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Sideshow Vote II: I molded this piece of clay into a masterpiece

Started by broodblik, 25 May, 2022, 04:03:03 AM

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broodblik

We all know that the great Carlos Ezquerra created the look of Dredd. Unfortunately, he only draw his first Dredd for prog 5 and mostly took a back seat in the beginning to his own creation. Now the question which artist do you believe was the most influenceable in forming and molding Dredd into the character we know today:
-   Ron Smith
-   Mike McMahon
-   Brain Bolland







When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Colin YNWA

Tough one. Favourite is Mick McMahon, but if you are talking influencuial I think its got to be

Brian Bolland

cos Mike was unique!

Huey2

Ron Smith. The most prolific Dredd artist of the first ten years. Whilst Bolland and McMahon rightly get a lot of credit for developing the look of the character, Smith deserves recognition for nailing the tone of the strip and the way that it can flip from comedy to drama instantly. Also as Daily Star artist, he was the face of Dredd to the wider public for most of the 80s.

The Legendary Shark

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Magnetica

Those Ron Smith and Bolland images aren't representative of their work IMO. They are too modern for one thing.

Now my favourite ever Dredd artist (well artist full stop) is Bolland.

But did he shape Dredd more than others? I'm not sure.

I don't think there is any one single artist responsible for the look of Dredd and his world. It's an amalgamation of them all.

If pushed, I'd have to say Carlos because he designed the character in the first place.

But then Mick drew more early strips than anyone and probably did more to define the look of the city than anyone else.

Not sure who first gave Dredd the bigger shoulder pad and eagle. I guess it might have been Mick.

Oh and I love Ron Smith too. He did a huge amount to define the look of the citizens. Hmmm but so did Mick.


sheridan

Ian Gibson is another early one from Robot Wars to the end of Luna-1.  Even though it's a different uniform the general build and shape changed a bit in those times.

AlexF

To an extent, I think more artists have tried to make their work look like Bolland than have ever tried to ape McMahon or Smith, but it seems to take them so long I'm not sure it counts as massively influential. (Bolland didn't actually draw that many episodes of Dredd, but he still managed more than e.g. Robinson, Weston, Sharp and Foster)

I'd count Kennedy, Flint and Lynch as acolytes of the McMahon school, but even then I think a lot fo the energy they bring kinda comes from Smith. As Huey2 says above, he worked on the strip for so long during arguably its most popular period, and as such set an eternal template for Dredd and his world as a place that has loony energy, darkly comic violence with a sarcastic, quippy central 'hero' in Dredd himself. So I'm voting Smith, but really he was following McMahon's lead.

Interstingly all three artists drew Dredd as pretty wiry, while these days I tend to picture him as more muscular - maybe that's a change from Ezquerra's later work on the character?

Colin YNWA

The more this one perculates in my noggin the more I wonder if the right answer is Ron Smith. Not cos of his Dredd but rather the way he truly defined the citizens of Mega City One that are so fundament to the series as a whole... I need to rumniate some more...

broodblik

As always you can change your vote as many times as you want it is your last vote that counts.

Also I have added Ian Gibson as an option as well
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Tjm86

Man this is a tricky one.  I'm not sure that there is a definitive answer.  I mean, Smith is responsible for some of the more bizarre aspects of citizenry but I always felt like he never really got the cityscape as it should be for MC1.  Bolland's characters and close-ups are always things of beauty but he suffers the same weaknesses as Smith. 

McMahon is probably the most rounded of the three in that respect, honouring Ezquerra's early vision of the city, providing a supporting cast of utterly bizarre characters and vehicles that fit this surreal world.  This is referring to early McMahon mind.  Modern McMahon is a different beast again.

I would also have to ask about iconic moments.  We've got "Gaze into the fist of Dredd" for instance.  With McMahon we've got those classic Cursed Earth covers.  I struggle to think of a comparable one for Smith.

So I guess for me it's McMahon, then Bolland then Smith.

Funt Solo

++ A-Z ++  coma ++

sheridan

Quote from: Funt Solo on 25 May, 2022, 03:38:15 PM
Isn't it still Carlos?

Not really - obviously King Carlos created Dredd in the first place (and catapulted the original concept from a near future One-Eyed Jack style cop to the further-future lawman we all know and love/fear/etc) but after those initial stories Carlos was away until the beginning of the Apocalypse War.  The scrawny early progger Joe with more functional knee/elbow/shoulder pads had morphed quite a bit in those four years.

Funt Solo

Quote from: sheridan on 25 May, 2022, 08:50:54 PM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 25 May, 2022, 03:38:15 PM
Isn't it still Carlos?

Not really - obviously King Carlos created Dredd in the first place (and catapulted the original concept from a near future One-Eyed Jack style cop to the further-future lawman we all know and love/fear/etc) but after those initial stories Carlos was away until the beginning of the Apocalypse War.  The scrawny early progger Joe with more functional knee/elbow/shoulder pads had morphed quite a bit in those four years.

Aye, indeed. My early-prog knowledge is weak - I only became a regular reader well into the 100s - so I think I'm not well placed to answer the question.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

The Mind of Wolfie Smith

character? bolland.
city? smith.
tech? gibson.
space? mcmahon.

kinetic definitive fusion of all the above? ezquerra.

AlexF