2000AD COVER OF THE YEAR VOTE 2014!

[Dandontdare]

1st - 1889 - Chris Weston's Sensitive Klegg
2nd - 1904 Alex Ronald
3rd - 1873 - Clint Langley

[Frank]

I'm sure the divine Pete Wells knows what he's doing, but I'm never sure whether a 1. next to a prog number means it's the voter's number one choice (and deserves three points) or whether it should receive just one point.

I award one point to prog 1900 and the incredible Greg Staples's up-the-nose shot of Dredd on one of the many days Weather Control have fallen asleep at the console (see also here and here). Anyone labouring under the impression that this isn't a strong composition or that it relies too heavily on Greg's unquestioned mastery of painted technique for its effect should check out the grey scale version on Pete's indispensable blog.

I'm only marking it down for the distracting and overly fussy detail on the respirator/shield, and can only think think those not totally persuaded by it as a cover are staring at the thumbnail on the opening post of this thread, rather absorbing the impact of the bold image it makes as a full-size cover ... then losing themselves in the translucent quality of the skin tones, and the ordnance survey mapping detail of the contours of the taught facial muscles provided by the fine detail of the stubble.

This will be a thoroughly deserving winner of the overall poll, and I agree with Pete that it's destined to join iconic images by McMahon and Bolland in the ranks of the definitive Dredd images of all time. Greg has had an incredible few years, improving on his already impossibly high standards. It's been a privilege to watch him develop his artistry over the last two decades, and I'm grateful he's still sharing his talents with us, instead of earning a fortune in the film or game industries ...

[Frank]

... speaking of which, my two points go to prog 1869 and Alex Ronald. I could just copy and paste everything I've written above about Greg Staples's portrait of Dredd to Ronald's mug shot of Sweet - fine detail building up a characterful portrait, which conveys the essence of the subject; fantastic to see his development over the years, great to have him back in the fold; needs to be seen full-size to appreciate its boldness and strength as a cover ...

The way he's allowed for the cover furniture in his composition means it works better with all the straps and taglines on - credit to Pye for the choice of pink title, which really lifts what could have been an example of nineties brown art with less considerately chosen colours on the logo.

I could have picked any one of Ronald's covers for my top three, and his Sinister Dexter cover (1876) manages to brilliantly demonstrate the dynamism and conceptual thought that sometimes escapes other talented painters, who know their technique alone is strong enough to carry the image. The way he uses light, the desaturation of colours, perspective, and reduces objects such as the glass and Finny's coat to graphic elements to guide your eye into, out of, and around the composition is a masterclass. The way it evokes the 80s/early 90s action cinema of Tony Scott is fun too.

Painters seem to have dominated the poll; it's not my favourite kind of comic art, but that's just where the strength has been this year, with Dave Kendall providing some fine work too. If I have a criticism of this style of detailed, naturalistic painted art, it's that it sometimes leads to conservative colour choices, murkiness, and static composition. It's no coincidence that the two images I though were the best examples of the form were portraiture; Ronald's Sin-Dex cover aside, painting lends itself less well to dynamism and vibrant, contrasting colours. That's one of the reasons why my winner this year is ...

[Frank]

... prog 1862 by Henry Flint, taking all three points. Like dynamism, strong line work, vivid colour, and bold, eye-catching imagery that leaps off the shelves? Like fine detail, subtle textures, and a non-naturalistic composition bordering on conceptualism? Like old school fun, familiar comic book tropes, and a cover which tells the entire story in a single image? Got it all in spades. Henry Flint really is the complete comic book artist, and reading of the insane process by which he created (and destroyed) the artwork for this cover only made me love him more.

Perversely, what I enjoy most about this acid tab of Flint lunacy is that it doesn't look like a comic book cover at all. What it looks like, is that a horrible production error has happened at the printers, and the first panel of the story has escaped onto the cover by mistake. Carlos Ezquerra covers from the bog paper days had the same quality - Bolland and McMahon seemed to approach cover work conceptually, introducing non-naturalistic effects, playing with relative proportions and perspective. Carlos covers employed those elements too, but - like Flint - he regularly utilised all those weird techniques in his regular strip work.

Just as that cover perfectly conveys the narrative essence of the fantastic Titan, it distills the endless creativity and subversive visual language Flint employs during the course of the strip too. The way that great outstretched leg of a troop carrier breaks the foreground field of the image, to trip the hapless Dredd, proleptically figures the way he will crash through the panel borders and intrude upon adjacent panels as he tumbles, like Sandra Bullock, down towards the planet and out of the comic page, from which he suddenly finds himself cut adrift.

Titan wasn't just a story about Dredd taking such a pounding he almost forgot he was a judge, it was a story about him tumbling arse over tit out of his own strip and the position of hero in his own narrative. Everything Flint did visually, from breaking panel borders to those incredible, almost abstracted close ups of the Vs and Xs of the helmet design, isolated the character and spun him off out of context and into unfamiliar territory. Flint uses the snow flakes which open the story to punch through the constraints of linear narrative, and they reappear as the stars Dredd sees as he loses consciousness and the floating corpses of the prison staff.

It's entertaining to go back after finishing the story and realise that at least some of the stars Flint has happily splodged around Dredd's drop squad on that very first cover are the corpses that will cause the mission to go awry. Flint's disrespect for the boundaries imposed by the representation of linear time and the narrative constraints of the form spill over from the strip and tumble onto the deceptively simple and fun cover. It compresses the whole story into one bold image, and grabs you - like a hand-painting toddler, giddy with the thrill of creativity - dragging you off into the strip inside to see what a wonderful mess he's created.

Cover of the year, by the best artist and the premier visual story teller of this or any other year.

[Jim_Campbell]

TL; DR; DC.

Jim

[JudgeGerry]

1  1900   Greg Staples

2  1862   Henry Flint

3  1909   Cliff Robinson/Dylan Teague

Alot of Fantastic Covers in 2014 

[Kudos]

1- 1900 Greg Staples
2- 1892 Colin MacNeil
3 -1908 Greg Staples

[DrRocka]

How come the Twitter droid's saying that Mr Staples isn't in the top ten covers? Looks like he's walked away with it to me. Was there a seperate poll or summat?

[ZenArcade]

? Well he country miled it on this site. Z

[Pete Wells]

Yeah, it must be a different (inferior) poll! We'll keep chugging on until midnight Saturday.

[Pop Culture Bandit]

Here are my votes:

1) Prog 1889 - Chris Weston
2) Prog 1892 - Colin MacNeil
3) Prog 1905 - Dave Kendall


And on a side-note, here's our blog post with the Top Ten 2000AD Covers, which might be slightly anti-climactic now I've revealed my top three...

http://www.popculturebandit.co.uk/2014/12/top-ten-2000ad-covers-in-2014.html

[Tiplodocus]

First place 1900 - Staples awesome Dreddhead.
Second place 1907 - Elson has a genetically engi eered dog flying a triplane fighting giant insects. If that doesn't scream 20000 AD, I don't know what does. Am I the only one who voted for this?
Third l, ace - Davis Slaine and a Troll.

All three sum up 2000 ad for me. Great covers all round though so very hard to choose.

[metcalfecarr]

1 - 1911 Which is odd as I really never took to Stickleback
2 - 1889 Proof Mr Weston is a genius
3 - 1884 Brilliantly vivid cover

Dave

[ming]

1st: 1878 - Simon Coleby, Jaegir
2nd: 1882 - Simon Davis, Slaine (Did we really only get one wraparound cover this year?)
3rd: 1888 - INJ Culbard, Brass Sun

[Ghastly McNasty]

1st 1989 Weston
2nd 1904 Ronald
3rd 1908 Staples