2000AD and all things related

[badaids]

Do people like Cliff Robinson, Simon Bisley or Brian Bolland still draw for them? Or are they dead?

I never liked Ron Smith's drawing style, all those flabby gurning faces and goofy buck teeth on literally EVERY face put me right off. Still struggle to read his stuff in the compilations.

All the old stuff is still gripping - my daughter is obsessed with the old comics and anthologies that I still have lying round.

[Alberon]

Since Prog 10 is amazing. Where do you keep them all?

My Mum's garage, actually!

I'm going through a lot of US comics I bought in the late eighties and nineties and ebaying most of them, but I won't part with 2000AD, The Megazine and the few other UK SF comics I got. I've got some Starlords somewhere.

[Norton Canes]

Do people like Cliff Robinson, Simon Bisley or Brian Bolland still draw for them? Or are they dead?

Cliff Robinson has become The Mighty One's go-to cover artist for the last few years, putting out one of his sterling efforts every six weeks or so. Don't think he's had a gig on an actual strip for ages. Apart from the odd panel for anniversary editions, I don't think Bolland or Bisley have been around for ages either - though the latest Dredd story (and hopefully more to come) was illustrated by Tom Foster (our very own Jumble Cashback), who uses elements of Bolland's style but comes up with work brilliantly and definitively his own.

I never liked Ron Smith's drawing style, all those flabby gurning faces and goofy buck teeth on literally EVERY face put me right off. Still struggle to read his stuff in the compilations

What?! Ron Smith's art was mint! Absolute masterclass.

[SweetPomPom]

Dan Abnett's Wild West thing Lawless is well worth a look. I've not got round to it yet but lots of people say nice things about Brass Sun.
I think Rebellion are very deliberately keeping the classics and contemporary stuff separate, they seem pretty cautious about rebooting anything. Even before they took over, the reboots never went that well - I remember Sam Slade was a stinker when they brought him back. And everything from Friday onwards was a poor relation to the original Rogue Trooper. I'd hate for them to taint the perfection of something like Nemesis.
It's not 2000AD but Bryan Talbot's steampunk badger detective is well worth a look if you've not seen it.

Ron Smith's art was great!
Loads of the classic era artists have died already, sadly.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Do people like Cliff Robinson, Simon Bisley or Brian Bolland still draw for them? Or are they dead?

I never liked Ron Smith's drawing style, all those flabby gurning faces and goofy buck teeth on literally EVERY face put me right off. Still struggle to read his stuff in the compilations.

All the old stuff is still gripping - my daughter is obsessed with the old comics and anthologies that I still have lying round.

Bolland hasn't drawn anything apart from covers since 1981. I think the meticulous detail of his pages meant he wasn't suited to the week-in grind of long form stories, and the demands of the last big story he contributed to, "Block Mania", seems to've put him off doing any more.

Despite his inspiring tons of copycat artists in the late eights and early nineties, It's surprising how small Bisley's 2000AD output is. He really only ever worked on a handful of stories, the last being a one-off guest episode of Slaine in 2013, and there was a gap of 23 years between that and his last work on The Horned God in 1990.

[badaids]

Ron Smith must be dead ages ago, wasn't he like in his 60s when drawing Dredd in the 80s.

I can't stand all the teeth and cheeks, and the way he used to draw Dredd's helmet so that the sides looked really thick. But I still acknowledge he was great.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Bolland hasn't drawn anything apart from covers since 1981. I think the meticulous detail of his pages meant he wasn't suited to the week-in grind of long form stories, and the demands of the last big story he contributed to, "Block Mania", seems to've put him off doing any more.

Despite his inspiring tons of copycat artists in the late eights and early nineties, It's surprising how small Bisley's 2000AD output is. He really only ever worked on a handful of stories, the last being a one-off guest episode of Slaine in 2013, and there was a gap of 23 years between that and his last work on The Horned God in 1990.

Oddly enough it was only the other day that I looked at wikipedia to see what Bisley was up too, and it seems very little. He does the odd album cover, D&D book or comic cover, but other than that I've no idea how he makes a living, though it does say he's involved in design work for music videos, but the only citation is for one by The Chippendales!

Also: https://www.simonbisleyart.com/ - Contains some very fond memories and makes me wish he drew more comics these days.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

That's reminded me actually of a budding artist called Chris Halls, who was one of those many Bisley imitators in the early nineties, and probably could've made a reasonable career out of it, but instead ended up moving into video work under his birth name - Chris Cunningham. Talk about the path not taken.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

Ron Smith must be dead ages ago, wasn't he like in his 60s when drawing Dredd in the 80s.

I can't stand all the teeth and cheeks, and the way he used to draw Dredd's helmet so that the sides looked really thick. But I still acknowledge he was great.

He only died in 2019, aged 90! Although he'd had to give up working a couple of decades before that due to the sudden onset of blindness.

[badaids]

Oddly enough it was only the other day that I looked at wikipedia to see what Bisley was up too, and it seems very little. He does the odd album cover, D&D book or comic cover, but other than that I've no idea how he makes a living, though it does say he's involved in design work for music videos, but the only citation is for one by The Chippendales!

Also: https://www.simonbisleyart.com/ - Contains some very fond memories and makes me wish he drew more comics these days.

This page.  I spent so long staring at it, and even longer trying to copy it.

[badaids]

What have the Dark Judges been up to the last 30 years?  Hard to think of a better set of baddies.

[Ron Maels Moustache]

What have the Dark Judges been up to the last 30 years?  Hard to think of a better set of baddies.

They've recently (since around 2016) been appearing in a grim-as-fuck reboot called "The Fall Of Deadworld" which takes place during the Judges' rise to power in their own dimension.

Dave Kendall has this extraordinary art style which makes all the characters look they're slowly rotting from the inside out and everything has a horrible texture of decay to it. It's pretty amazing.

[badaids]

I knew they'd have been up to no good.

It looks wicked.  I'm going to have to subscribe and pay actual money for this aren't I?

[Registering to lurk]

Ron Smith was ace. I love the story about him deciding how much he wanted to be paid per hour so he'd set a timer and when it went off, the page was complete.


Jigsaw disease, from The Judge Child, really creeped me out. Poor Mr Prosser, I worried about the questions he asked about Jigsaw disease. How did he stay together? Where was he disappearing to?


And mention of Eagle and Doomlord reminded me of this cover. I was always an fan of the relaunched Eagle, and Doomlord was by far the best strip. Suddenly seeing this cover in the newsagent was terribly exciting. I remember begging my mum for 20p to buy it. She refused on the not unreasonable grounds that my nan was already buying Eagle for me, and I could read it when I went round to her house.

[Glebe]

And mention of Eagle and Doomlord reminded me of this cover. I was always an fan of the relaunched Eagle, and Doomlord was by far the best strip. Suddenly seeing this cover in the newsagent was terribly exciting. I remember begging my mum for 20p to buy it. She refused on the not unreasonable grounds that my nan was already buying Eagle for me, and I could read it when I went round to her house.

Did Nan allow you to bring those copies home? Or was it a kind of library arrangement?

[Registering to lurk]

Did Nan allow you to bring those copies home? Or was it a kind of library arrangement?

Sadly that detail is lost to history. I think she kept them round her's as a guarantee of future visits.

[Glebe]

Sadly that detail is lost to history. I think she kept them round her's as a guarantee of future visits.

Come on Nan (in the past), allow young Registering to lurk to bring his Eagles home!

[13 schoolyards]

Re: Bisley, a few years back (well, probably closer to a decade now) Pat Mills announced he was writing a solo Joe Pineapples story with Bisley doing the art. I think Biz did two episodes in four years, and now Chris Langley is drawing the rest. No idea when it'll finally see print, but that'll add a little to Bisley's 2000ad page count.

One thing I will say for 2000ad is that it's definitely become an artists showcase in recent years. Even when the writing is a bit stale or ropey (which tbh I find a bit more than I'd like lately), the stories always look great, with a wide range of styles on offer too which you don't always get in US mainstream comics

[bushwick]

I should qualify my previous post by saying I'm really glad that 2000AD's still going and I do get tempted to jump back on and try it again. That aforementioned Dark Judges stuff (written by KEK-W, is it not?) is meant to be decent. I really like Tula Lotay's art too, dunno about strips but she's done some good covers.

I had a few copies of Warrior, I loved it but it really did seem adult and edgy to 8 year old me. Couldn't work out what Axel Pressbutton and Zirk were about but I knew it was a "sex thing". I also got the revamped Halls Of Horror that Quality published at the time (some good comic strips in that too).

Regarding Bisley - I'm pretty sure he has some very wealthy patrons and his original art goes for big money. He's meant to be pretty well off. He's done minimal sequential stuff in recent years, mainly paintings and covers, but I recently picked up The Tower Chronicles that he did with Matt Wagner and it's his (very rough and quick, parts sloppy parts masterful) pencils with digital colour straight over the top, no inks. I get the impression comics are a pain in the arse for him when he could be concentrating on doing a single image (a la Bolland).  He's like a modern Frazetta, widely acknowledged as a virtuoso, big in Europe, rock star patrons etc. I think he's a genius - a natural artist, masses of chutzpah and you can see how he puts it together, you see the marks and the shortcuts and the humanity in the work plus he mixes realism with cartoonishness like Richard Corben. He "just draws", with masses of confidence and audacity. Someone like Bolland (also a genius IMO) is the polar opposite in that his work is so carefully controlled and composed it looks other-worldly - he doesn't show how the sausage is made, but Bisley does.

[Artie Fufkin]

I've not got round to it yet but lots of people say nice things about Brass Sun.

It's not 2000AD but Bryan Talbot's steampunk badger detective is well worth a look if you've not seen it.

Yes! Brass Sun is excellent.

Really wanna read that Bryan Talbot Grandville run. Looks really cool.

[Small Man Big Horse]

There was a fair amount of Nemesis talk in the other comics thread, but I thought I'd post a short mini-review of book one here, along with a couple of photos I took, as it is something I really loved a great deal.

Nemesis The Warlock - Book 1 - Okay, this might sound over the top, but I almost get a giddy high from looking at Kevin O'Neill's art, the amount of detail is amazing, and there's some many beautifully absurd moments, things you might not even spot initially but if you really study the page you'll notice (or that's how it worked for me, anyhow). This is easily my favourite script from Pat Mills too, it's darkly funny and absurd and almost endlessly creative, and well, this is easily in my Top 3 2000AD strips along with Dredd and Zenith. 5/5







I'm taking a brief break before launching in to Book 2 as the art's not by O'Neill, it's by no means bad from the couple of pages I looked at but it's just not the same, so I was pleased to see that Kevin's back for Book 3.

[jobotic]

Need to read this thread properly. Bringing back some memories.

Just quickly mention that one of the lettering droids lived next door to me when I was a kid and he got me some original Ian Gibson Dredd artwork.

And I coloured it in! Stupid twat child.

[SweetPomPom]

Need to read this thread properly. Bringing back some memories.

Just quickly mention that one of the lettering droids lived next door to me when I was a kid and he got me some original Ian Gibson Dredd artwork.

And I coloured it in! Stupid twat child.

Spectacular decision!
(I prob would have done the same as a kid..)

The other half got in touch with Ian without me knowing about ten years back and got me a painted Halo original for a birthday present. Probably my favourite comics thing ever.

[Artie Fufkin]

along with a couple of photos I took

Thanks for this @Small Man Big Horse.
However, why am I unable to see photos (any ones) on here? Do I need to click summat in settings?

[badaids]

Yes Kevin O'Neill was a favorite of mine and my mates too. His work always seemed so careful yet deranged at the same time. Today I suppose you'd call it tinged with psychedelia, or gigeresque.

He's another one that I didn't like his version for Dredd though - always a bit too far out.

He was the illustrator on one of the first 2000ad stories that drew me in though which was Metalzoic - mental story about robot dinosaurs and animals. Me and a pal spent ages drawing our own versions of that.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I'd hardly list it among my greatest regrets, but it does occasionally seem odd that I never got into 2000AD. I remember seeing it in the newsagents when I was a kid and it having a certain mystique about it. It wasn't some colourful cartoony cids comic. It was hard edged, grown up, for the scary big kids who monopolised the swings at the park. My folks were pretty liberal/not bothered about the media I consumed, but there was still an illicit thrill about 2000AD, like I might get in trouble even picking it up off the shelf. By the time I'd grown out of that, it still seemed a bit intimidating because it had been in publication for so long, I never knew where to begin with it.

It probably counts as blasphemy, but I have a certain fondness for the Stallone Judge Dredd film. If nothing else, Mean Machine Angel and the ABC robot looked cool as fuck. I stopped bothering with the How Did This Get Made? podcast after they spent an episode sneering at it. Not that I consider it some sacred cow, but they clearly didn't realise that the stuff they were sneering at was always meant to be comical, e.g. naming roads Abbot and Costello.

If I remember rightly, this talented chap is one of us.

[Glebe]

Got my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books signed by Kevin O' Neill a few years back.

[Alberon]

I do have an A3 size pen sketch of Marshal Law which I won after Mills and O'Neil appeared on Night Network.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Thanks for this @Small Man Big Horse.
However, why am I unable to see photos (any ones) on here? Do I need to click summat in settings?

I've had a look but I can't see anything. It's weird, sometimes images don't work for me (for instance badaids picture of Simon Bisley's ABC Warriors art came up once, but isn't showing now) and it all seems a bit random as to why I can seem some images but not others.

[Artie Fufkin]

I've had a look but I can't see anything. It's weird, sometimes images don't work for me (for instance badaids picture of Simon Bisley's ABC Warriors art came up once, but isn't showing now) and it all seems a bit random as to why I can seem some images but not others.

OK. Well, thanks for taking the trouble to look. I don't get ANY pics come up. Though thinking about it, maybe it's a work thing. Maybe if I look at home they'll be there?