Hi All
I would really like to hear your comments concerning the above topic. Whilst looking through the Complete case files and "Thrill Power Overload", I am very suprised to see that Ron Smith is given a one sentence "biopraphy", and that seems to be grudgingly.
Why is that? Surely as one of the best aritists to ever drawn Judge Dredd, why is there not more recognition?
What do you lot think?
Well he certainly isn't 'understated', he has one of the most boisterous styles around! But I take your intended point and agree - the Ronster is woefully under-appreciated, despite drawing many of the most important tales in the whole history of Dredd, and producing some of the most striking images and sequences. He's in the Top 5 of Dredd artists for me.
I blame his lack of recognition on his shameful misuse by The Powers That Be in the early 90's - Friday, Chronos Carnival and Judge Tyrannosaur, bleeech.
I think there's more about Ron Smith in TPO than just one sentence, isn't there? Doesn't Pat Mills wax lyrical about Ron's work on The Man Who Drank the Blood of Satanus? And there's the big pic of the first appearance of Chopper from UnAmerican Graffiti (and almost certainly more).
Anyway, yes - Ron Smith is a bit underrated. For me, growing up with Ron's art in the Prog, he always somewhat in the shadow of his contemporaries. The fact that Ron seemed to stand in for other artists in multi-part stories (Father Earth, the Judge Child, etc.) contributed to my feelings that he was something of a second-best artist, and as a kid I probably inwardly groaned when he inevitably took over from Bolland on something.
These days, I rate him very, very highly - a fantastic artist who provided incredibly memorable art for some defining moments on Dredd as well as a host of other Thrills*. I'll save time by repeating what I wrote on CAF about one of the Ron Smith pages I have:
Ron Smith. What can I say? The man's a legend, and effortlessly made Mega City One his own, populating it with a myriad of perps and crazed cits. His work on classics like The Graveyard Shift, Shanty Town, The Black Plague and so many more still leaves me speechless.
*Just don't mention Chronos Carnival.
Spot on, Ming. In fact, if anyone wants to see the artistic equivalent of the Labours of Hercules, just look at any given page of the Black Plague, or the Aggros episodes of The Judge Child. 'When the alarm goes off, the page is done' - impossible, surely?
Rumpole666, you might want to check some of the earlier threads here celebrating Ron Smith's work, and The Legendary Shark's tribute comic project. We love our Ron round here!
For example:
http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,34167.0/
(http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,34167.0/)
I've always loved Ron's work-his character and architectual design work is fantastic. I agree that the man is a legend and he's easily in my top ten AD artists.
Not forgetting his enormous contribution in the Daily Star strips every week.
His depiction of fellow cits was brilliant. I remember the Chopper/Scrawler story where Chopper was stood in a Zoom chatting to a mate, surrounded by regular Citizens - who all looked totally bonkers!!! I had more fun looking at all the crazees than following the story at that point!
Quote from: Rumpole666 on 30 October, 2012, 01:04:02 PM
Whilst looking through the Complete case files and "Thrill Power Overload", I am very suprised to see that Ron Smith is given a one sentence "biopraphy", and that seems to be grudgingly.
Certainly with the Case Files, thats true.
But, Ron Smith - this man's art cant be praised enough. I dont think anybody else's art makes me smile in quite the same way as Ron's does.
I can pinpoint exactly when the penny dropped for me. It was halfway through the Judge Child Quest, and it was the episode featuring the Alien salesman. Brilliant stuff.
For a comic that was largely filled with the newest and brightest, Ron's work (and he must have been well into middle age, when the prog was having its first golden age), was consistantly more fantastical and simply brilliant, than most.
Personally, id place Ron Smith above Brian Bolland any day of the week. And for the sheer joy i get from reading those stories, on occasion, i personally think he even eclipses Mick McMahon.
Quote from: Rumpole666 on 30 October, 2012, 01:04:02 PM
I am very suprised to see that Ron Smith is given a one sentence "biopraphy", and that seems to be grudgingly.
I'd be *slightly* careful about casting aspersions here, since the very people who put those books together read the board. Ron only has one line in the early books because info on him was scarce for the team at the time. It wasn't until a few years ago when I interviewed him for the Megazine that we got a much better idea of what he'd actually done in his career!
Ron Smith's the tits. Look at his artwork for Shanty Town, The Hotdog Run and Graveyard Shift. As definitive a version of Dredd as anything Bolland, McMahon or Ezquerra brought to the table. Never appreciated his art when I was younger as nothing stayed consistent from one panel to the next but I adore that about his art now.
I'd like to see more in the biography section of the CFs about Mr Smith as well.
Think it is worth mentioning Ron's terrific work in Block Mania. I seem to recall in the old Titan Books edition there was an introduction (by John Wagner I think) in which it was explained that Mike McMahon was signed up to draw the whole storyline. When Mike realised the scale of the story he (understandably) stepped aside after penning the first few episodes. It was Ron that stepped into the breach and it is worth pointing out that it is his episodes which illustrated the massive scale of the chaos. A terrific job he did of it too, absolutely amazing! Hats off to you sir!
Quote from: blackmocco on 30 October, 2012, 06:22:58 PM
Ron Smith's the tits. Look at his artwork for Shanty Town, The Hotdog Run and Graveyard Shift. As definitive a version of Dredd as anything Bolland, McMahon or Ezquerra brought to the table.
Seconded.Although I did very much appreciate him at the time.Bought the Daily Star many times over just for his strip (well you wouldn't buy it for the news would you ;)) and filled scrap books with them.
For the great body of work he produced and his pure inventiveness and sense of fun,Ron Smith easily makes it into my top 5 Dredd artists of all time.So yes, he is an under-rated artist to me.
'Who killed Pug Ugly' & Otto Sump made a huge impression on me, mad genius!
Chi
And we can't amiss his work outside 2000ad.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LTrTaBdgo7o/Tbf18ojcX3I/AAAAAAAAJZw/Vqv-PrmOH3A/s1600/The-Hotspur-1059-P01.jpg)
V
or this, from - gulp - 1957!
(http://i.imgur.com/V8VEp.jpg)
Sort of on-topic, I re-read a lot of Thrill Power Overload yesterday and it struck me how monsterously bitchy it seemed to get in the nerve-centre. Obviously lots of egos thrashing about, but John (not Ron) Smith comes across as being a total cock.
Ron Smith is given a fair bit of love, though.
Quote from: JTurner on 31 October, 2012, 11:14:41 AM
Sort of on-topic, I re-read a lot of Thrill Power Overload yesterday and it struck me how monsterously bitchy it seemed to get in the nerve-centre. Obviously lots of egos thrashing about, but John (not Ron) Smith comes across as being a total cock. Ron Smith is given a fair bit of love, though.
The only contentious part of
Thrill-power Overload involving
Smith, John I can think of is his plan to re-script the word balloons of
Chronos Carnival. I'm not sure that was ever a serious proposal, and it couldn't have made that strip any worse. I'd like to read it.
Ron Smith was an absolute gem of an artist and there's no way anyone connected to 2000ad would deny it. He drew the definitive Uglies and Fatties, never mind the bonkers ordinary cits and the art on that Satanus yarn was genius. Molch-R's interview of Ron is one of the more memorable ones for me, the man lived a life even before he started with the funny books.
M.
Blimey, he lived a life before Dredd, eh???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Smith_(comics)
Quote from: JTurner on 31 October, 2012, 11:14:41 AM...John (not Ron) Smith comes across as being a total cock.
Is this one of these young person mean-the-exact-opposite modern argot things, like 'bad', 'wicked', 'random' and 'socialist'? 'Cos if so, you is totes amazeballs!
Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 01 November, 2012, 01:27:45 PM
Blimey, he lived a life before Dredd, eh???
I loved the way that Molch-R's Megazine interview had this little throwaway boxout covering Ron's brief escapades as a spy...!
And, yes... Ron was the backbone of Dredd for a decade and a half. As such, he tended to get overlooked by every 'flashier' artist who came in-between, certainly by me, anyway! It's odd, because although I feel like I never rated Ron's work until much later in life, if you asked me to pick my favourite stories like many readers my age 'Shanty Town', 'Black Plague', 'Son of Satanus', 'Pirates of the Black Atlantic', 'Graveyard Shift', et al, are all right up there on the list...
Cheers
Jim
Pirates of the Black Atlantic! Captain Skank! Completely forgot about that one, and it's bloody awesome. Does anyone know which Case Files that is in? I'll rush out and buy it!
Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 01 November, 2012, 05:06:29 PM
Pirates of the Black Atlantic! Captain Skank! Completely forgot about that one, and it's bloody awesome. Does anyone know which Case Files that is in? I'll rush out and buy it!
Case File no 4.
Case Files 3, 6 and 7 are all quite Ron-heavy, too.
Quote from: shaolin_monkey on 01 November, 2012, 01:27:45 PM
Blimey, he lived a life before Dredd, eh???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Smith_(comics)
Funny. I never read any of his Dredds, but from the list in Wikipedia I'd been reading his uncredited work elswhere for years. The loneliness of the uncredited artist...
I liked the way Smith's art looked, at least from the case files I have. I was surprised too seeing that there's not much on him in the bios in the back considering how common he was in the earlier progs. I wonder if there was some falling out between Smith and others, or if it's just a case he isn't as marketable as other artists?
Quote from: MercZ on 03 November, 2012, 03:56:52 AM
I liked the way Smith's art looked, at least from the case files I have. I was surprised too seeing that there's not much on him in the bios in the back considering how common he was in the earlier progs. I wonder if there was some falling out between Smith and others, or if it's just a case he isn't as marketable as other artists?
Smith and Wagner didn't see eye to eye about a number of things. I think they're both wonderful, and Smith completely owned the most popular period of the strip. It's no coincidence that the most successful era of Dredd was one where the art was lent consistency by being drawn (primarily) by a small group of artists; even before the 200-300 period dominated by Smith and Ezquerra, it was Smith who provided the glue which held the Bolland/McMahon visual dynamic together.
That's before you take into account the fact that his Dredd strips in the
Daily Star were the first and abiding impression many thousands of people had of the character, and are models of visual invention and narrative economy.
Quote from: sauchie on 03 November, 2012, 10:11:56 AM
and are models of visual invention and narrative economy.
Indeed, as his condensing of the Apocalypse War into one superb page proves.
(http://i.imgur.com/3Uq7N.jpg)
Quote from: Judge Jack on 03 November, 2012, 11:33:13 AM
Indeed, as his condensing of the Apocalypse War into one superb page proves.
I can never get over quite how brilliant that half-page is. I wonder has the great Colin Smith of 'Too Busy Thinking...' ever seen it?
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 01 November, 2012, 03:54:09 PM
And, yes... Ron was the backbone of Dredd for a decade and a half. As such, he tended to get overlooked by every 'flashier' artist who came in-between, certainly by me, anyway!
You know, this squaxx has being reading since Prog 6 but it was only with the advent of this site that he became aware of the wrongheaded notion that Ron wasn't universally regarded as one of The Definitive Dredd Artists.
As much as Stevie loves Brendan McCarthy* it is Ron's Dredd that immediately springs to mind when he thinks of the character.
*It was only after the gorgeously fully painted
Young Giant & the Cubist genius that is
Howler that he went back & re-evaluated Carlos'* & Mike's body of work on the strip.
**Guess who opined to his best mate at school during
The Apocalypse War that he much preferred
Strontium Dog? Kids, huh? ;)
It seems odd that I, like so many others, didn't really rate Ron when we were kids, but only with hindsight do we realise how much he defined what we love about Dredd, and how many classic stories and images he was responsible for.
I used to sometimes get annoyed by his wonky gun-hands - he occasionally drew Dredd's hands, but then had to draw the lawgiver barrel pointing at an impossible angle so it would be shooting the right way.
so underrated yes, but understated never!
Quote from: Dandontdare on 04 November, 2012, 01:09:30 AM
underrated yes, but understated never!
Aye, the OP meant underrated I think, or that his importance had been understated. Everyone knows you don't get anywhere near a Judge Death story unless you're of the first rank of Dredd artists (i), and Ron Smith's belated crack at the character (in
Theatre of Death (http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4ovo42S0j1ruw7pqo1_500.png)) seemed to me to bring some of the madness and grotesquerie that the artist displayed in his depictions of the citizens and monsters like Rex Peters (
après drinking the blood of Satanus) to a character who was increasingly being portrayed as something more corporeal. In that respect, Smith was ahead of what Irving would do with the character much later and what Wagner and Staples (?) are about to attempt soon.
(i) off the top of my head, the list goes something like Bolland, Ezquerra, Doherty, Gibson, Staples, Irving, Flint, MacNeil. Rarified company, and even if you allow oddities and apocrypha to slip through, that list still includes Ewins, Robinson, Smith, Bisley, Hairsine, Fabry, Murray/Brashill.
EDIT: Stupid-gun related accident, post now deleted
This looks interesting for fan's of RON SMITH (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Arken-Sword-no-16-fanzine-85-Ron-Smith-2000AD-Judge-Dredd-Alan-Moore-Miracleman-/181016463947?pt=UK_Books_Comics_Magazines_Comic_Magazines_ET&hash=item2a256c0a4b)
Great original Dredd cover, and some, what looks to be, interesting contents - interviews, photo's and sketch/character designs by Ron. A bit pricey at £9.99, though.
(http://i.imgur.com/G538I.jpg)
I always thought it was weird that, even though Dredd make such a big deal about Judge Lopez having a moustache, Ron felt compelled to put a dashing little Erroll Flynn 'tache on every other Judge he drew...
Quote from: FinH on 13 November, 2012, 08:50:12 AM
I always thought it was weird that, even though Dredd make such a big deal about Judge Lopez having a moustache, Ron felt compelled to put a dashing little Erroll Flynn 'tache on every other Judge he drew...
... and
himself (http://www.2000ad.org/images/page/rsmith.jpg). I suppose that's the difference between a situation where Dredd's one of 60,000 (?) judges in a city of 800 million people and when he's isolated on a ship with two other people, with nothing outside but the vast empty lawlessness of space. Most stories which depict those kind of voyages (
The Odyssey,
The Searchers,
Mutiny on the Bounty) present them as explorations of their characters too, setting them against each other and testing their endurance and resolve to their limits in an effort to get at the heart of what they
really are when pushed to their limits and reduced to their essence.
It'd be a stretch to argue that
The Judge Child is a deep psychological study of Dredd, but it does demonstrate something really fundamental about the character, that he's incredibly twitchy about even the slightest sign of self-regard, regarding that as an indication of corruption or dereliction of duty (an after effect of Rico), and that he is fundamentally a bully. Even as recently as stories like
Uncle Ump's Umpty Candy (145) it was possible to understand Dredd as a harsh but fair figure, but the Lopez incident demonstrated that when there are no citizens around upon whom Dredd can take out his fierce self-loathing, and the only other authority is a green judge like Hershey who's unable to challenge Dredd's authority, he's an absolute prick.
The fact that Hershey's still around, and has developed into the kind of figure who can cast that incident up to make Dredd aware of both his current and his present failings, is one of the joys of reading this strip. It's clear that incident played a key role in shaping both Hershey's understanding of Dredd and her own idea of the kind of judge/Chief Judge she wanted to be.
Well, yeah. That is true. I didn't really mean to get into the deeper psychological ramifications of Dredd's persecution of Lopez. I guess all I was really getting at was that Dredd makes out that a Judge having a moustache is a rather unorthodox practice, and yet Ron's peppered the Judges with legions of Rhett Butler lookalikes. It's like in Ron's world a pencil-thin moustache is standard issue Justice Dept. issue equipment.
"past and present failings" (see above)
Quote from: FinH on 13 November, 2012, 10:32:50 AMIt's like in Ron's world a pencil-thin moustache is standard issue Justice Dept. issue equipment.
Only so many ways to distinguish one helmeted judge from another! But yeah, Ron did seem to have a particular fondness for the penciltache variant of face fungus. Mind you, he's also one of the few artists whose female judges occasionally kept their helmets on.
Quote from: sauchie on 13 November, 2012, 10:03:54 AM
Quote from: FinH on 13 November, 2012, 08:50:12 AM
I always thought it was weird that, even though Dredd make such a big deal about Judge Lopez having a moustache, Ron felt compelled to put a dashing little Erroll Flynn 'tache on every other Judge he drew...
The fact that Hershey's still around, and has developed into the kind of figure who can cast that incident up to make Dredd aware of both his current and his present failings, is one of the joys of reading this strip. It's clear that incident played a key role in shaping both Hershey's understanding of Dredd and her own idea of the kind of judge/Chief Judge she wanted to be.
Absolutely! The recent run-in between hershey and Dredd where she points out he'll thrown in his badge like some childish tantrum if he doesn't get his way is a great indication of Hershey's experience of Dredd, including the Lopez incident. She knows full well he's a bully used to getting his own way, and she's having none of it! Superbly written and developed characters.
Best not to mention Movember around Grumpy Joe.
Actually, Carlos Ezquerra used to draw half his Tek Judges with full-on hobo beards. I guess they didn't fall under Dredd's facial hair jurisdiction, though (belonging to a specialist department and all). Maybe it was to indicate that they were eccentric scientist types.
Quote from: Dandontdare on 04 November, 2012, 01:09:30 AM
It seems odd that I, like so many others, didn't really rate Ron when we were kids, but only with hindsight do we realise how much he defined what we love about Dredd, and how many classic stories and images he was responsible for.
I used to sometimes get annoyed by his wonky gun-hands - he occasionally drew Dredd's hands, but then had to draw the lawgiver barrel pointing at an impossible angle so it would be shooting the right way.
so underrated yes, but understated never!
I immediately think of the 'unique' gun hands when Ron Smith is mentioned. It does seem to be quiet a distinct feature of his style. Some of his Judge Child art work is pretty memorable, especially the bits when Dredd and Hershey get involved in that Alien televised war.
Ron's beautiful Red Dwarf strip - http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,37458.0/topicseen.html
Just read 'A, B or C Warrior and saw Ron Smith art in full colour for the first time: very, very nice indeed!
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 19 November, 2012, 09:09:23 PM
Ron's beautiful Red Dwarf strip - http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,37458.0/topicseen.html
That...is....just...AWESOME! My respect for Ron as an artist goes up for that.
He is the only man in Mega city 1 that could draw another man heading eggs into a bucket.
great great artist