more recently Motley Crue. We’re literally just back from the Thought Bubble comics festival in Harrogate today where myself and artist M D Penman launched the hardback edition of our Graphic Novel adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A very nice fella by the name of Alan Moore very kindly wrote us a lovely introduction for it.

Thank you so much to John for getting back to us – he really had pretty much walked in from Thought Bubble, got some sleep, woken up, and straight away set about doing this! Now that’s dedication to (and maybe a little bit of fear of) Tharg!

You can find the incredible Storm Warning right now in the pages of the Megazine – the new 6-part Dead and Gone started in issue 349, which was out last week, and continues in issue 350, out on 16 November with a gorgeous looking Tom Foster Storm Warning cover! Get it wherever the Galaxy’s Greatest is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop!

And as for the previous series, here’s the complete Lillian Storm in Storm Warning:

The Relic (Megazine 361–366) – Leah Moore, John Reppion, Tom Foster
Over My Dead Body (Megazine 400–403) – Moore & Reppion, Jimmy Broxton
Green and Pleasant Land (Megazine 404–408) – Moore & Reppion, Foster
Storm Warning Vs Blackhawk (2000 AD 2020 Sci-Fi Special) – Reppion, Clint Langley
Dead and Gone (Megazine 449–454) – Reppion & Langley

And be sure to check out John Reppion and Leah Moore’s website – right here.

The Sov Psi-Division is in Mega-City One and they’re after two of their own! Judge Dredd: Buratino Must Die is the latest thrill-powered series from Rob Williams and Henry Flint and it’s running right now in the pages of the Galaxy’s Greatest!

When Judge Dredd and the Justice Department brought Sov Psi-Judges Buratino and Isaaks to sanctuary in Mega-City One after the events of End Of Days, we all knew there’d be repercussions – and those repercussions are hitting MC-1 right now in Buratino Must Die, a 6-part Dredd written by Rob Williams and drawn by Henry Flint.

Bad things are coming to claim what’s theirs – as Buratino says on the final page of episode one  – “and then Zersetzung will come for us.” Yep, Sov Psi-Div is coming to Mega-City One and that’s bad news for everyone.

Judge Dredd: Buratino Must Die runs in 2000 AD Progs 2303-2305 and 2307-2309. You can catch the third episode out on the shelves and in the 2000 AD web shop right now.

We spoke to Rob and Henry about the series and what it means for Dredd – although sadly Henry was knee-deep in pages and pages of work and desperately in need of an oil change down in Tharg’s robo-repair quarters. So, this one’s mostly Rob, with Henry talking a little on his process and style for Buratino Must Die later on…

Okay then, time to chat to Rob and Henry…

Rob you’ve just started a new Judge Dredd series, Buratino Must Die, something that comes out of your recent Dredd together, End Of Days, as we see the ramifications for MC-1 of them harbouring two very high-level Sov Psi-Judges.

Obviously, I could go in-depth on what I might think this one’s all about, but it’s so much better to hear what you think about the series. So, what’s going on here in Buratino Must Die and what can we expect from the series to come?

ROB WILLIAMS: Buratino was the head of Zersetzung (which was a psychological warfare technique used by the Stasi in East Berlin, if you want to know the term’s origin).

This was something of a throwaway line in End of Days about the Sov’s Psi Division. But I started thinking about how, culturally, that might be a different thing to the Sovs. And Buratino was so immediately an exciting character – how he appears to be a child with a freakishly large head but is obviously massively intelligent and a hugely powerful psychic. Henry just drew him to look so freakily odd.

He’s a Sov, but he aided Dredd and Anderson in End of Days. But what are his true motives? And will Mega-City One take him in – for good or ill. And after that it’s sort of a psychic warfare on the streets of the Big Meg in the style of Akira. I knew Henry would draw the living daylights out of that, so it got me excited. Buratino has turned his back on the Sovs and he knows so many secrets, so they send the Zersetzung to come take him out. Hence our title.

Was this always the plan, spinning this out of End of Days, or was it simply one of those things that naturally suggested itself while you were plotting out that one?

RW: So many of my Dredd stories seem to suggest themselves from plot points in prior stories, rather than there being some huge master plan. I forget but I’m pretty sure Buratino wasn’t a major part of the plotting of End of Days. More so when Dredd got to Sov – I needed a character there and he immediately popped off the page. Usually when that happens it’s best to listen and do more with that character. That approach has served me well with characters like Dirty Frank, Sensitive Klegg, Sentientoid. You don’t go in going “Right, let’s plan out a character to drive stories in the future.” They turn up and some seem to raise their hand asking for more story, while others don’t so much.

And seeing as your Dredd work right now seems to be joining the dots in a big way, with the events of everything from Titan, The Small House, Enceladus, the whole Maitland saga, and so much more – all seeming to be building to a grand plan of yours for MC-1 and Dredd – will we be seeing the ramifications of this one playing out in future Dredd storylines for you?

RW: There’s an end planned for the Judge Maitland storyline with Arthur Wyatt and I. There’s some talk of a big plot event in the future of Dredd’s world but the Dreddworld has many parents so we’ll see if that comes to fruition. You can’t come in with autonomy and do something seismic in Dreddworld.  In a lot of ways The Small House was the culmination of a decade worth of plot threads for a lot of my Mega-City One stories. But other stories sort of suggest themselves…

Now, Rob, a bone to pick with you about episode 2…

You had the perfect opportunity at the start of episode 2 to make this one the story we all want to see – but sorry, you blew it.

It was all there, the perfect set-up, create a false flag with making us think it’s all about some huge thing with the Sovs coming to get their own and then deliver the storyline we all want to see you do. But no, you decided not to go there. I mean, seriously, how could you not have spun the whole thing off into the ongoing adventures of Dredd and THE HORSE? 

Gee, talk about missed opportunities. I mean, I’m sure Henry would be onboard for page after page after page of epic adventures featuring a horse? After all, we know how much artists love drawing horses. Am I right?

RW: Well, I’d happily write Dredd and the Horse sat in a pub chewing the fat for page after page. But I’m not sure it’d have the requisite levels of thrill power. And I’d get booted out for doing the “why the long face?” joke every episode. The vaudeville hook would come in from Tharg pretty fast.

However, by the time we get to episode 2 and that perfect Dredd/Anderson moment that ends with the whole ‘My boyfriend, wadda ya gonna do, huh?’ – well, that’s a little way towards forgiving you for dropping the ball on the whole missing Horse storyline.

RW: Writing Anderson and Dredd interacting is just a hoot. It’s probably me riffing on City of The Damned (which, when I was, what? 13, just was the most exciting story imaginable in Dredd). They’ve been through so much together. There’s a rare trust there. She can take the piss out of him and he’ll allow it. 

Okay, so we’ve had all the set-up in the first couple of episodes, the whole idea of the Sovs sending in their Psi-Div, Zersetzung, to MC-1 and the chaos and destruction that Buratino and Isaaks know is coming. And we’ve had the brilliance of that second episode of Dredd getting stymied by Buratino, pulling in Anderson to the investigation, shades of the whole Small House thing and Dredd’s penchant for assembling a trusted team around him.

But in episode 3, we really see things explode. We get the introduction of a talented new Psi-Judge, Huang, and we get to see just how dangerous the Zersetzung are. And, with the combination of the Zersetzung and Huang’s psi-powers, you’ve taken some delight in taking us back to Dredd’s darkest memories and those moments of The Apocalypse War.

How enjoyable was it to be able to revisit those classic Wagner, Grant & Ezquerra scenes?

RW: The Apocalypse War is, for my money, probably Dredd at its peak. And I’m including the Block Mania buildup in that. You get McMahon, Bolland, Ron Smith, Steve Dillon (THAT Orlok episode) and then that slips into… just the greatest long-burn storyline and Carlos drew it all. It’s also got the best Dredd moment of all time “Request Denied.” I love that storyline a bit too much, and probably have nodded back to it too much in my Dredd work. Something of which I’m guilty of again here. But it’s all so good.

Back to Buratino Must Die… the Sov aspect of this is obviously hugely important, and you’ve recently played with this in The Special Relationship.

Have you got some kind of grand plan involving the Sovs here in your Dredds? [Yeah, like you’re going to tell me a load about that one!]

RW: I do have an idea, we’ll see if I can convince Tharg to let me do it. 

Before we get to chatting about Henry and to Henry – what sorts of things do we have to look forward to from the pair of you – both for our Lord & Master Tharg and elsewhere? (The Horse, The HORSE, THE HORSE… tell us you’re writing about THE DAMN HORSE!)

RW: I did a Dredd tale called They Shoot Talking Horse Don’t They? That was maybe the best title I could hope to come up with. So I think we’re done with talking horses for a little while at least.

Dammit.

RW: Henry and I are doing something else together after this. I believe, which is pretty exciting. It’s not Dreddworld. But I’m hoping to get him on another Dredd soon, if he’s not sick of me by then.

Now, let’s talk about Henry for a bit Rob… One thing that’s rather different this time is Henry’s artwork. Rob, I don’t think it’s too much praise to describe Henry as THE Dredd artist right now. What do you think of what he’s done here?

RW: I’ll embarrass him here, I’m sure, but Henry’s just an astonishingly good comic artist. His storytelling is pretty immaculate – not just the action beats but the character interactions, the acting performances from the main players. All that stuff that just raises a script up a bunch of levels compared to a less accomplished artist.

And then you have his wild imagination. How psychic effects work on the page, laboratory and building and road designs. It’s all so esoteric and very definitely Henry, while existing in Dredd’s world. He just lifts whatever he’s drawing.

We’ve worked together a bunch and it’s always a huge, well, relief when you see Henry’s pages. Because whatever I’ve written he’s not only delivered it well, but he’s improved it, elevated it. The really good artists make you a better writer just by how they’ve depicted your script.

Okay Henry, I know you’re snowed under right now, so let’s quickly talk art… your art for this one is different – there’s a fineness/finesse to the line here, an effect your putting on things, that look for Anderson, the hair, it’s just different…

There’s even something about it that reminds me, in some little way, of the wonderful lines of the classic comic artists who worked on the girls comics of the 60s and 70s.

Over on your Facebook, you’ve been teasing us with small details over the differences in your process recently, new fast-flowing fountain pen, changes to your scanning process, contrast control, scanned so it’s not totally black, a hint of red in the black, getting the linework and colour merging together, that sort of thing – all of which is fascinating but mystifying to us non-artists out there!

So, what have you done with your process to get this look?

HENRY FLINT: Thanks for getting in contact… Okay, process stuff… it’s ever trying to get back to the printing process… 80’s style… The black line is less black and less of the vivid computer colours… The printing process is TOO good these days and I feel I have to find ways to rough it up a bit.

The writing has a certain mood and I want to match that… I’ve scanned the line in high definition but it still retains a fuzzy edge when you zoom in, this way I’m getting so much more detail than before.

Before, the fine crosshatched lines would merge together to make one black mass… or the opposite would happen and the fine lines would fade into white… it’s either one or the other… very annoying.

I really hope the difference is noticeable and the end result, I’m hoping, is something a bit more eye friendly…  I’m loving what Rob’s doing writing wise… some strange things are happening… this is a dark drama Dredd… love these the best. And Anderson is in it.

And with that, he was done – Tharg complaining that he’d had more than his five-minute oil change break and that it was way past time he got back to drawing.

Thanks so much to Rob and Henry for taking the time to chat with us. Always a treat. Judge Dredd: Buratino Must Die runs in 2000 AD Progs 2303-2305 and 2307-2309. You can catch the third episode out on the shelves and in the 2000 AD web shop right now…

Starting this month in Judge Dredd Megazine issue 449 (the one with the devilisssshly delightful Nick Percival cover) we have a new two-part Judge Dredd strip, Babel, by the terrific team of Ian Edginton and D’Israeli.

Beginning here in Megazine issue 449 and finishing up in Megazine issue 450, Judge Dredd: Babel finds Dredd dealing with extraterrestrial developers, meaning it’s time for a little diplomacy… and you know how much he enjoys that.

So, time to chat with the writing & art team of Ian Edginton and D’Israeli (aka Matt Brooker) about the thrill of Judge Dredd dealing with the latest off-world interest in Mega-City One’s re-development.

Ian, D’Israeli/Matt, lovely to chat to you, hope that the world is weird and wonderful rather than plague-ridden and horrible for you both right now.

Starting in Megazine 449, you’re writing and drawing Judge Dredd: Babel. It all comes from the events of Ian’s last Judge Dredd Megazine tale – Dez Rez (Megazine 438), with art that time by Dave Taylor. In that one, there was a quantum tunnel to Alpha Centauri being built and, in a Hitchhiker’s Guide style twist, the Earth’s been sold to some aliens who want to use the Earth as prime development estate right next to it.

Now, in Babel, we’re seeing the ramifications of that one – can you fill us in on what to expect in Babel?

IAN EDGINTON: Well, it’s long been established that the Earth and by extension Mega-City One are part of an actively inhabited, interstellar community.

I like to think that the Earth is probably a bit of a provincial backwater. It’s way out on the Western arm of our spiral galaxy. People know about it but no one really wants to go there. It’s the galactic equivalent of Slough, that is until someone decides to drive a bypass through it and then things get interesting!

When the Interstate Highway System was being built in the USA, it turned some small towns into boomtowns and effectively destroyed others, so this is a similar sort of thing. I want to open the Earth and MC-1 up to a much wider, universal community!

That initial story, Dez Rez, seemed very much to be just a simple done-in-one classic Dredd, albeit one that opened us up to the idea of Dredd having the inside track on some sort of higher Justice Department out there amongst the stars.

What’s the deal with these cosmic enforcers? And have you plans to weave them into future Dreddworld tales?

IE: They may crop up as and when I get to write some more Dredd. There aren’t just the cosmic enforcers from Dez Rez either, there’s also the alien insect judiciary who featured in the two-part Hair of the Dog story that Matt and I did a while ago. [2000 AD 2174-2175]

Was there always an idea in your head that you were going to take it any further, or is it simply one of those writerly moments where suddenly an idea appears in your head, lightbulb-like, with a way to follow up the story?

IE: I had the general thought that I wanted to open up Dredd and his world to these huge external forces which is where the quantum tunnel/interstellar bypass came from, the rest kind of followed on from that idea. Because of its proximity to the quantum tunnel, Earth’s property value has skyrocketed and all that entails.

Here, we’re getting into an aspect of MC-1 we rarely see from the other side – the idea of extraterrestrial contact with the city to prop up the finances, not to mention the whole concept of extraterrestrial life.

IE: I assumed that after the Chaos Plague MC1’s economy would have tanked so they’d be desperate for investment from whoever. The quantum tunnel just made the Earth a juicier prospect.

In the past, Dredd’s dealing with those from out there have tended to have aliens that are a lot more troublesome and violent. Exploring the trade links is a fascinating way to go about things.

IE: I wanted to do more than just ‘alien of the week comes to MC-1’. I wanted to open up Dredd and his world to a wider extraterrestrial influence. The city wants the alien investment but it brings a lot more with it, there’s immigration, integration and cultures clashing head-on. Some of the aliens will be dangerous and violent but there’s also white-collar crime as we saw in the story High Spirits, (that Dave Taylor and I also worked on) [Progs 1640-1643] where the Aetherwerks, an alien corporation investing in MC1 was secretly harvesting human souls to smoke as drugs.

What can we expect from Babel? Obviously, the title gives rise to considerations of the biblical Tower and ‘let us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech’ – is this going to be a thing that divides MC-1 and its inhabitants, driving further wedges between the people?

IE: It’s about aliens investing in MC-1 and all the confusion and cooperation it brings. The Judges don’t like change but if they want this off-world money to shore up the city, they have to work out a way to compromise with a whole host of different races. Remaining their usual rigid and inflexible selves isn’t going to cut it.

It also means you can build a little piece of your own Dreddworld, always a good thing for a writer in these modern Dredd times.

IE: There is that!

Go on, you can tell the truth, every so often, is there a pitching conference in front of Tharg where you, Mike Carroll, Rob Williams, Arthur Wyatt, Ken Niemand, Rory McConville, and others with a dog in the fight all have to engage in some sort of gladiatorial thing to carve out your own little fiefdoms of Dreddworld? (Obviously John Wagner sits at the right hand of Tharg safe in the knowledge he can do whatever he damn well feels like!)

IE: Cue Star Trek fight music. “Twenty quatloos on the Brummie!”

Never bet against a Brummie – we’re a fightin’ breed!

As far as this one’s concerned, it’s bringing you and D’Israeli back together for a rare Dredd outing.

IE: The last time was Hair of the Dog when Dredd teamed up with the tiny, insect alien cop who was on his last case before he retired and all the clichés that entails!

Matt, it’s always a pleasure to see your work in either the Prog or the Megazine, and a particular pleasure seeing you on Dredd.

MATT BROOKER: Thankee!

And always good to see those Matchbox Adventure 2000 vehicles featuring in the strip – I remember those from my childhood!

MB: Yeah, it was a blast recreating those – I not only read the comic as a kid, but I had the toy too! I must give a shout out to Mark Walton, who very kindly let me use his detailed 3D model of the Land Raider for those panels.

It’s now an incredible 32 years since the Edginton/D’Israeli partnership began with God’s Little Acre in Revolver back in 1990.

Ian, with as long and fruitful a working relationship as you’ve had, how do the pair of you work together now? I’m assuming it’s a process that’s streamlined and synergised as time has gone on.

IE: It’s pretty much the same as it ever was. I’ll run some ideas by Matt and we’ll bounce them around. When there’s one that we’re both keen on I’ll script it up and let Matt do his stuff. I always try to include things that I know he likes to draw and likewise he’ll sometimes ask to swap some scenes around so he can give others more shoulder room. It’s always been a collaborative process.

Similarly Matt, after working with Ian for so long, is it simply a case of he throws a script at you with something along the lines of – ‘huge interior with oodles of alien-y detailing’ and that sort of thing?

MB: Ian’s very good at giving me concise descriptions of things that paint a picture – for characters, it’s often, “think actor X in movie Y.”  For big scenes, he’ll give me an overall outline of the scene and then list any key details that have to be included. I joke that at least once a series he’ll give me what I call an “oh shit!” page – something where at first I’m like, how the hell do I draw this? But then I figure it out and the work is always better as a result. 

Since then, your collaborations include some Judge Dredd, Leviathan, Stickleback, and of course the saga of Scarlet Traces, something that you began together in 2002. Other works together include Batman, Kingdom of the Wicked, and Nevermore: Murder in the Rue Morgue.

In your long careers, I think I’m probably right in saying that it’s Scarlet Traces that’s become your best-known work together. It’s something that you recently finished, in a way, with the publication of the Storm Front storyline, effectively ending the saga of the Human-Martian conflict. 

I understand that this isn’t the end-end for Scarlet Traces though and that you do have plans for more. Can you both give us some idea of what we can expect?

IE: Yes, Scarlet Traces is probably what we’re mostly known for. We’ve tied up the main storyline for now, there are plot threads we can pick up on but we’re going to give them a breather for now.

The next story will most likely be one set back in the early days of Scarlet Traces, just after the demise of the Martian invasion force. It’s a grisly, gothic murder mystery set against the backdrop of a war-torn London.

Leviathan is another of your works that’s spoken of with great love by all who read it. It’s celebrating its 20^th anniversary in 2023 with not one but two reprints – coming out soon as part of the Best Of 2000 AD graphic novel volumes and well as having just been released in hardback as part of Hachette’s 2000 AD Ultimate Collection.

What does it mean to you that this is FINALLY getting back into print in the Best of 2000 AD?

IE: It’s good to see it back in print, especially as a hardcover!

MB: It is terrific to see Leviathan back in print. One of the few downsides to working for 2000AD is that, as a creator, you don’t control what stays in print, so it’s brilliant when your stuff “comes around” again.

Yes, Leviathan is one of those great 2000 AD tales that you should all be reading – featuring the vast cruise liner Leviathan that set sail in 1928 but, 20 years later, still hasn’t reached its destination, trapped in a nightmarish netherworld where something monstrous is stalking the passengers.

Okay, back to Babel and Matt’s particular vision of Judge Dredd. It follows in a long line of artists who don’t necessarily play along with the established look of Dredd – I’m including you here with the likes of Mick McMahon and Brendan McCarthy.

When it comes to your version of Dredd, what are you going for and how important do you think/feel it is that we should be seeing many different versions of the character?

MB: I’ve always loved the fact that Dredd has had many interpretations – this goes back to reading early 2000 AD as a ten-year-old, where you’d get a gritty early Mick McMahon Dredd one week and a slick Ian Gibson Dredd the next. That tradition of accommodating different art styles has really helped the character to stay fresh over the years.

I really struggled when I first started drawing Dredd – he’s the only character I’ve ever worked on that I read regularly as a kid, so in lots of ways he was too important to me. I’ve only ever done sporadic stories, so it took a long time for my version to settle. You can see in the early stuff – Dredd: Master Moves for the Megazine, The Horror In Emergency Camp 4 for 2000 AD, and the first two time traveller stories with Ian – I’m kind of thrashing around a bit trying to find my feet with the character. It wasn’t till the third time traveller story in 2007 that I really found my feet, but then I didn’t get any more Dredd for years!

And what’s your approach to putting YOUR Dredd on the page?

MB: There were two things I was trying to go for with my version of Dredd, one of them important, the other just a visual tweak. The main thing was to get across the idea that he’s old – like, Mega-City medicine is amazing, and eighty is the new forty there, fine, but I like the idea of there being a weight of years under the surface. So when I draw Dredd in close up I try to get something of, say Clint Eastwood from Gran Torino – he’s clearly still hard as nails, but he’s also starting to look a bit like he’s been mummified.

The minor thing was the helmet. There’d been a post-Brendan thing of making the helmet very wide and wok-like, and I wanted it to be a more sensible shape – my ideal was something like Steve Dillon’s version. It took me a while to find the shape and work it out from all angles, but it’s settled to being a little wider at the top than the base. I wish I had the nerve to go full-on retro and do the skull-like rounded eyeholes from the original Carlos version though.

At this point, do feel free to go deep into your process now for putting together your art – it’s something that’s always fascinating!

And readers, Matt hasn’t let us down here – a wonderful bit of breaking down the process is coming… from that great page in Babel part 1 featuring those much-loved Adventure 2000 vehicles. But first, a few of Matt’s designs for this storyline…

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MB: I get the script as a word document; I print that out and mark up the script (not shown), writing the total number of panels for each page at the top of that page, and underlining any important descriptions so I don’t miss them.

Step 1) Thumbnails/Roughs – for most of my career I kept a little sketchbook where I would doodle out little “thumbnail” layouts – tiny little rough sketches that establish the arrangement of panels and broad composition of the panels themselves. The idea is that you can rework your ideas very quickly.

These days, it’s done with drawing software and portable drawing pads – I use a Wacom Cintiq Mobilestudio 13, but most artists use iPads. So I open up a page file in Clip Studio Paint – I use that software because it’s custom designed for comics  – I have a bunch of template files set up in the right page sizes for different publications, each with loads of layers set up for pencilling, inking, colouring and so on.

I do the thumbnailing stage straight into a page file. Figures are drawn as extremely basic  stick-figure “skeletons,” just to get placement and rough proportions right.

Before I draw anything, though, I set up the panel borders and rough letter the page my copy-pasting text from the script. This rough lettering will never see print, it’s just there so I know how much space to leave for the real lettering. 

MB: Step 2) Rough pencils – at this point I add perspective (using Clip Studio Paint’s perspective rulers, in the old days it was an actual ruler and a drawing board!) and I start fleshing out the drawing. I’m concentrating on firming up the proportions, getting body language and gestures, and establishing the mass of objects – detail comes in the next stage.

I also add any 3D models I’ll be using at this stage. Clip Studio Paint technically allows you to import and position models on the page but I find the tools clunky and the rendering of imported models to be quirky. Generally, I set up the models in the 3D program (I’m learning Blender because my old software was discontinued), screen grab the result and import a JPEG onto the page. In this case, I used models created by Mark Walton to render the Land Raider vehicles.

MB: Step 3) Pencils – at this point I’m refining the drawing and adding missing detail. Note that I only pencil the figures  – I limit this labour-intensive step to the areas of the page that readers pay most attention to.

No one’s going to know if a Mega-City Cityblock has a few extra storeys, but everyone will notice if a human face is askew by a tiny bit.

MB: Step 4) Inks – I “ink” the page with pressure-sensitive brushes that mimic the old brushes and dip-pens I used to use in the pre-digital days. Getting the digital tools to behave like my old analogue ones is an ongoing process – in fact if you look carefully at parts one and two of Dredd: Babel you’ll see a slight change to the line quality.  

I like my work to look hand-drawn so I don’t use rulers to help draw straight lines – if you look at the panels in the Mega City Wall, they’re all just a tiny bit wibbly. Working digitally means I can easily do coloured outlines (“colour holds”) for things like the interiors of the Land Raiders (seen through windscreens) and distance haze on the city.

Adding black can be a big part of the process, especially on pages with a lot of shadows, but for this bright-lit daylight desert scene I’m using as little black as possible, restricting it to actual black objects like the Judges’ uniforms and car tyres.

MB: Step 5) Flat Colour – I like to colour by adding shading and highlights to a mid-tone, acrylic-painting style. So I add flat colour to everything on the page as a ground to work out from.

MB: Step 6) Modelling (the final step) – I add highlights and shading over the flat colour. My actual process would take a whole tutorial to explain, but the TL:DR is – I add shading using transparent colour which darkens the underlying colours (like adding ink or watercolour washes) and highlights using translucent colour which lightens the underlying colour (like oil paint or acrylic). The advantage of this system  is that I don’t have to pick a separate highlight and shadow colour for every colour on the page – instead I can concentrate on where the modelling should go and all the colours blend automatically. I start adding shadows with Clip Studio Paint’s Lasso Fill Tool – I just draw round an area and it automatically fills with colour. That gives me a hard edge which I soften as necessary with things like brush or pencil tools. 

I do two layers of shading to give extra depth to the colours. I’ll also add opaque rimlights to the edge of objects to help them “pop.”

I wanted a real sense of desert heat, so for the first panel, out in the desert, the shadows are a warm brown. For the Interior scenes with the two wall guards, I used green shading to simulate light bouncing off the green Plasteen walls around them.

Once the pages are finished, I export them in the correct file format (CMYK TIFF) and upload them to the Rebellion server. Working files can have 30-40 layers, but the print files are usually flattened down to a single layer.

Finally, what’s coming up from the pair of you in the future, both for Tharg and elsewhere?

MB: Ian and I are (finally!) working on a second series of Helium, and we have other ideas beyond that (I’ll leave it to Ian to flesh those out, not sure what I’m supposed to discuss).

Yep, reckon those are the Scarlet Traces plans Ian’s told us about already!

MB: Rob Williams and I would love to do more Lowlife, but (largely due to me) we haven’t got the scheduling sorted out yet. I’m also, for the first time in decades, working on a little side project of my own. No idea what I’m going to do with that, I might just put it out as a web comic when it’s done (probably a couple of years from now).

IE: There’s another series of Helium and then the Scarlet Traces story. After that, we have an idea for a brand new series, something completely different that we can’t wait to start on! In other news, I’m working with Leigh Gallagher on more Kingmaker and there are a couple of secret things in the works that I don’t want to jinx!

Thank you so much to both Ian and Matt/D’Israeli for chatting to us. You can find Judge Dredd: Babel in the Megazine issue 449 and issue 450 – issue 449 is out on the stands and available from the 2000 AD web shop right now.

For more chat with Ian and Matt, there’s this great interview about the final (for now) Scarlet Traces storyline, Storm Front, right here. And for more of D’Israeli’s wonderful talk about process, can we point you to a series of Covers Uncovered features – Prog 1988, Prog 2028, Prog 2032, Prog 2204, and Prog 2208.

Finally, because we only showed you them small earlier, those great D’Israeli designs for the Cephaloids from Babel…

Currently thrilling us all in the pages of 2000 AD, Hershey: The Cold In The Bones Part 1 sees Rob Williams and Simon Fraser drawing their tale of ex-Chief Judge Barbara Hershey to a close.

Infected with an alien pathogen, she’s already ‘died’ once as far as Mega-City One knows, now her quest to right the wrongs of her past and dispense justice takes her down to Antarctic City.

But what awaits Hershey and Dirty Frank down in the cold? What new horrors will they find and how is Judge Smiley involved? And will Hershey survive what she finds or will her time finally run out…

Tick tock says ex-Chief Judge Barbara Hershey, tick tock…

Rob, Simon, hello, hope you’re all well and safe wherever you are. Simon, glad you managed to get back into the US after your unexpectedly long European vacation!

SIMON FRASER: It was an epic and to a certain extent I’m still dealing with it.

Okay then, we’re in the middle of Hershey: The Cold In The Bones Part 1 right now. First of all, how many episodes are we getting for part 1?

ROB WILLIAMS:  The Cold in The Bones is a two-part story. Eight episodes in each. There’s a big ‘season finale’ moment at the end of Episode Eight in Book One. Hopefully it’ll have readers begging for Part Two. That’s the plan anyway.

SF: It’s a pretty serious cliffhanger.

And why is it a Part 1? I’m thinking that it’s one of those things where there was just too much going on with this series that it just didn’t fit neatly into the 8-parts we’ve seen before with Disease and The Brutal?

RW: It’s the end of our Hershey story and yes, there was a lot of ground to cover. 

Next, can you give us some idea of what we’re going to be seeing in The Cold In The Bones?

RW: Hershey, Dirty Frank (now fully Dirty Frank again), Juninho and Joe The Dog have travelled as far south as you can go to Antarctic City, following the trail of Smiley’s selling of the Enceladus Energy.

This is Hershey’s final quest. She can’t allow herself to give in to the alien pathogen that’s still slowly eating her until she undoes this great wrong – that she took her eyes off the wheel and let Smiley act with impunity. It tarnishes her entire Justice Department career for her.

One last wrong that needs putting right, then she can rest. 

SF: This is Hershey’s Long Walk. It’s Judge Hershey so we know it couldn’t be anything other than a total commitment.

Antarctic City – surely the quietest part of the Dreddworld? Presumably, that’s why Smiley picked it to do whatever naughtiness he was up to here?

RW: Out in the wilderness of the Antarctic there’s research labs and all sorts that are far away from prying eyes of an underfunded Antarctic City Judge force. That’s probably where the Enceladus energy (and whatever else Smiley provided) is being worked on… 

SF: Antarctica is the last part of the world that’s largely unscarred by human activity. Even Antarctic City is a bit of an afterthought. Nobody really wants to be there. It’s the end of the line. It’s an appropriate crucible for this story.

But also interesting in that you’ve been able to use Hershey as a means of exploring the world of Dredd, taking us to some of the lesser known bits – something that’s always been an element of Dreddworld that fans have enjoyed for decades.

RW: She’s been travelling south – in more ways than one. She started out in what would be Colombia in our world, then Brazil, and finally to Antarctic City. She’s got nowhere else to go. 

SF: We’ve seen a lot of the Cursed Earth, the desolation, but not so much the communities and the societies that have managed to survive . It’s important to see that the world continues to function, after a fashion, even on the edge of the abyss. There’s a certain sense of the exceptionalism of the Mega Cities, we’re looking outside that.

You’re talking about The Cold In The Bones as being your final Hershey series – is that right? Are we going to be seeing a very definitive end to the saga of one of MC-1’s greatest Chief Judges here?

RW: You’ll have to read it to see.

[Spoilsport!]

RW: But this is the end of my and Simon Fraser’s Hershey story, at least. And Simon Bowland too. It’s been great that we’ve had the same team throughout these four books.

SF: We’re doing our best to give her a final saga that’s worthy of her. That’s as uncompromising as she is herself.

Yes, all credit to Simon Bowland as well, whose lettering has been sublime all the way through, as is everything he turns his talents towards!

As The Cold In The Bones is that (or at least your) final Hershey series, are we going to see you give Hershey the ending that you’ve been working up to? After all, we know she’s dying from the virus ravaging her body, so will this see an ending to her saga?

SF: … you want us to tell you how it ends? Really?

Writer and artist in perfect ‘don’t tell ’em a thing’ synchrony there!

The tone here is very much downbeat, with Hershey obviously in pain, both physical and mental. Simon’s obviously done a perfect job on showing us the physical aspect of the virus destroying her body, but more than that we have the sense in the story of being inside her head – something you show frequently with the flashbacks.

RW: What interested me in telling this story is “what happens once your rise is over?” Barbara Hershey is a brilliant young Judge, then she works her way up to being a key lieutenant to Dredd on his adventures, and then she works her way up to being Chief Judge. The top job. But Chief Judges don’t last too long.

After that, what then? Ok, The Long Walk, we all know that, but how would you feel not only knowing your life’s best days are behind you, but also having all that service thrown away with so little thanks from anyone. And to have Dredd turn on her the way he did in The Small House, effectively ending her career for her. And then she gets the alien pathogen.

I wanted to make her a three-dimensional human being here beneath the uniform. And three-dimensional people can feel bitter and angry and wronged. And those feelings can take you down a bad path. So, the question in this series, for us, is can she find a purpose of her own, that isn’t duty and orders and the Law. Can she find something positive down at the end of the world where nothing grows?

SF: The big issue for her is that she will not let her Long Walk be some empty symbolic gesture. She understands that symbols are important, more than anyone. Even after her long and very distinguished service to her city, the word of one symbolic figure is enough to undo her. Like Dredd, she has committed body and soul to the system. She always understood that she would give her life to the city, but the questions remain. In fact, she’s dealing with the same issues that we all deal with as we age, fear of death, legacy,  just in a very concentrated and intense way.

It makes the series far more than a simple Hershey on a tour of Smiley’s bases and some fighting along the way – taking us deep into Hershey’s psyche and the pain (physical and mental) that she’s suffering after a lifetime of service.

It’s truly painful to see how she’s thinking of things, the pride in those earliest flashbacks of her Cadet days contrasted with the way you show in her memories of that tragic and now iconic confrontation with Dredd, that moment where he destoyed her reign as Chief Judge. And then we have the continued shame she’s feeling over being the one to facilitate (damn, I hate using that word) the actions of Judge Smiley.

And of course, as a wonderful counterpoint to all this, we have the reintroduction of Dirty Frank and the comedic moments he brings to anything he’s ever in. As one of your creations Rob, he’s obviously a character close to your heart. But although he adds a comedic aspect to cut across things, there’s also the tragedy of the character that you’re dealing with here as well – in his own way, he’s just as broken, just as doomed as Hershey.

RW: When Hershey and Frank started on this journey both were very damaged. Frank should have died in The Small House. Hershey effectively took him on this ride because she needed at least one backup.

But for Frank, who has a tenuous grasp on mental health anyway, it was all too much, being used and possessed by Smiley. Frank murdered Judge Sam. OK, Smiley made him do it, but it was still Frank who pulled the trigger. That’s an awful thing for him to come to terms with. So, he tried to NOT be Dirty Frank, but his journey along this road is trying to remember who he really is. And Hershey, Juninho and Joe The Dog have been big parts of that. When we meet him here he’s almost back to the Dirty Frank we know and love. But there’s frailties there, still. This is a story about two characters trying to find out if they still have a purpose, really.

SF: It’s an interesting double act. She has very little left to keep her alive but her icy determination and the pain. Frank needs order, he needs her focus. He’s all she has left of the system that supported her for her whole life. He’s a chaotic shell, but he’s still a Judge and he still wants to serve, to give his life meaning.

Now, going back to the origins of the strip, whose idea was it to give Hershey this final, seemingly doomed adventure? Did it come from you Rob or was it something the pair of you had been talking about?

RW: God, I forget. Simon and I talked a bit via email on where this series would go. But I think we probably both felt four series’ was enough. 

SF: I like endings. It keeps us from indulgences and maintains a strong through-line.

This is the second time the pair of you have worked together – with the first collaboration being Family in the Judge Dredd Megazine back in 2003. But there’s been nothing since then.

RW: Untrue! He can’t get rid of me. Even though he tries. Simon and I did the Eleventh Doctor in the Doctor Who Comics for two ‘seasons’ for Titan and then did a Kingsman mini-series for Millarworld together – The Red Diamond.

SF: Rob’s one of my favourite writers to work with. We’ve done it a lot. He gives me lots of meaty stuff to do, he always has a convincing emotional core to his work, which I need to do my best work.

Ooops, okay, change that to nothing since then for 2000 AD! 

So, once you’d decided you were going to do it, how did it come together? What was the collaborative process like?

RW: We talked a bit about how we didn’t want it to feel like your standard 2000 AD strip, in terms of tone, approach to dialogue etc, visuals.

We wanted it to have a cinematic approach, hence Simon’s empathic ‘cinematography’ with the colouring. Which is quite beautiful by the way. We talked things like the way movies like Bullitt and The Thomas Crown Affair were edited and presented. Point Blank was an obvious touchstone. Then I’d write the scripts and Simon would draw them. But we had a strong sense of what we were aiming for going in.

We also talked about how Hershey is at the end of her career here – she shouldn’t look like the hot young thing anymore. Dredd can age in real time, why couldn’t she? We felt that was quite refreshing an approach with a female action lead – and this was all about giving her some agency.

Obviously some fans would rather leather-clad hotness. But that isn’t the story we’re going for here. We wanted to ground her in reality. Do her justice. Simon’s done a wonderful job on the book throughout. The page breakdowns, the pacing. But in particular the colours.

Yes, thanks to Simon you can certainly see every tough decision and the ravages of her pain, physical and emotional, etched into her face.

SF: I think we were very much on the same page from day one. If we are to give Hershey’s last adventure meaning, then it has to be hard-won. She’s worked so diligently for so many years, without showing the slightest crack. She’s been the model Cadet, the best street Judge, an exemplary administrator, and finally a great leader. She gave everything and never let us see her sweat. Well, now we see it. Now we’re going to see what’s under the sharp hair and the eyeliner, the toughness required for her to be who she is. Also, I think it’s great fun to have such an angry old lady as a hero. Women characters so rarely get to be angry, or old.

Simon, your artwork here is so simple and stripped-back, a minimalist delight for us all. And a big part of that has to be in the colouring choices you’re making, deliberately picking a limited colour palette for every story. And within each story, there’s a different colour palette for the events happening now and those flashback sequences.

What was your initial thinking behind this? What made you choose to do this the way you have?

SF: Often in the business of comics there are a lot of people in the line and that communication can get pulled in different directions by each contributor. From the beginning this story has been something elemental, we’re stripping back the characters and also the storytelling. It’s just Rob and me.

He’s been very disciplined with the script and I’ve tried to support that by paring back everything non-essential in the artwork. Everything has a purpose, the colour is never just decorative, never pretty, it supports the story. By restraining the palette I can use colour almost like sound effects or music, aggressively, or in a more subdued and insidious way.

For example, near the end I adopt a fairly dismal pink colour, which I despise, it corrupts the scene and when things really kick off, I hypersaturate it and goes into a blazing red. It’s a logical tonal progression for the emotional drama of the scene, for the nature of the characters involved, and then for the climax of the story as a whole. I hate that colour though and I hope that you do too.

Well, that we’ll just have to wait and see – let’s take Simon’s word for it!

But more than that, there’s a simplicity to what you’re doing with your linework here as well, everything seems essential, every line, every artistic choice.

How has your art changed through the years leading to your work here? Obviously a deliberate decision on your part but it would be fascinating to hear how you approach a new project such as Hershey.

SF: The big technical difference with working on this story compared to everything else I’ve done in 2000 AD/The Meg is that I’m now fully digital. This gives me a dizzying level of control over the art. So, to be contrary,  a lot of what I’ve done is deliberately limiting myself. It’s too easy to get lost in the weeds with a new toy and forget the reason you’re doing it.

I want this to look like my art, with a recognisable thru-line all the way back to Shimura, but I’ve got a fine control of the line and colour that I could only dream of back in 1993, while at the same time keeping a certain inky texture to it. Comics artwork is all about storytelling, everything should serve that end.

So what I’m going for ideally is that you forget that you’re reading a comic. You don’t even notice the artwork anymore, it’s got a direct line into your brain. I want you to feel the characters feelings and experience their world directly without noticing the artifice. My artwork in Hershey is the most detailed I’ve ever done, but I never want it to be fussy or overwrought. Clarity is key.

And while we’re talking about art, can you take us through the process you use to put together Hershey? – feel free to go deep and technical with working methods – it’s always fascinating.

SF: I’ll send you some process stuff from an early episode so you can see.

And he did dear reader, he did… we’re showing them to you here small, but scroll down for them in all their full-size glory…

SF: First, thumbnails, usually drawn on the facing page of the script, so I can keep track. It’s pretty vague, but all I need.

After that, I draw the pencil art on whatever piece of random white paper I have. I no longer have to even rule out the page. I just eyeball the proportions roughly then take this photograph of it with my phone.

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SF: Then I drop the photo of the pencils into a Clip Studio Paint template, fiddling with the proportions as I go. For this page, you can see that I pulled back on the Hershey in panel 4 and also the lower action panel to give more space. Sometimes I flip things around or totally redraw bits. The Dog is based on an old dog of mine called Jasmine, who I have a lot of photographs of.

Finally, for colouring I take it over into Affinity Photo. ClipStudio has colouring tools but I prefer the Affinity ones because they are similar to the Photoshop ones that I learned all this on. The problem – and the great thing – about this particular Hershey story is that the environment is very desaturated and cold. So blue tends to dominate, which is fine because when you do have combustion, fire, explosive activity, etc, those colours really pop.

I want the colour to not be decorative and I want to help it augment the linework, adding lighting and subtle tones, instead of fighting with it. Which can happen.

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Simon, while I have you, can you talk a little about the podcast you and your wife, Edie Nugent, have been doing – The Great Dante Readthrough? You’ve covered the series through to 2006’s Courtship of Jena Makarov in season 1 – and readers, you can find that everywhere you get podcasts (Apple, Spotify, Podbay, and others, including from Simon’s website.)

Any plans to continue the series – after all, there’s a lot more to cover from the series!?

SF: Yes, we’ve recorded about 4 episodes and we have an interview with Dave Bishop in the can. We’ve been very busy on other things, but this will start happening again very soon. Maybe by the time this sees print. The format of Edie providing an outsider perspective and me filling in the back story, seems to work fairly well. There will be a certain feeling of axe-grinding from me in the upcoming episodes, which is why I’ve been a bit reticent about releasing them. Finally, I’ve decided to let it be warts and all. Artistic collaborations can be hard and I want to be as honest as I can about that. 

With something as iconic and well-loved as Nikolai Dante, there’s an obvious association with your name and the character. On the one hand, I’m sure there’s a joy in having something so well-loved, but on the other hand, are there any issues with being so associated with something so iconic?

SF: I love the fact that I could contribute fundamentally to something that had such a powerful influence on my life. This was very much what I set out to do at the age of 16 when I decided that comics was going to be my career. Being a part of the fundament of 2000 AD is an enormous thrill and privilege.

However, I’m constantly reminded of the Mel Brooks line from To Be or Not to Be – “I’m internationally famous, in Poland.”  

Looking back over your career, I was rather shocked at my appalling memory (not limited to forgetting you and Rob worked on Doctor Who) – you were the artist on two of my favourites from many, many years ago – Lux & Alby Sign On And Save The Universe with writer Martin Millar and the rebooted Roy of the Rovers Monthly. Both of them were essential reading for me as a youngster.

SF: I’m glad to hear it. Martin Millar & I are developing a project right now in fact. 

Now that is some great news!

Fingers crossed, with the Treasury of British Comics currently reprinting all things Roy of the Rovers, I’m hopeful that we’ll see the monthly ROTR, with such wonderful work from yourself, Rob Davis, Sean Longcroft, Gerraint Ford, Gary Marshall, and David Jukes, with it all being put together by Stuart Green.

SF: I’d love to see it. There was something rather special happening there, but it kinda slipped below the radar. Some of my later work I’ve never seen in print. The ending of the project was a little chaotic, so I never got comp copies or even saw it at the newsagents.

As the earliest works in comics from you, how did these come about? You weren’t, by any chance, involved in ROTR in the earlier days, specifically Glory Glory and the whole Tundra UK chaos were you?

SF: I am good friends with Garry Marshall and he was living in London at the time. So I went and stayed with him as I finished off Lux & Alby then picked up some Roy work from Stuart Green. I missed the whole Tundra/Deadline/Vertigo scene, partly because I went to live in Italy and also because Robbie and I were having so much fun doing Shimura, then Dante. In retrospect, it would have been fun to work on some of that early 90s Brit/US stuff, but I’m very happy that we could give Dante such a solid push, nearly 15 years.

After these couple of early projects, you made the move to 2000 AD, where you definitely hit the ground running with Nikolai Dante and Shimura. I know you’ve worked for other places and other companies, but would you consider 2000 AD as something as an artistic home for you?

SF: Oh yes. There’s nowhere else like it. It’s a unique environment and very conducive to producing the best work. Despite my sometimes chaotic life choices and poor time management, 2000 AD has always been there for me. 

Despite your career being mostly at 2000 AD, you’re US based – what else can you tell us about yourself? Are you still primarily working in comics, or have you, as with so many, been drawn to the dark side of commercial illustration and the relative riches that brings?

SF: I am a comics guy, for better or worse. I’ve tried my hand at most forms of commercial art over the decades, but nothing else really scratches the itch. I do have a few side hustles, but ‘riches’ would be stretching it. I’m happy if I can cover the rent every month.

Finally, let’s talk about what else you have coming out soon (or maybe not so soon). What can we expect to see from you in the next few months or more in comics?

RW: More Dredd from me. I have Buratino Must Die, a new 6-part story drawn by Henry Flint that started in 2000 AD 2303. That’s the first time Henry and I have worked together since End of Days, and The Small House and Titan before that. Everything Henry draws just sings on the page. So that’s a fun one. And there’s a three-part Dredd coming co-written by Arthur Wyatt which follows on from our ongoing Judge Maitland storyline – The Hagger They Fall. Elsewhere in comics I’ve written more for the Mignolaverse/Hellboy, but I’m not sure when we’ll be seeing that.

SF: As I said, I’m developing a book with Martin Millar. We’ve been talking about doing something for as long as I can remember. Going on 30 years now. It’s sci-fi and has Martin’s wry wit and incisive commentary at its heart. It’s rare that I read a script and it just makes sense completely from the first page to the last. I’m excited to get to work on that. It has no publisher right now and we might just do that ourselves. We’re going to do the book and then see where it takes us.

I’ve also been flirting with a couple of writers who aren’t in comics. I need to do something for a US publisher soon to support my US work Visa. Either that or I end up stuck in Bucharest again.

And with that, cycling back to where we started and Simon’s great European adventure of 2021 we said our farewells. For those who haven’t seen it – long story short – don’t go out of the USA if there’s even anything slightly missing from your visa!

Thanks so much to Rob and Simon for talking to us – you can find Hershey: The Cold In The Bones running right now in 2000 AD. Part 1 began in 2301 and runs eight episodes.

For more Hershey, you can pick up the first in Hershey’s quest to make things right in the Disease collection. As for more of Rob and Simon talking about what they’re doing on Hershey, check out the 2000 AD Thrill-Cast and read Simon’s thoughts on creating his Hershey covers with 2000 AD Covers Uncovered – Prog 2176 and Prog 2218.

And now, because we promised you… the full-sized versions of the process images Simon sent along – thumbnail, pencils, inks, colours, and the final printed page with letters from the great Simon Bowland…

Judge Dredd: The Pitch, in 2000 AD Prog 2302, is just six pages long but it’s potentially hugely important to the world of Judge Dredd. It’s the moment when Accounts Judge Maitland finally gets the word on her monumental plan that could transform Justice Department…

We talk to Arthur Wyatt, Rob Williams, and Boo Cook all about just how big these changes could be.

When writer Al Ewing and artist Nick Dyer’s accounts Judge Maitland first appeared back in The Bean Counter in 2012’s Prog 1790, no one had no idea just how wrapped up in Dredd’s world she’d become.

She’s appeared in Trifecta, Titan, Enceladus, Control, The Small House, and more recently in the Red Queen saga and The Hard Way. But one of her most important moments may well prove to be in Carry The Nine (Progs 2200-2203) where Maitland’s emergency budget projections turned into a model that speculated how a huge increase in welfare and education spending could practically wipe out crime in Mega-City One.

Now, in The Pitch (Prog 2302) Maitland comes before the Council once more.

Written by Arthur Wyatt and Rob Williams, with Boo Cook repeating his artistic turn from Carry The Nine, to say it’s an important moment in the history of Dredd is an understatement – or is it?

Well, there’s only a few people who can clear that up – so it’s time to chat to Arthur, Rob, and Boo and find out just what The Pitch means for Judge Maitland, Judge Dredd and MC-1…

Hello there Arthur, Rob, and Boo. Let’s talk about the recently published Judge Dredd: The Pitch, a sort of culmination of the story that’s been bubbling under for a few years now, with the focus on Accounts Judge Maitland.

Although Maitland’s creation was down to Al Ewing and Nick Dyer, I don’t think anyone can argue that you’re the ones most responsible for her recent history and her increasing importance in Dreddworld. She’s certainly come a long way from being ‘just’ an Accounts Judge!

So… how would you all describe what you’ve done with The Pitch and how things have developed for Maitland since Carry The Nine?

ROB WILLIAMS: I’ve written Maitland a lot over the years. I think I liked the idea of an Accounts Judge as it’s so opposite to Dredd. So much of what Dredd does is based on might and action and physical strength. But a Judge like Maitland helps keep the City running, keeps the structures intact.

So… what if she saw different structures? What if she saw a better way of running the system that might not mean open warfare on the streets of Mega-City One day after day after day. Would the Judges allow that to happen?

She’s one of the few Dredd really trusts. That’s why I put her in his small guerilla team in The Small House. She’s earned his respect. He’s going to listen to her.

Bottom line is, she’s smart, and she’s a good Judge. She might just be able to push this through. The ‘Defund The Police’ parallels are obvious – what if instead of spending so much money on arming the Judges for warfare, they spent more on educating the citizens?

ARTHUR WYATT: I’d wanted to do a joint story with Maitland since we were using her in different storylines and it seemed like it would be fun to bring them together a little, and at the same time Rob was working on End of Days and wanted to follow that up with a story that didn’t immediately reset to the status quo, and having Maitland dealing with the damage to the city and wanting to find a new way of doing things. 

This is Mega-City one. Good things don’t happen, at the same time Maitland is a force of nature, so that ended in a bit of a stalemate… 

Cue The Hard Way, which tied in more to the Red Queen plotline, and where frustration at that stalemate has caused Maitland to channel her skills into some things she CAN do: using forensic accounting to utterly wreck the shit of a major international criminal she’s been tormenting, inadvertently triggering an assassination attempt, and blowing up a minor Dreddworld city. Blowing up Atlantis was something Rob pushed for and it’s been great for opening up plotlines – the conclusion to the Red Queen story happening in its wake, the follow-up stories Rob did with Brit City and Sentientoid – fragments of that explosion going everywhere.

Some of that we had in mind from the start but a lot of it was very organic.

The Pitch is a story in the wake of those stories, when things have died down a little, and Maitland, having taken down The Red Queen, is able to make her case again with a lot more leverage. 

And of course, because we’re revisiting the meeting of Carry the Nine it’s the perfect story for Boo, who did a great job bringing the first set of council scenes to life.

BOO COOK: Obviously Rob and Arthur are gonna be the main speakers on this as they make all the gnarly decisions and plot twists, I’m more of a happy hitchhiker who has lucked into being part of something great… but hopefully I’ve helped to flesh it out with the required emotional clout.

Boo, you’ve definitely done that!

In terms of writing it, seeing as it’s just six pages, how on earth does the collaboration work here? I mean, you’re not going to be writing alternative pages or anything like that are you?

AW: The easiest way to collaborate seems to be to divvy up episodes, each do a first pass then hand it over to the other for an edit pass…. But you’ll note that only works for even numbers…  and not for a single issue story. There we generally have been breaking things up into the front and back halves and doing a variation on the same process, but they tend to merge together a lot more during the edits. 

There’s also a certain amount of killing your darlings involved… we always had the idea that we’d have a parallel action-heavy storyline with Dredd, which in the end became a very condensed three-panel opening sequence I liked a lot, and then in the end that ended up in the woodchipper as it’s just not the focus of the story, and we’d set ourselves the task of making this meeting interesting so that’s where the action had to be – even if that action is slideshows. 

(I am totally stealing that three-panel sequence back at some point)

RW: I think – my memory’s terrible – the whole reason Arthur and I started collaborating is that he wanted to use Maitland in his Red Queen stories and would I mind, as she was one of my recurring Dredd cast. That was kind of him to ask. We started talking and this sort of long-running occasional Maitland story followed from there. And one of the cool things about writing Dredd occasionally is you write one story and it sort of suggests offshoots. Characters appear and deserve their own stories. Plot threads pop up that are interesting to follow.

We approach a 6-pager the same way we would a longer story. Knock ideas back and fore on email, one writes up a plot breakdown, the other makes edits/changes and we go back and fore until we’re both happy. And then when it comes to script we simply split in half for first draft. In this case Art, I think, took Pages 1-3 and I took 4-6? (memory…) But we each get an edit on each other’s pages so hopefully the rough edges get filed off and it reads like one voice.

Also, Boo Cook did such a great job on Carry The Nine – the Maitland story that set up The Pitch’s core idea. It seemed very right to get him back for The Pitch.

Obviously, it’s not the end to the whole Judge Maitland saga, as the end of The Pitch opens things up for the future – although not as revolutionary as perhaps we might have thought (and Maitland hoped).

But was this where you always envisaged things going for Maitland and her grande plan?

RW: The Council were never going to just say “yes, we will change the entire structure of our city” to her. It’s a pretty dull dramatic story if the predictable happens and they just say ‘no’ at the end.

We wanted to give her some sort of win, and to then tease out the bigger story to come. And Dredd sticking up for her felt like one of those rare glacial moments of emotional growth you see in Dredd once a decade. That was, hopefully, unexpected. Take a Sector, trial your idea. See if it works. 

AW: Previously we had the stalemate of Carry the Nine, and some stories that pushed other plots forwards but kept Maitland’s big idea in a bit of a holding pattern. Now… Grudd help us… we’ve set up a situation where something has to happen, something has to change, and we’ve set ourselves a time limit. 

I’m not sure it’s a grande plan as much as us repeatedly throwing ourselves off balance then finding interesting ways to deal with that. We’ve a rough outline of where things end up, and we already have another story that sets some pieces up for it, but bouncing off each other and keeping things a little organic is always a big part of what we are doing here.

BC: In terms of the general direction of this story arc, for a while now I’ve been searching for something deeper in the comics I read and help create – quite often the focus is on a protagonist or band of such folk having a problem with something or someone and over the course of the story building up to a large fight with it… the end.

As some may have learned in recent years you can’t punch an idea – if you don’t agree with something or wish to see some change for the better in the world you have to engage with it on fair logical terms and that is what we see Maitland doing in Carry The Nine and The Pitch.

It’s refreshing to finally be a part of (various) comics projects where there’s potential for a positive outcome – great examples of how things could be if we weren’t such idiots, as opposed to simply ‘ending’ the thing you disagree with in a two-dimensional black and white tale. Obviously, Rob, Art, and time will tell if that’s actually how this particular arc will pan out but it’s great to be involved at least potentially in some creative optimism.

Having said that, this is Mega-City One so I won’t place any bets just yet…

One thing that has marked out Maitland’s saga is the time it’s taken. This is no big epic that runs all in one go but a slow burn of a thing. And to my mind, that’s merely heightened to the payoff here.

Was it something that you all had in mind way, way back, breaking Maitland’s involvement into guest appearances and slowly building it all up?

AW: I think it’s largely been shaped by the working process and that we are threading it with other storylines, but that practical concern also works out well for the nature of the story. What Maitland is trying to do… it is not fast-paced.

I think we are going to have to finish things off with at least one longer-length story though, hopefully with an even number of episodes.

RW: It’s sort of the nature of the beast with Dredd. There is no one writer. Ken Niemand has his stories, I have my individual ones, Art has his. John Wagner will sometimes come up with something like The Citadel. There’s always breaks between your stories, and that allows the world to feel sort of lived in and real. You can drop the idea of the next story and it not show up for months. Dredd has other things to deal with.

Now, talking about the way things have gone with Maitland and what the Council have come up with, what about Dredd’s involvement with it all?

Over the years, there’s been many different sides of Dredd that we’ve seen in the Prog and the Megazine, whether that’s the fascist authoritarian cop or the one who sees the Law needing to change as evidence comes in. And the one we see in the last few panels here is the epitome of this, the one willing to try new things to see the Law work.

RW: He’s no great thinker, Dredd, but he’s not dumb. He knows better than anyone what a war it is out on those streets. And he’s getting older. It takes a toll. Like he says to Maitland “Maybe it’s time we tried something different.” That’s about as speech-y as Dredd gets. But “maybe” is a big thing for him.

AW: One of the things about Maitland that Al established from the very start is she’s like Dredd… if Dredd’s thing was numbers and not street level violence. She’s got the same dedication to the city, the same conviction that she has to do the right thing. She’s really not fighting the system deliberately here so much as she’s convinced the system can and needs to be better and seeing that she has no choice but to change things.  

Not all the system may agree with her.

Finally, I assume we’ll be picking up with Maitland’s storyline and the experiment that the Council have approved here in the times to come?

Want to give us a few teases of what we can expect?

RW: Yeah, Art and I have talked through the ending of this whole Maitland saga. It’s quite a big story, if we can pull it off and tie in all the loose ends. Hopefully we can get Boo back for that one too to give the whole thing some symmetrical booked feel. First though there’s a three-Parter on the way from us that follows on one of those plot threads I mentioned from The Hard Way/Atlantis story we did last year – The Hagger They Fall. And Sentientoid, who also came from The Hard Way story, is a character I like a lot. we’ll be seeing him too.

AW: Drawing a tarot card… is it coins? Or is the nine of swords?

BC: If schedules will allow I’d love to be on board for the resolution of Judge Maitland’s current arc – she’s such a strong character and a perfect example of someone who can (mostly) fight battles with logic rather than Lawrods.

Maybe her plan will work and Mega City One will become a wonderful utopia? I suspect there’s a few folk in the mix who won’t allow that to happen but if Arthur and Rob know already, they ain’t telling! Whether I’m working on it or just reading it I can’t wait to see how it pans out…

Boo, I know this one’s been very writing-heavy, but you’re an intrinsic part of Maitland’s journey, having provided artwork for both Carry The Nine and The Pitch.

Certainly here in The Pitch, and to a lesser extent in Carry The Nine, so much of the drama comes from what’s being said rather than being done. Indeed, in The Pitch, we’re almost being told the tale of a presentation and the reactions to it. So, as an artist, how do you go about this as a job, how did you break it down to inject the sense of expectation and drama required (and delivered) to make this so important?

BC: I absolutely love working on Dredd so when a new script arrives I get very excited about the massive exploding mutants and skysurfers etc. that I’ll be drawing so it’s a bit of a curve ball when a script arrives about people essentially discussing a powerpoint presentation!

It goes without saying for anyone who’s read Carry The Nine and The Pitch that there is so much more going on than that, but as someone whose usual stomping ground is intense psychedelic space action it’s a bit of a challenge. Luckily, I like a challenge.

In The Pitch, there are a lot of talking heads, so one of the first things I try and do is work out ways of making it less about talking heads or if it has to be, how to get the acting and framing as full of emotional intent as possible.

BC: Hopefully Art and Rob will forgive me but I tweaked things a bit for some more visual oomph on page 3 – in the script SJS Judge Waldron is talking about some of the big super villains of the Dredd verse and the script simply required headshots of her talking to Maitland, but because this is comics it’s possible to slot in a muted background of all that crazy stuff that she’s referencing without it physically being there. Then I added a bonus panel of Dredd arriving with the words ‘Judge Death?’ which Annie Parkhouse picked up on perfectly with the lettering.

Aside from that kind of embellishment to spice things up a bit it’s mostly about absorbing the speech and really trying to get the characters to ‘say’ it with conviction – this meant a lot of underplaying and subtlety where I would usually fill a page with exploding mind jazz.

Exploding mind jazz – Boo, that should definitely be on your bio somewhere to describe what you do!

BC: There were some really choice moments in the script to help me along with this, particularly on page 5 where Maitland is sat outside waiting for the VERDICT. I don’t think I’ve ever put so little on a page before but R+A clearly intended this to be a poignant page and i thank them for giving me space to try and do it justice.

Finally on the last page, we all know Dredd smiling is a rare thing but when he delivers the line ‘Maybe it’s time we tried something different’ I wanted him to at least be not heavily frowning as usual and popped in a shard of sunlight just breaching his shoulder to usher in that potential optimism…

We’ve obviously talked before about your artwork and how it’s evolving, but with these Dredds and the recent (and brilliant) Death Cap in the Judge Dredd Megazine, what changes have you wrought in both idea and process?

BC: With my last major chunk of comics work; Blunt, I’d gone back to the old skool pencils/inks/digi colour process, in part because I’d spent a few years being blown away by Nick Dyer’s original inked pages and wanted to try that approach once more as it basically just looked like a lot of fun.

What I learned over the years of producing Blunt was that artistically that way of working, although pretty satisfying, isn’t quite who I am art wise. Inking takes a lot of confidence and boldness and I realised that I’m more of a ‘slowly chip away and sculpt the image’ kind of artist.

Working purely with graphite initially (no inks) helps me to get a bit closer to the image in my head – it’s more subtle and gives me a chance to get more realistic mood and texture into the work before painting over it digitally in Photoshop. It takes a lot longer than the inky approach but I feel happier with it and folk seem to prefer it so since Blunt that’s style I’ve gone for.

There you go – our huge thanks to Arthur, Rob, and Boo for taking the time to talk to us. You can find Judge Dredd: The Pitch in 2000 AD Prog 2302 – available right here from the 2000 AD web shop. It may be one of the most important Dredd stories in many, many years – we’ll just have to wait and see how Maitland’s plans play out and just how monumental the changes are!

Now, as an added bonus and because he’s just such a damn fine bloke, Boo sent along a load of extras including some of his favourite bits and his pencil work for The Pitch…

2000 AD Prog 2301 brings you five new strips – including the return of everyone’s favourite ape of Justice – Noam Chimsky, as Ken Niemand and PJ Holden bring you A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure!

Yes, the Chimp champion of Ludi Wittenstein Block returns! Ever since his first appearance back in Prog 2131’s Judge Dredd strip, The World According To Chimpsky, Niemand and Holden have been delighting us with the adventures of the super-intelligent simian who spends his days keeping his block safe from the perps and keeping himself from being rumbled by the Judges. Since then Chimpsky‘s appeared in Chimpsky’s Law (Progs 2178-2182), Judge Dredd: Who Killed Captain Cookies (Progs 2221-2224), and The Talented Mr Chimpsky (Progs 2234-2240).

But now, Chimpsky may be facing his most difficult and dangerous threat yet… in a rather splendid and thrilling little adventure that Messers Niemand and Holden have entitled Timmy & Thruppence in a Terrifically Disturbing Adventure.

We caught up with PJ to chat Chimpsky…

PJ, Hello there – nice to chat to you again. Hope all is well with you and yours – 2000 AD Prog 2301 sees the return of your co-creation, Noam Chimpsky in A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure.

Now, between appearances in Dredd and in his own strips, I make this the fifth outing for everyone’s favourite super-intelligent ape determined to bring some law and order to his block in MC-1.

PJ HOLDEN: Is it? Crikey. Must be doing something right then.

Can you give us a little idea of what we can expect in A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure?

PJH: Hmm.. Timmy and Thruppence, psychotic, psychic likely mass murderers who want nothing more than the sort of simple life they’ve read about in Enid Blyton books, stumble across the Simian Saviour, the Ape of Good Hope, the Magnificent Monkey, Noam Chimpsky who they’re going to find very much has a mind of his own.

I can’t help but get the idea from reading Chimpsky that you’re obviously having a great time with the character. I could be wrong but there’s something about the art that makes me think there’s a smile on your face when you’re drawing this one.

PJH: Oh he’s a delight. Firstly, as you know, I love drawing Dredd and Dredd’s world, but even way back when first working with Gordon Rennie, I loved doing the side characters, the little goofballs that make their way through the Big Meg, never doing anything too wrong (or too right) who are often crushed under the oppressive heal of Judge Dredd just as he’s taking down some larger threat to the city. That’s my jam.

After Gordon stopped writing Dredd, I thought I’d miss that sort of playground, but along comes Ken Neimand whose take on Dredd’s world is even more in tune with mine, yes, to optimism, yes, to good times, yes to the good guy winning in the end.

I do miss drawing Dredd though, but you know, I’m sure we’ll see him. Sort of.

Let’s go back to the creation of Chimpsky – how did the character come about and how did you get involved?

PJH: Not sure if Ken had me in mind, but certainly, I got an email asking to come up with some character design stuff from Ken, largely describing Noam with his little twirly hat. I pictured a sort of Just William school boy character (and so I added his catapult which would later come to vex Dredd – and some readers).

The readers getting worked up about something like that – nah, surely not?

PJH: As with my Dredd, I think I’m refining my approach to the character as I go, so at some point I’ll get real good at him.

Grofaz, Stan and Chet were largely one-word descriptions and I just lent into them. Luckily Matt was on board (I do sometimes wonder if I’ve pushed the cartoony too far… or not far enough)

Nope, I think we’re hitting the sweet spot on Chimpsky – thought the picture book opening page style and the refined art style here was just great.

What’s it like working with Ken Niemand – how’s the creative collaboration there?

PJH: Generally I’ll get a script and then send back some art – sometimes I’ll make little changes – possibly adding a small panel or something purely as a way of making up for whatever deficits I’ve introduced elsewhere.

I will sometimes make a slight change (as I did to a recent strip) which I think makes the character work a little better (I’m not keen on Chimpsy ruthlessly dispatching his opponents, for example, so I try and make it as bloodless as possible) and I might make a few suggestions to Ken – but, for the most part, get the script and draw the script – which when you’ve a great writer like Ken is about all you need to do.

A couple of things I noticed about this and previous Chimpsky appearances… firstly, the art here really does highlight the city – presumably that’s down to having a character who swings around the higher places of the city – so the angles and the visuals are necessarily different for you.

PJH: Yeah, I suppose, in this series Noam is largely running around his own block and we’ve lots of different locations so I’m getting to expand on what you might find in a block just to introduce some variety into scenes so there’s texture in the location – an outside gym area, a strange alien garden, a shopping centre inside the block.

When Noam’s out and about it is an opportunity to follow him as he swings through the city like some sort of long-armed spider-man.

The other thing about this latest Chimpsky, and I might be wrong, but it seems to have a slightly different line style, finer perhaps? Any reason for the changes there?

PJH: All style changes can largely be explained by me panicking that I have no idea what I’m doing and maybe if I try this it’ll coalesce together.

I’ve been drawing digitally for a while and it could be you’re just seeing me refine the drawing process a bit on my computer.

We’ve talked before in Covers Uncovered about the process you use on your covers, but how about the process of getting the pages together – particularly the flow across an episode?

PJH: Again, I’m constantly trying to figure this stuff out. As it happens for this episode I actually pencilled the entire story in an A4 sketchbook, because I wanted to feel pencil again (I miss the texture). So it was largely read the script, draw some thumbnails, and then begin pencilling.

Page 1 was pretty simple in terms of storytelling, I think the hardest part of the puzzle was trying to get enough height so I could make the kite feel like it was properly flying.

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PJH: Page 2, pretty straightforward all as described in the script…

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PJH: Page 3 was a real pain though, largely because the script just called for an explosion in a chemical factory so I pencilled one version of it in a book and I thought it worked but it really didn’t – there were too many focus points, and there’s no storytelling going on…

PJH: I ended up re-pencilling and reinking that big primary panel to something that lets you see the big explosion first then you travel out seeing all the other bits going on…

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PJH: But that’s my general flow, layouts from script, pencils from script then ink while watching some telly or something.

As far as more from Noam – presuming he gets out of the latest adventure both intact and out of a MC-1 iso-cube, are you and Ken already planning the next one?

PJH: I dunno if he’s planned the next one, but I do know there were things we talked about a while ago that we know would be fun to do – Chimpsky is the sort of character you can drop in to stories to see where they take you.

As long as Ken wants to write more, I’ll certainly draw them (Unless they convince Brian Bolland to draw it instead!)

Well, yeah, that’s fair enough – who’s not gonna step aside if Bolland turns up?

What else do we have to look forward to from you? Have you managed to convince Rory McConville about the Department K and Conan strip yet?

[Dear reader – we refer you to this interview about Department K where the suspect, sorry, PJ, had this to say – ‘I know if I was the ongoing artist I’d be asking Rory for all sorts of things (RORY! LET’S DO CONAN! RORY! LET’S DO A RETRO-80S STRIP! RORY! RORY! WHY ARE YOU NOT ANSWERING YOUR PHONE?)’]

PJH: Plenty of stuff outside of 2000AD, but nothing I can speak about.

Spoilsport!

PJH: And I’d quite like to come back and do some Dept K (now we’ve established it’s a world where different artists can have a go) and … what’s that you say? Dept K and CONAN? I’d be tempted by that.

Oh heck, I can just hear Rory emailing now and including me in that restraining order he was talking about. Ooops.

Thanks so much to PJ for talking to us – you can find the new adventures of Chimpsky – A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure beginning in 2000 AD Prog 2301. It’s rather spiffing!

Now, the full-sized versions of all that lovely process artwork PJ sent along…

Out right now – the jumping on 2000 AD Prog 2301 features a thrill-powered array of new strips, including Judge Dredd, Chimpsky’s Law, Hershey, Future Shock, and a return to the post-apocalyptic world of Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman’s Enemy Earth, where the fauna and fauna of the world have risen up against the last of humanity.

Cavan Scott and Luke Horsman are returning to the strip they created for 2000 AD Regeened Prog 2256 with a brand-new 10-part storyline that begins right here and right now –  immediately after the cliffhanger from the first episode.

You can expect thrills and chills galore here as the remnants of humanity struggle to stay alive as the horrifically mutated plants and animals of this world gone wild keep on coming for them! We sat down and had a quick chat to Cavan and Luke about all things Enemy Earth…

Cavan, Luke, nice to chat to you again, hope you’re both doing well and all that.

In 2000 AD Prog 2301, you’re returning to the world of Enemy Earth, the strip that you introduced back in 2021 in 2000 AD Regened Prog 2256 which we talked about here on the site.

So I guess the first thing to ask you both is what’s happening here in this new series of Enemy Earth?

CAVAN SCOTT: We pick up from the pilot from Prog 2256 which sees Zoe struggling with the answer of whether she is going to rescue the mysterious boy she found in the bunker or cut and run as she’s been doing for the last five years. He wants her help, she doesn’t want anyone new in her life.

Meanwhile, outside the bunker, Earth’s mutated flora and fauna continues to hunger for their blood. 

That first episode showed us an eco-nightmare of a world, one where nature has turned on humanity, where the fauna and fauna are all out to get you.

You described it back then as ‘a post-apocalyptic story that starts a number of years after the flora and fauna of earth has mutated, turning on the humans. Suddenly our home is trying to kill us in as many ways as possible.’

One thing that was mentioned in that first strip was when Zoe, our young lead, was telling us about how it happened, the loss of her little brother, and mentioned something about how it all started with spores falling, leading to mutations taking over the planet. Presumably, the spores have something to do with it – is it something you’re going to be exploring, possible alien attack… maybe? Or is it more just a simple in to the story sort of thing?

CS: The spores will definitely be explored… at some point in the future. For now, all Zoe cares about is survival. As the story continues, we also learn more about her past and what happened to her family, events that have shaped her into the girl she is today!

That first episode was great, but obviously a set up for something more, ending as young Zoe discovered the secret bunker in London, along with an even younger kid and a hi-tech defence droid called Nanni.

And this new series picks up immediately after the end of that first Regened episode, with Zoe meeting Julius/Jules and finding out a little more about him – the son of the Prime Minister, who’s been down in the bunker for the last five years, adding a nice bit of intrigue to it all – not least the notion that this has been going on for a long time and that there’s possibly some sort of quest to get the family reunited in the offing.

CS: Oh yes, Jules is desperate to be reunited with his dad. The question is, will Zoe go with him on the road trip?

When we talked last, Cavan, you told us that it had originally been a 3-part pitch for Regened that ended up shelved when the decision was made to run Regened as issues of 2000 AD instead of as its own comic. I guess that’s the classic example of why writers should always keep their old pitches in mind!

CS: Absolutely. Never throw ANYTHING away!  

Cavan and Luke, you’re now the fourth strip to make the jump from all-ages Regened to 2000 AD Progs, following Pandora Perfect, Department K, and Full Tilt Boogie.

CS: It’s good company to be in!

LUKE HORSMAN: Happy to be following in their footsteps. It’s a nice way for readers of Regened issues to jump across to the main Prog. 

We talked before about the elements of horror in Enemy Earth the first time around and how it’s a good thing to gently push the boundaries of horror and how kids and ‘light-hearted peril’ go together.

With the move to the Prog and an extended storyline, was there a temptation to shift things up and increase the levels of horror involved in a tale that’s obviously got the potential to be full of it should you both choose to go that way?

CS: Well, my aim was to always push what we could do for an all-age Regened strip. Being in the main Prog now means we can go darker still, but my view of 2000 AD is that it was originally created as an all-age comic that pushed boundaries and this should be no different. We’re just going back to the comic’s roots (and, in our case, those roots can kill you!)

Having seen the first couple of episodes now, there’s a bit of an increase in violence and horror there in episode 2, with the Prog not having the same restrictions on showing a little blood and nasty death that the Regened Progs have. But it still has a feel of a storyline that could easily be something for older readers if not all-ages.

What are both of your thoughts on the ideas of making work for slightly older readers, especially in 2000 AD – seems to me that all of the Regened strips that have made the transition have kept some elements of their all-ages nature – was this a deliberate thing on the part of both of you here in Enemy Earth.

CS: Here’s the thing… all-ages stories are for older readers too. The clue is in the title! And kids love to read up. It’s our job as all-age writers to push and challenge them, just like 2000 AD did back when I started reading it in the ’80s. The Prog was a gateway to science fiction, horror and fantasy for an entire generation of kids. I’d love it to be that again. Do it well and older readers won’t mind, and I guarantee kids will love it. 

Absolutely! Having kids and older readers enjoying the same things is just what the Prog was all about, should be all about, and is all about!

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Luke, one thing that’s immediately obvious with the new series is the change in art style from you Luke – the Regened episode was super bold and bright in its colouring, whereas this first episode has more of a subdued look to it with your colours.

Obviously, this is a deliberate choice on your part given that you’re doing your own colours this time round. But what was your thinking behind the change – anything to do with moving from Regened to 2000 AD Progs or simply that you wanted to make the change?

LH: I wouldn’t say anything was directly deliberate in artistic change from the pilot episode.  I tend to use a mix of muted backgrounds and colourful details. My line work – along with the narrative –  will influence how I progressively colour it as I work though a page, fairly organically. 

I rarely set out with a finished colour scheme in mind. The story as a whole dictates the mood of the colours – so from scene to scene it will change how I approach the tone. That said, I think if I’d have kept the brighter tones, the weight of some of the scenes would be lost. But at the end of the day, I am a cartoonist and I can’t resist a splash of saturated colour sometimes!

Would you care to give us a run down on your process here for Enemy Earth?

LH: Of course, nothing out of the ordinary to the process – some nice gestural loose sketches and layouts, inks and on to colours. 

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Finally, as always, and at the risk of risking the wrath of Tharg, feel free to tell us all about whatever else you have coming up this year – whether it’s for Tharg or not?

LH: Currently working on more Enemy Earth, plus a few small indie titles.

CS: Phase two of Star Wars: The High Republic launches next month at NYCC which my new run of the Marvel comic of the same name launching a week or so later. I then have my annual all-age Star Wars Halloween comic coming at the end of October from Dark Horse – this year’s is titled Tales from the Rancor’s Pit – and a new original horror comic, this one definitely aimed a little bit older, coming from IDW in December. Dead Seas is a ghost story on a haunted prison ship and features incredible art from our co-creator Nick Brokenshire! 

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Thanks to Cavan and Luke for taking the time to talk to us here – having seen the first two episodes, I can tell you that Enemy Earth is looking like a great series, hitting that sweet spot between Regened and 2000 AD, the sort of old school strip for all that 2000 AD has always been proud to feature.

The series began in 2000 AD Prog 2301, out right now everywhere Thrill Power is sold, including the 2000 AD web shop – just look for PJ Holden’s Chimpsky cover…

And now, to end, we’ll show you Luke’s process and design work at full size – here’s the design work…

And now roughs, finishes, and colours to Page 2 of part 1 of Enemy Earth…

And the same for page 3…

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, the return of art droid Jake Lynch for the cover of 2000 AD Prog 2297 – what he’s calling ‘Sentientoid’s Big Cover.’ It’s out whenever you get your Thrill Power on 31 August.

Jake returns not just for the cover, but for the start of the new Judge Dredd adventure, Sentientoid’s Big Idea, written by Rob Williams.

It’s the return of another one of the mercenaries introduced in Judge Dredd: The Hard Way, back in Prog 2250, where we were introduced to this piece of old Sov tech that evolved it’s own AI, became properly sentient and decided to ditch its Sov masters in favour of working for itself – although, as Rob Williams pointed out in the first episode of The Hard Way, ‘I dread to think what the hell it spends its cash on.’

Anyway, onto the cover… Just like he did last time, Jake’s sent over a complete time-lapse video for us all, going through the entire process of putting the cover together, from blank template to final coloured cover… yes, from nothing on the left to absolutely everything on the right, the absolute magic of what artists do!

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We’ve pulled a few screenshots from it to illustrate the process, but it’s still worth a whole minute and a half of your valuable time to see the magic happen in Jake’s video… (if you can’t see it in the embed below – check it out here.)

Yet again, seeing the process unfolding in front of you in time-lapse is something very special, adding even more insight into just how much is involved in creating something like this, from putting rough marks down, adding detail, detail, more detail, painstaking, meticulous, all the way through to adding colours and tweaking it all to get the final image you see on the shelves – fabulous!

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So, now you’ve seen it all put together, a few screenshots from the process video to delight and amaze… all starting with Jake’s first rough sketch idea…

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With that first sketch approved, it onto adding details with the sketch acting as Jake’s template and guide…

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And once those details, essentially inking, are finalised, it’s time to get on with the fiddly, long-winded bits of adding in backgrounds, tonal work, and just generally, as Jake said last time – ‘trying to work out how it will ‘pop’.

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Final stage… adding the colour work, adjustments, alterations, building up the colours layer by layer until it’s all done.

Note as well how all the tight detail of those bodies, something that took so long to do, is sacrificed somewhat to get the right colour balance for the cover – oh, the perfectionism of the artist eh?

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And with that, it’s all done, a Sentientoid triumphant for the cover! Below, some closer details of the work you’ll see on the cover…

Thank you so much to Jake for sending the video over and giving us another look behind the curtain!

For more behind-the-scenes videos and info from Jake, be sure to go and sign up to his Patreon and follow him on Twitter. For more from Jake here at 2000 AD.com, be sure to check out his interviews on The Red Queen’s Gambit (with Arthur Wyatt) and The Hard Way (with Arthur and Rob Williams) and have a look at his last Covers Uncovered here for Judge Dredd Megazine 446 which included another making of video.

You can find 2000 AD Prog 2297 wherever you pick up your weekly prescription of thrill power, including the 2000 AD web shop from 20 July.

It’s the return of Regened and the return of Mega-City One’s protection from multiverses of madness, muddles, and plain muck-ups when Department K return in 2000 AD Prog 2296!

Mega-City One’s Department K protects the Big Meg from interdimensional threats and keeps the nasties from breaking through the walls of reality. Headed by Judge Kirby, the team is made up of Mechanismo Judge Estabon, the alien Blackcurrant, and recently arrived intern Afua, who’s already proved her worth on recent adventures.

After the events of Cosmic Chaos (Progs 2234-2243), we’re now back in Dept K headquarters for a brand-new Regened adventure in 2000 AD Prog 2296, Crisis of Infinite Estabons… time to talk to writer and co-creator Rory McConville and new Dept K artist Nick Dyer about what on earth’s going on…

Rory, Nick, nice to speak to you. Are you relaxing comfortably with a nice cold drink in this absolute inferno of a summer?

NICK DYER: It started as a nice cold drink but now it’s bubbling away!

In 2000 AD Regened Prog 2296, we see the return of Department K for their fourth outing in Crisis of Infinite Estabons.

What do we all have to look forward to with this latest turn from Tek-Div’s strangest department?

RORY MCCONVILLE: It’s the same interdimensional chaos but with a slight twist. Most Dept K stories involve the team going off to explore the multiverse but in this case, a very specific Estabon-shaped piece of the multiverse is coming to them.

Our story begins with two Estabons crossing paths in the halls of Department K, and all hell breaks loose from there.

Rory, you’ve been with Department K right from the start, but you’re now joined by Nick on art after previously working with PJ Holden and Dan Cornwell.

I suppose the obvious question is, what on earth are you doing to the artists to make them keep leaving you? Is it you? Is it them? Is it the script asking them to fill the panels with impossible to draw cosmic stuff?

RMc: I hadn’t thought about it much until you’d mentioned but maybe I need to start doing some self-reflection…. it must be the cosmic stuff, right? Right??

So, now that you’ve used up and discarded the Holden and Cornwell droids, have you seen what Nick’s delivered with Crisis on Infinite Estabons yet? What do you think of what he’s done with the Department and all of those different Estabons?

RMc: I have and I think Nick’s done a phenomenal job. One of the fun things about working with different artists on Dept K stories is getting to see so many interpretation of the characters. Nick’s taken the premise of alternate Estabons and spun gold with it. 

Nick, you do know that McConville’s developing this reputation for using and casting aside his artistic collaborators, don’t you? Did you know what you were letting yourself in for here?

ND: I did not!, but frankly I always keep my expectations of subsequent work to a minimum, I always hope for new jobs but never take it for granted so each project is a gift!

(Nicely dodged there Nick! Obviously the McConville’s gotten to you!)

How has the collaboration been this time? (And don’t be fooled by the niceness he may show you now Nick, it won’t be long till he turns nasty!)

ND: For pretty much all the stories I’ve worked on I have never had a back and forth with the writer so to date I’ve never experienced a symbiotic/evolving collaborative process. I’ve had no complaints (that I know of!) from any writers, however it is an intriguing prospect to give it a go!

So, after thoroughly trashing Rory’s reputation, let’s ask him a few more questions shall we?

With Dept K, it’s the only strip in 2000 AD to have successfully gone from Regened for the first two episodes with PJ Holden, to the main Prog (for want of a better description) for the multi-part Cosmic Chaos with Dan Cornwell, and now back into this latest Regened Prog with Crisis on Infinite Estabons. And of course, all of this from a strip you originally pitched as a Judge Dredd Megazine thing.

What is it about Department K that allows you to do this?

RMc: I think it comes down to the core concept being so versatile.

Personally, I think it’s the perfect example of how good all-ages material works wherever it goes. 2000 AD has always had material that’s aimed at younger readers right from the start and there’s plenty of room for well-told stories that can appeal to young and old.

Is there any particular difference to approach when you’re doing these one-off Regened strips and when you’re planning something longer for Dept K in the Prog itself?

RMc: Not massively, except with the Regened one-offs there’s probably a bit more of a focus on making sure they’re as new reader friendly as possible. 

Oh, and one thing I just thought of, given that you originally pitched it to the Megazine, is there even the possibility of Dept K going dark and you giving us something way more serious, way more apocalyptic in the Megazine one day? It strikes me that Dept K is one strip that really could manage to work across it all.

(Although you still haven’t answered PJ Holden’s pitch about a Dept K & Conan idea!)

RMc: You never know! There’s certainly elements that could take it into a darker direction… and limitless possibilities about where they could travel to…but all depends on where Tharg wants the series to appear next. Who knows?

Maybe every Department K story already features an entirely different team in an entirely different reality each time…

Now that you mention it, I do remember PJ pledging to quit if we didn’t do his Dept K/Conan pitch….

Nick, lovely to see your work here on Crisis of Infinite Estabons, completely different from what’s gone before of course but keeping the essence of what makes Dept K so much fun.

How did you get involved here?

ND: I’m afraid the answer is boringly functional. Matt/Tharg sent me the script and I drew it! 😀

Was there some negotiation involved with Rory that ensured it was all set nicely in the Dept K HQ and none of that cosmic stuff that obviously destroyed the Cornwell droid – some sort of clause in the deal stating no pages of Rory suggesting 80,000 different alien species, all with a unique look and monumental scale?

ND: Nope, no negotiation at all! One of the things that excites me about the process of comics is you never know what you might be asked to draw next! I love that the challenges are varied and unexpected and I enjoy working with a variety of writers all with their unique signatures  on the creation of characters and worlds.

I think Rory has come up with a brilliantly flexible premise in Dept K and combined with his dynamic and fluid scripts the possibilities are wide open!

Did you take a quick dip into the art styles of the last few episodes at all to ground your Dept K with what had come before or just go with it and get on?

ND: Absolutely – with established characters you need to respect the vision of previous artists so I studied both PJ’s concepts and strips and similarly with Dan’s work it provided a very coherent framework that made it an instantly accessible world to expand on!

It strikes me it’s one of those strips to really enjoy drawing with the weird and wonderful cast of characters, all grounded in a familiar MC-1 world.

ND: Oh I love it! In comics nothing is impossible and Rory’s concept plays to this strength effortlessly. As an Artist to receive a script that offers such a playground is a real delight!, and as you say when grounded in a familiar structure it enhances the mind-bending remit that Dept K have.

And in terms of the cast of characters…Nick sent along these great Dept K design roughs he’d done in prep for the strip (full-size versions at the end!)

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As it’s the first time we’ve spoken to you Nick, can you give us a quick idea of who you are and all that? What’s your story?

ND: Well I’ll keep this brief! 😉 I started to try and draw comics around the age of 7 or 8, like many contributors I have been a massive fan of 2000 AD since those years. At 18 I went to art college, graduated with absolutely no career prospects but always obsessively continued to teach myself about the craft.

MANY years later I joined an independent collective/publisher call Underfire Comics, which provided an invaluable understanding of the entire mechanics of production and through a submission that my Editor secretly sent I was picked up by one of the Megazine’s new talent searches which led to the extraordinary experience of drawing  a John Wagner story, the multi created  ‘Judge Dredd: Tour of Duty- Backlash’ as my first job, and since then I have been an irregular but extremely grateful  contributor to the Galaxy’s Greatest!

With Department K here, what was your process in putting the pages together?

ND: I read the script 2-3 times to get an idea of pace and continuity, then page breakdowns with small thumbnails that contain just enough information to set elements and page flow, and  then at A3 I go straight into the finished pencils and work up the inks straight on to them.

Given that all the characters are, by this stage, well developed, did it make it a slightly easier job, or was it a case of putting all of your design efforts into all of those wonderful Estabons?

ND: I think overall it was easier though I have a propensity to lose my own voice in other artists styles so it was important that I made my own versions of PJ’s and Dan’s established characters, as far as the Estabon’s go we are back to playground territory so though I was initially daunted it was wonderful fun to imagine them all!

With four different Department K stories now in the bag, what can we expect from them next? Will there be more Regened, will there be more multi-parters in the main Prog?

RMc: It all depends on what Tharg’s after. Nothing in the pipeline at the moment but there’s definitely a few plotlines from the last run in the main Prog that will need to be picked up at some stage.

Finally, what can we expect from both of you next, whether that’s for 2000 AD or elsewhere?

ND: I am currently drawing a one-off Dredd and hopefully with Tharg’s good grace I will continue to contribute to the worlds of 2000 AD as and when required!

RMc: After this Dept K story, I’ve actually got nothing immediate on the horizon with 2000 AD for the first time in maybe five or six years, which is quite a strange feeling.

Well Rory, obviously there’s something gone wrong with Tharg’s scheduling droids. He’s just been muttering something about unleashing the repair team down to their department – the special repair droids with the really sharp reprogramming attachments.

RMc: Elsewhere, I’m currently writing Spawn for Image Comics and co-writing Time Before Time, a time-travel crime series, also for Image, that’s midway through its third arc.

Thank you so much to both Rory and Nick for taking the time to have a chat with us. You can find the latest Dept K, Crisis of Infinite Estabons, in 2000 AD Regened Prog 2296, out right now in newsagents, comic shops, and the 2000 AD web shop.

And don’t forget to order the first Department K collection, Interdimensional Investigators, featuring work from Rory, PJ Holden, and Dan Cornwell – out on 9 November 2022.

For more Department K chat, including more on the Holden droid’s idea for a Dept K/Conan episode… there’s the interview about their debut in 2000 AD Regened Prog 2196 here with Rory and PJ, plus a triple interview here with Rory, PJ, and Dan about the second Regened strip in Prog 2233 and the multi-part Cosmic Chaos which began in Prog 2234.

Now, because we promised you, the full-size versions of Nick’s Dept K design work from Crisis of Infinite Estabons…

It’s Regened time again as 2000 AD Prog 2296 goes all-out for all-ages – five Thrill Powered strips for young and old, including the brand-new fantasy of Renk!

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Renk is a brand-new fantasy tale by Paul Starkey and Anna Readman, debuting in the latest all-ages and all sorts of awesome Regened Prog – 2000 AD Prog 2296.

Since breaking through as the winner of the 2000 AD/Thought Bubble writing contest in 2020, Paul Starkey‘s since appeared in 2000 AD with a Tharg’s Terror Tale, The Torturer’s Apprentice (Prog 2245, with art by James Newell, the 2020 art contest winner) and a Tales from the Black Museum, Double Jeopardy (Judge Dredd Megazine issue 438, art by Nick Dyer).

Renk artist Anna Readman has been busy in comics since graduating in 2020, including her debut at 2000 AD with the return of Abelard Snazz in The Only Way Is Up (2000 AD Prog 2206, written by Paul Cornell) and Terror Tales: Half Life (Prog 2225, written by John Tomlinson). She’s also published her excellent diary comic collection Handlebar Gumbo and featured in Z2 Comics’ Superstate, soundtracking the Graham Coxon album.

As for Renk, well… If you’re one of the 50,000+ weird and wonderful beings in the fantastical city of Crepuscularia who want something or someone finding, you might hire yourself one of many cunning wizards or mighty barbarian warriors. But if you’re a little short of gold, silver, or coin and want someone a little easier on the purse… then that’s where you hire Renk, Crepuscalaria’s dwarf private investigator.

But why have me tell you about it… let’s talk all things Renk with Paul and Anna…

Hi there Paul, Anna, good to talk to you. Hope you’re both keeping safe and haven’t melted thanks to the unseasonal burny thing in the sky?

ANNA READMAN: All I can say is that a lot of my pages are stained with ice-cream and that my pencil leads dribble down the paper.

In the latest 2000 AD Regened, Prog 2296, you’re introducing a brand-new strip, Renk – could you give us an idea of just what it’s all about and give us an idea of what we can expect from this first episode?

PAUL STARKEY: In a fantastical city populated by myriad creatures, Renk is a one armed dwarf who’s also the fantasy equivalent of a Private Eye. When he’s hired by a princess to locate her parents who’ve been kidnapped, he goes on an adventure through the crazy city of Crepuscularia, but does he know the whole story? 

Obviously, when you’re doing something brand-new this way, it’s very much weighted heavily towards the front end – a load of research, world-building, character creation, and detailing to get to this first short 10-page story. What sort of work have you both already put into Renk to get to this first episode?

PS: A fair bit, Matt rightfully picked up on Renk‘s lack of agency in the original draft (hard to imagine but the bellows scene wasn’t there!) and he also encouraged me to add some more humour. Again Twayne and the whole ballroom dancing scene was a fairly late edition!

What sort of influences have you pulled together for Renk? – the lazy part of my brain came up with Pratchett meets Game of Thrones (sorry!) because it did seem to straddle the tone of the two. There’s the serious plot of the Princess’ reasons for looking for her parents and then we have Renk‘s attitude to things, a dash of comedy, and the weird and wonderful assemblage of characters here.

PS: The original idea is something that’s been percolating at the back of my mind for a while, the idea of a Noirish detective inhabiting a fantasy world, so really the central idea is ‘what if Ukko was Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade?’

What if Ukko was Philip Marlow? – now that is way better than Pratchett meets GoT!

AR: Visually, I took a lot of inspiration from Jeff Smith’s Bone and Chris Samnee’s current ongoing series Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters. Both are rooted in the fantasy genre and showcase some of the finest cartooning and world-building in comics, as well as keeping the story full of life and laughter appealing to every type of audience.

PS: As I say, the humour definitely evolved but I think it works really well, and Anna’s artwork really brings it alive.

AR: I definitely wanted to emphasise the comedic elements in the script by having us much physical comedy as possible. It’s more fun for the reader, and more fun for me to draw!

Presumably, both of you are fantasy genre fans?

PS: Sort of, but honestly it isn’t my favourite genre

AR: Apart from playing Skyrim and watching LOtR I haven’t really gotten into the genre much.

Well, that proves you really shouldn’t assume anything!

You’ve already mentioned Twayne and, although Renk is our lead here – who comes across as both smart and somewhat comedic with a great turn of phrase – I think my favourite character in here has to be Twayne (which is quite the perfect name). It was such fun seeing the trouble Renk gets himself into, all because he needs a little information and Twayne like to be paid in a dance. Of all the characters you’ve developed and designed in Renk, they come across so well.

PS: Renk is definitely supposed to be the world weary PI, but I like how he evolved, and Twayne looks great on the page – again, kudos to Anna!

Some readers may pick up on the fact that the two halves of Twayne are based on certain celebrity talent show judges! If Renk comes back I think we’d definitely have to see Twayne again!

AR: Paul’s amusing description of the character and allusions to which celebrities they may or may not look like certainly helped with designing them!

With Renk himself, Twayne and their great lumbering husbandwife, plus all of the diverse cast of background characters we see, it’s great to see a strip full of all shapes and sizes, all orientations, just getting on with their lives here. It’s noticeable that it’s not just the main cast here, it was nice, for example, to see the female barbarian on the first page.

PS: Thank you, I think originally it was a man but I changed it very quickly because, well why shouldn’t women be barbarians? I definitely wanted to give the impression that Crepuscularia was a diverse place, and of course Renk himself isn’t the kind of character we might usually see as the hero, being of short stature and missing an arm. Again Anna really ran with the diversity and the populace looks way better than it did in my head!

Again, something you’ve already touched on, the bellows scene, is something that sees Renk doing a bit of McGuyver-ing and quite a nasty bit of violence for Regened, something usually reserved for those robots who can be destroyed with glee even in an all-ages comic.

PS: But he does at least survive! It was more a case of trying to get Renk out of the corner I’d written him into!

When you’re doing a new all-ages Regened strip in a fantasy world of swords and sorcery, traditionally full of violence and nasties, what’s your thinking on how far you can go with things for your audience?

PS: Probably how far it’s gone is as far as it could go I think, especially in the Regened issue.

AR: I think if you keep everything to a level of sensible PG-ness and have most violence implied or drawn overly-cartoony then it’s fine. From working in a comic shop, I can tell you that kids read a lot more violent and nasty things then you might think! LotR Fellowship of the Ring is rated PG and that has beheadings in it!

Paul, we were introduced to you on the website back in the interview you did for your Terror Tale (Prog 2245), but feel free to give us a quick who are you and what do you do bit again!

PS: Ok, I’m a child of the 70s who’s been reading 2000 AD off and on since around 1981! My day job is in the thrilling world of Information Governance but by night I write fiction. Aside from the stories I’ve had published in 2000 AD I’ve had a lot of short fiction published and my novella The Lazarus Conundrum was published by Rebellion imprint Abaddon back in 2015.

Anna, this is the first time we’ve interviewed you for the site. Your first 2000 AD work was on the return of Abelard Snazz in The Only Way Is Up with Paul Cornell in Regened Prog 2206, something of a big deal given the character’s history! Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to chat to you then but Paul’s interview had lots of nice things to say about your art.

You’ve only just graduated and moved into the world of comics, what can you tell us about yourself?

AR: I’m a normal 20-something-year-old that lives in Leeds with my boyfriend and our newly adopted retired greyhound, and when I’m not drawing comics I’m either working at OK Comics or at the pub.

Everyone – if you’re in Leeds anytime, be sure to head into OK Comics – a fine, fine comic shop. And maybe ask to see greyhound photos!

Having your first 2000 AD job being the return of a rather famous character from the past must have been quite a big thing for you? Was there any trepidation taking on the job given the history there?

AR: It was a HUGE thing for me, and I absolutely felt like a complete imposter taking on a job as big as that AND drawing an Alan Moore and Steve Dillon character made it even more pressurised, but I did my best with it. It was a definite learning curve!

It was certainly a job well done and one that was full of visual invention, just like Paul said!

Here in Renk, although it’s a very different sort of genre you’re working in, there’s still an awful lot of the same visual invention going on, with pages packed full of details and some great characters for you as an artist to really get your teeth into.

AR: Yeah, I think my drawing style feels a bit more natural in a world of fantasy rather than sci-fi. I’d rather be drawing old rundown taverns than shiny spaceships.

Hey, never say never to the shiny spaceships!!

What was the collaboration between the two of you like on Renk? Was it a case of Anna having free range in populating the pages and coming up with the character designs or was it more a back and forth with Paul supplying ideas?

PS: I think Matt just gave Anna the script and let her run with it 🙂

AR: Paul’s script was brilliantly detailed with descriptions and ideas, and so I just worked off them with my own input and design work. I tried to capture the comedy in his script and keep it consistent in the visualisation of the world-building and sequential storytelling. In a landscape as vibrant as Renk’s, there’s always going to be something weird or funny happening in the background somewhere.

Anna, a few just for you regarding the art here. How do you work now? Is it all digital or do you still work old-school?

AR: I digitally thumbnail my pages, and then traditionally pencil and ink them. I find it utilises the best of the digital and analogue aspects the most efficiently for me personally.

I’ve already asked about the amount of world-building that goes on with these sort of new strips, did you find yourself doing a lot of preliminary work on the design of the world we find ourselves in and the characters populating it?

AR: I’m not particularly well-versed in the genre so I borrowed my friends’ Monster Manual from Dungeons & Dragons to help me populate the world with a range of different high fantasy creatures. The rest of the world-building just came naturally from prompts in the script or my own imagination.

Can you take us through the process of getting Renk to the finished page?  How does the process work for you?

AR: I read the script and scribble ideas and page layouts as I go, then digitally thumbnail out the pages. After those get approved, I just jump straight into pencilling the pages traditionally with blue pencils, and then inking them with brush pens. In this particular case, it gave the lines a more organic feel which lends itself well with this type of fantasy landscape.

Anna was kind enough to send along her pencils and inks for the first couple of pages of Renk – small below but in full at the end of this interview.

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A word on Matt Soffe’s colours here from you both – he’s given the world you’ve come up with a really lived in feel, all deep earthy tones that add so much to the fantasy elements yet still with a down to earth feel. What do you both think of what he’s contributed to Renk.

AR: I really like the tone and depth he’s given to my lines. Adds a lot of ambience and layers to the story.

PS: I love the colours. I think it my head it was b&w but it really does add hugely to the world.

And similarly, Jim Campbell’s done a really nice job on the lettering, a very different sort of font choice to add to the feel of things here.

AR: The typography choices and SFX designs are perfect – they all seamlessly fit into Renk’s world.

PS: Yes it fits perfectly.

I know there’s a solid ‘The End’ on this one, but no doubt when planning and developing this first tale, there must have been thoughts of where you could go next with Renk.

PS: I think it’s safe to say I have the beginnings of a follow-up in my head. It would feature another princess but would be very different to this initial story.

AR: I’d be up for doing another Renk strip if Paul comes up with a new wacky story in the future.

Finally, feel free to tell us all about whatever you have coming up in the future – both here at 2000 AD and further afield.

PS: I’ve written a Cadet Dredd (and Rico) story which I believe is coming in the November Regened. Obviously writing Dredd was a huge honour, but also a lot of fun, I especially liked bouncing Joe and Rico off one another.

AR: I’m tabling for the first time at Thought Bubble this year after being a punter for so many years, so please come and say hi if you’re going in November!

Absolutely do head to Thought Bubble everyone! One of the greatest comics festivals in the world – say hi to Anna and be sure to check out the 2000 AD stand and attend the annual 2000 AD & Thought Bubble talent contest – it’s where Paul got his start at the Galaxy’s Greatest after all!

Thank you so much to both Paul and Anna for taking the time to chat to us all about Renk – you can find the first of his adventures in 2000 AD Regened Prog 2296, out right now wherever Thrill Power is available, including the 2000 AD web shop.

You can find more from Anna at her website and Twitter, and more from Paul at his Twitter.

And finally, keep scrolling for the full-page pencil and ink pages from Anna’s Renk pages 1 and 2.