Main Menu

New 2000 AD creators blog

Started by AlexF, 23 March, 2015, 11:19:36 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

AlexF


AlexF

Another long delay, sorry folks.
Herewith another personal favourite (aren't they all): Simon Harrison

http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/no-87-simon-harrison.html

Frank

.



Cor, lovely - I don't remember seeing that anywhere before. Excellent observations; Harrison was clearly working the photocopier like twin decks to produce Feral's Hulk-outs, but I think the Irish Priest's sock blackness of Revere was just what happens when an artist buys an airbrush and gets their Geiger on*.

If you want to get a reaction on social media, just post a bit of Simon Harrison art - he's divisive like King Solomon. I'm in the LOVE camp, with the proviso that anyone following Carlos on Stronty Dog was on a hiding to nothing. Tharg could have rehired Bolland to draw The No-Go Job** and the first time Alpha had to shout NUMBER 3 CARTRIDGE(!) we'd all still have thought that's not the way Carlos did it.

On the recent ECBT podcast, you can almost hear the raised eyebrows at Tharg's suggestion Harrison was chosen because he was working in a similar style to Ezquerra, but I sort of know what he means. Harrison has the familiar European line and approach to modelling as the King, and Carlos's grotesques have a similar knobbly quality to Harrison's physiognomy.

The difference would be that ALL Harrison's characters have faces like a knobbly knee contest, and there's no comparison in tems of the fledgling artist's anatomy and grasp of storytelling. Like you, I would have killed to have seen Harrison's take on Dredd. Like Hicklenton and Bisley, his style would have been inappropriate for Wagner Dredd, but if John Smith had got the gig instead of Ennis ...


* 1993 seems a bit early for pixel bashing on an ST. Carlos seems to think he was the first artist to use his Mac for anything other than scanning finished art onto disk; I'm not sure I can think of anything substantial sooner than Wilderlands (Sept 1994) and John Higgins's landmark Dredd cover from Dec 1994.

** ... and given him the two years necessary to produce 48 pages

Colin YNWA

Quote from: AlexF on 19 November, 2016, 11:11:52 AM
Another long delay, sorry folks.
Herewith another personal favourite (aren't they all): Simon Harrison

http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/no-87-simon-harrison.html

Wonderful to have you back - been missing you.

AlexF

Blogger is not my friend! I had to reinput this next post 4 times, so if it's more riddled with bad layouts and typos than usual, that's the reason.

It's no lsight at all to Hero number 88, the mighty Sean Phillips:
http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/no-88-sean-phillips.html

Fungus

I could linger over #88 for the rest of today  :)  Phillips is an absolute favourite, great to see the breadth of his output in one place. Don't recall seeing that Rogue Trooper cover before.
Wonderful stuff, Alex.

Frank

Quote from: Fungus on 25 November, 2016, 01:45:06 PM
Don't recall seeing that Rogue Trooper cover before

I like to imagine someone unfamiliar with the character picking up that book to see what psycho-sexual drama the tortured Klimt figure on the cover [1] is articulating, then finding 60 pages of soldier man wearing a bush on his head and killing space Germans in black and white.

Fantastic blog entry, Alex - this is my era. Phillips was so ubiquitous I hadn't realised what little strip work he did for Tharg - parlaying staff artist duties into becoming goto guy for covers [2] makes him Rave era Tharg's replacement for Robin Smith. Or gouache Cliff Robinson.

I always assumed the fella in the photo with Phillips was Duncan Fegredo, but an image search is inconclusive [3]. It could be David Bishop, but this is how he looked in 1988. Those Bobbsey Twins badges remind me some of Phillips' covers (and I'm sure some design work) were credited thus. Could the guy on the right be elusive art assistant Kevin Brighton?


[1] Mine has a £1 Bargain Books sticker obscuring Rogue's left arm, which I feel compliments the strong graphic elements of the composition.

[2] I can't find your story about Phillips' cover for Meg 1 being bumped for Fabry in TPO. Makes sense though; the Phillips image was the one used in all the pre-release publicity material. Maybe Phillips obscured half of Fabry's image with logo as revenge (joke)

[3] Check the name of that Photobucket account, though...

GordonR

Fairly sure that's Sean's wife in that picture...

Frank

.
I've had a good look, but no emoticon from the selection above communicates the complex range of emotions I have just experienced. Thank you, Gordon.



AlexF


Old Tankie


AlexF


Greg M.

I loved Simon Jacob's work at the time, and would echo the cry for a complete collected Armoured Gideon (not least because I can't remember anything about Bk 4, apart from the body-swap theme.)

AlexF

While we all wait eagerly for a full collected hardback of Rogue Trooper, the Fr1day years, here's the man who did the best he could to make us care again: Steve White.

http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/no-91-steve-white.html

Frank

.
In all the hours I've wasted here, I cannot remember a single person ever mentioning Steve White's name or discussing his work [1]. You've proven your worth, Alex.

Black Light and non-Pat-Flesh performed the same function in my reading of the comic as bran flakes do in my diet, so this - perhaps the first and last time two 2000ad readers discuss White's work - will limit itself to Friday.

I liked the way the dialogue read like William Burroughs creating a cut-up work from Jane's Glossary Of Military Terms and Technology. It seemed like a fresh approach to a strip which, hitherto - despite being ostensibly about war - had left the artists to convince the reader of the reality of the battles and the tech, concentrating on quests and character clashes.

Sticking out a mile from the verisimilitude were the catchphrase and the whimsical treatment of Eightball. Your observation that White's sensibilities are mainstream chimes with my feeling at the time, that a catchphrase was probably the kind of thing a successful strip should have, but I was never convinced LET'S KNIFE(!) was it.

The Winnie The Pooh stuff might have been a necessary light touch, to balance the military realism, but Tharg already had whimsy coming out of his yazoo in the early nineties [2]. I was vaguely aware White was trying to build on the mythology established by Fleischer, with the jihadis. He fashioned it into a silk purse, but I'd rather he'd created something original.

Finally, how weird is it that he also banged out some covers? Plenty artists have decided they fancy a go on the typewriter, but I can't remember Ian Edginton ever submitting a cover image of Stickleback made out of macaroni.


[1] Friday gets a lot of mentions, but that era's always figured as a Fleischer joint

[2] Grudgefather, Timehouse, Dead Meat