Favourite CLASSIC art droid - QUARTERS - Carlos Ezquerra or Kev O’Neill

[Colin YNWA]

Word for this vote - IMPOSSIBLE

Two artists who I think most of you wanted to be in the final (sorry!) - but whose work do you prefer?

Carlos Ezquerra - more info

OR

Kev O'Neill - more info

Alas we have to pick our favourite and to do so just pop the name of the art droid you'd most like to go through to the Semi Finals, but please add anything else you'd like to say as well.

This one will close and be counted on the morning of Sunday 31st January

What the hell is all this? Find out more about the Art Droid Tourneys and Quarter Finals

Who made the 32 in both tourneys?

Entrants in the Current Art Droids Tourney

Entrants in the Classic Art Droids Tourney

Rules for what they are worth

Anything else just ask and I'll make something up.

[Rogue Judge]

Carlos Ezquerra! Probably easier for me than it should be...but nobody tops king Carlos! Co-creator of my two favorites, Dredd Strontium Dog, nobody does it better.

[Magnetica]

There are artists whose work appears in 2000AD. Then there are artists who are 2000AD and Kev O'Neill is in that rarified elite band. And then there's Carlos Ezquerra.

As much as Kevin O'Neill is brilliant and has given us iconic work I have to give it to Carlos for the sheer breadth and longevity of his work. It's not just Dredd and Stront, but the Stainless Steel Rat, Al's Baby, Fiends of the Eastern Front, Cursed Earth Koburn, Spector and many more.

Plus his Starlord Strontium Dog was hugely responsible for getting me into comics in the first place.

[ming]

Probably the two I find it most difficult to choose between; I was dreading this decision.  Kev O'Neill is such a legendary artist and, page-for-page, the artist I've spent most time absorbed by.  His early Nemesis especially grabbed me by the brain and never let go, for which I'll always be grateful.  There's so little separating my Top Three - O'Neill, McMahon and Ezquerra - that it's just painful to rank one above the other since they've all done so much, so well.  In the end though it can't be anyone other than Carlos who gets my vote here.  My journey with 2000AD began with Starlord and the reason for that was Strontium Dog and Carlos, and he deserves every bit of praise that's heaped upon him.  There are just too many incredible stories to his name and the level of consistency and productivity he maintained is just mindblowing.

[broodblik]

Carlos

[Timothy]

It took a while for me to "get" him, but once it fell into place it was Kev who brought wide-eyed amazement to the Prog. I'm confident Carlos will take the popular vote though.

[Sean SD]

Carlos Ezquerra

[Bolt-01]

Carlos Ezquerra.

[abelardsnazz]

Carlos is King for so many reasons, but for such tremendous work on Nemesis books 1 and 3 I'm voting for Kevin O'Neill.

[credo]

This is a terrible choice to force on us so early!

As much as I think Kevin O'Neill better defines 2000ad in its early days anarchic glory, the character of Carlos Ezquerra just pips it. How could I vote against someone who managed to allow us to at least find something positive to say about the Millar Dredd stories?

[Tomwe]

Really the gold standard of the prog. It would not be the same without them. I am voting Carlos Ezquerra as Necropolis was my entry into Dredd.

[IndigoPrime]

Early Nemesis is among some of the most stunning art to ever appear in the Prog, and there's no doubting O'Neill's style was unique; but I was less keen on his later stuff, and honestly wish Flint had been able to complete Book X of Nemesis.

Ezquerra, though, had an extraordinary tenure in the Prog. And despite some dodgy flirting with horrible computer colouring for a period, has a body of work that is unparalleled in the Prog and deeply under-appreciated in the wider comics world. His Dredd was fantastic; his Strontium Dog was amazing. His chunky line and gritty art style were perfectly suited to those strips, but other 2000 AD outings showed he had range.

What's interesting about this pairing is neither artist really has any modern-day equivalent. Sure, there are echoes of O'Neill in Henry Flint, and early Colin MacNeil B+W art owed a debt to Ezquerra. But these were largely two unique voices in the Prog, now both sadly lost.

On balance, due to a combination of quality and quantity, my vote has to go to Ezquerra.

[rogue69]

Kev O'Neill

[O Lucky Stevie!]

Kev O'Neill -- Stevie's absolute & all-time favourite comic book artist

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

Carlos. Because no one else comes close, not even the Mighty Kev. Although Kev comes closer than most.

SBT