New 2000 AD creators blog

[AlexF]

If ever there was an artist/writer whose work is tough to pin down, it's the next hero on the ever-ongoing list, Mike Collins:

https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2018/10/no-121-mike-collins.html

[AlexF]

Everybody loves early 1990s 2000AD, right?
Here to represent is Mick Austin, a creator trapped in the wrong era if ever there was one...

https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2018/11/no-122-mick-austin.html

[broodblik]

AlexF keep up the good work, I really like your blog

[AlexF]

The purple patch for fans of early 1990s 2000AD continues with...

Steve Sampson
https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2018/11/no-123-steve-sampson.html

[CalHab]

Another excellent article. Sampson's Anderson work, in particular, was always good as I remember.

[Frank]

The purple patch for fans of early 1990s 2000AD ... [/url]

If that was deliberate, I get that! *

It's a frequently made point that art gods like Weston, Coleby and Staples - the very best talents Tharg can call on, today - were given their big breaks before they were the finished article**, turning in some strips of variable quality before they located the genius button.

So I sometimes wonder whether creators like Sampson, Steve Tappin or Calum Alexander Watt, whose work was sometimes similarly wonky or stiff, might have followed equally stellar trajectories given the opportunity to continue drawing comics and improving.

To me, Sampson's current work demonstrates his talent is for illustration. Maybe his sequentials would have improved with experience, but use of photographic reference always seems to lead to static compositions, however fine the technique may become.


* Dark Days says the purple tint was his way of trying to mitigate reader disappointment that he was having to run monochrome material

** Partly because the move to full colour meant trusty stalwarts were taking twice as long to turn in pages, partly because many of those trusty stalwarts found it was more rewarding to be trusty and stalwart for other publishers

[Sinx]

I love this blog - just so cool to read about the artists who've contributed to the Galaxy's Greatest over the years!

It's a frequently made point that art gods like Weston, Coleby and Staples - the very best talents Tharg can call on, today - were given their big breaks before they were the finished article**, turning in some strips of variable quality before they located the genius button.

I think Simon Fraser may have an assistant/apprentice according to the YT 2000AD creators video, but yes on the whole I think all the major publishers want the artists to be the finished product. I guess the international talent pool is just so huge now any publisher who can actually pay a decent page rate has their pick of the bunch. I wish I'd tried breaking in during the 90's US boom - honestly some of the art that came out then even on major character books like The Thing and Hulk was garbage 

[Dandontdare]

I'm a big fan of Sampson's work - got to the end of that piece and wondered why you hadn't mentioned the great Hershey solo strips, but then realised I was mixing him up with Marc Wigmore, who has a similar style.

[AlexF]

Ha! Poor old Marc Wigmore - he was actively touted as the next big thing but absolutely did not survive the jump fro the Meg to the Prog. I've no idea how much this may be to do with fan response but I imagine the larger Prog readership is/was less forgiving of the more esoteric art styles.

And yes, he is of the same ilk as Sampson, like a 90s indie movie splurged onto a comics page, although perhaps more Greg Araki to Sampson's straight up Tarantino.

[Dandontdare]

They're both very much 'of their time'. I recall swimming against the prevailing trends in the 90s - whilst everyone was raving about the fully-painted Bisleyesque stuff, I found a lot of it murky and impenetrable, I much preferred the more graphic styles of Wigmore and Sampson for the clarity of storytelling and great mood-enhancing colours. Those black & red Hershey strips are some of my favourite art ever to grace the Meg

[Tjm86]

See this is my issue with much of Langley's work.  On one level it is stunning but on another completely impenetrable.  It is a complete ocular overload that makes the narrative illegible.  This is the greatest problem with recent Slaine and ABC Warriors strips.   Gibbons, Gibson, Bolland, Ezquerra, Kennedy, McMahon, Smith, Wilson,  O'Neill ... all of them understood this.  For comics to be a visual medium it has to be something the reader can manage visually.  The artwork has to provide something that the reader cannot obtain from the text alone, that brings the reader along ...

[AlexF]

Typical, you wait ages for a female creator to appear on the Blog, and then three show up at once...

Modern legend Emma Beeby
https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2018/11/no-124-emma-beeby.html

Old master Hilary Robinson
https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2018/11/no-125-hilary-robinson.html

Queen of colours Gina Hart
https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2018/11/no-126-gina-hart.html

[AlexF]

And yes, I did wait until I'd finished all three entries before posting just so I could make that joke.
P14 puns forever!

[AlexF]

You ever had one of those months where you find yourself writing a 3,000 word essay on the merits of Tony Skinner?
I love writing this blog, even if it does take me ages.

https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2019/01/no-127-tony-skinner.html

[AlexF]

I seem to have fallen from twice a week to once a month (if that), but the Heroes blog keeps rolling on.
It's back to the 1970s today to hang out with Chris Lowder (mostly credited as Jack Adrian, in case you're wondering):

https://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.com/2019/02/no-128-chris-lowder-aka-jack-adrian.html

Up next, a true grotesque, followed by true comics royalty...