2000 AD Online Forum

McMahon
Siku
Adlard
Langley
Harrison (Mark)
Walker
Critchlow

...are all artists whose style has changed dramatically over the years.  Whether it's digitisation, a new approach to colour, abandoning fully-painted, maturing as an artist, too many drugs, whatever, the point is, you can see a very distinct change.

Now, the other thing that unites them is that in all the cases above I prefer the original art style to the new one.

Am I a reactionary who can't stand to see things change, or do others here know what I'm going on about?

I think most of those artists you mentioned have moved from being quite similar in style to older / more established artists, to a more individual style of artwork - and I'd generally be inclined to call that a good thing.

J-Bo-1

with Siku you`re right. I like his new style too (as seen in the Pumpkin Eater story) but his old style is brilliant
 With Langley I like the new style better. the old style was too dark and runny for my taste, I kept feeling like it needed a wipe
 McMahon`s new style is more interesting than his old one but I`d rather have the old one for a long period of time, I feel the new style would begin to get on my nerves
 I think the change for some artists is parelelled by Jack Kirby`s early and late styles - the late style was really chunky and looked lazy to me (much copied in 2000ad in the work of Shaky 2000 back in the 900s)
 I hadn`t noticed Critchlow changing

so you`re not just a reactionary, some artists do get worse, others just change

yours hopefully not getting worse

i noticed recently during a back prog flurry that some were shockingly better back then, But most i hope improve with maturity. maybe theres just the occasional glitch ( like this weeks REd ? )

Miller?

Well, firstly I'd like to say that I love McMahon's changing styles, and am delighted with both Walker & Critchlow's new approaches (and, in the case of Critchlow, quite surprised - I couldn't stand his painted work, but his work on recent Dredd stories has been fantastic)

I don't think there's necessarily anything reactionary about your view, unless it's an across-the-board response to any change in any artist's style. What originally attracted you to a particular artist can disappear as their style evolves over the years, and I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring their old style to their current one.

>I hadn`t noticed Critchlow changing

Compare old Thrud (back in the WD days) to the latest version and it's like two different artists!

even weirder, it's like two different GOOD artists!

I think a person's style is changing all the time- which is a good thing*.

I look at some of my older stuff and think, "who drew that?!"  No doubt in a couple of years, I'll be looking back on the suff I'm doing now and laugh.

Matt

*Otherwise Molcher would never get any better.

;)

>even weirder, it's like two different GOOD artists!

That goes without saying

Can I raise that and say Three good artists, I thought Carl's Thrud, his nemesis/deadlock work and his current style are all very different and quite good.

The nemesis stuff was printed on paper that made it seem fairly dark and horrible, like a lot of painted stuff (inc. horned god) I'd really like to see a quality reprint of the story.

A lot of artists change style and you may or may not like various styles.  I liked McMahon at the start, his classic Dredd phase, his ABC Warriors stuff, his Slaine stuff, I wasn't very keen on his quite extreme 90's style, but that new cover for Last American looks good again.

I'm not sure artists turn bad, I'm not sure it's possible that they lose that ability to draw, but there are lots of artists I like where they have strange phases I'm not keen on.

Also certain styles always don't suit particular projects, stories or strips, while some seem perfect for it.

Colin MacNeil is someone who was excellent in B&W or colour. These days he doesn't seem to be inspired at all.

What I think is a crime is how artists who were truely world class in B&W have to work in colour.

People like:
Cam Kennedy
Ian Gibson
Ron Smith
Cliff Robinson
Mike McMahon
Arthur Ranson

Cam Kennedy's work was what attracted me to the comic in the 400s, where he'd really hit his stride on Dredd. These days he seems to be a parody of himself. People may bemoan Siku's Dredd (though I have no problem with it), but IMO Cam's just as guilty of allowing his style to get away from him.

Some artists have made the move to colour convincingly. Exquerra's work, for instance, has settled down to a pleasing style. It's just not something everyone can transition to after years of B&W work.

What made people like Gibson, Smith, and Robinson stand out was their B&W technique. While they're accomplished enough to stand out against new guys, the work isn't 'as good' as they've done in the past, or 'world class' anymore.

Having said that, they're all still good enough to deserve respect for their work. I just think it's a shame they're not permitted to work in their best light.

Not sure I agree with you about Gibson: I love his work when it's subtly coloured with pencils.

Completely agree about Kennedy, though...another one for the list!

Kev Walker used to be much better than he is now IMO. I know noone agrees with me but I really feel he was.

McMahon was better in his block wars days (drove him bonkers if you ask me). Cam Kennedy's old stuff, Gibsons too (though less so with him). I'm all for artists developing their own styles but sometimes I prefer the original one.

nope, I agree with you Jared, I loved his work for Games Workshop, as it was, I thought, full of quirky characterisation (the picure I have of his Titan has loads, marines getting squished etc...)
to his work now, which is more inspired by Mike Mignola, and is quite stark and, well, boring?

But I understand that artists grow and their work evolves, and I still look forward to their new work.

And Carl Critchlow's work RULES!

I prefer Khronicles of Khaos/Childhoods End style Kevin Walker to his Sin City style, but I like both of them.

I much prefer Carl's Lobster style to his 90s painted stuff.

I like McMahon's old stuff, but not his new.

Whereas I like McMahon's new stuff a great deal, as well as the older stuff.

I also prefer Langley and Critchlow now, although I always liked Critchlow and never liked Langley. These days I'm still not much of a Langley fan.

I think it's entirely valid for an artist to develop a style.

Look at that discussion on the board a couple of weeks ago about Dom Reardon's debut.

There's an artist who's talent has blossomed.

Andy Clarke is also getting better, IMO.

The fact is that quality will out.
If someone's not great, we criticise their latest work, and hope that someone will listen to us.

It doesn't matter if they used to be fantastic.

- Trout

"Some artists have made the move to colour convincingly. Exquerra's work, for instance, has settled down to a pleasing style. "

This may offend a few boarders, but I'm not a massive fan of Ezquerra's colour work for 2000AD. I *do* enjoy it, but I feel that a lot of his work in 2000AD is far more rushed than the art he produces for the American market - try comparing the art on Just A Pilgrim or his recent War Story & you'll see what I mean.

IMO, the highpoint of his colour work was on Necropolis, and since Ezquerra began to rely more heavily on computer effects, I feel his work has suffered. Even his black and white art on the ABC Warriors and Strontium Dog has lost something.

It goes without saying that he is still a wonderful artist, but looking at Necropolis, Al's Baby or The Apocalypse War alongside even the best of his recent work in 2000AD, I don't think it compares.

***Blackblood prepares for the onslaught ;-) ***

I agree totally. One artist that has got worse with age is Anthony Williams. His latest work really takes the piss. Its terrible! So hes getting to grips with using photoshop? Well, go away, and come back when you know how to use it!! Comparing the latest V.Cs to the early Cam Kennedy stuff is just silly. No comparison at all. Dont get me wrong, i usually like his stuff, but recently its poop. Rant over.

Not a big fan of Ezquerra's computer colouring. Think he rushes it a bit, like Vienna's pixellated hair last week. His b&w stuff is still ace. I mean, he's still Ezquerra and it's still great art.

Artists do tend to simplify their styles, depending on time, increasing workloads and things like that. And they want to impress more when they start out.

Whatever interests them or plays to their strengths is important too I think. Belardinelli's a good example of that. Anything with mad looking space aliens in it was always lovingly rendered with loads of detail, anything with people standing around talking was always workmanlike rubbish.

Brett Ewins and Brendan McCarthy always fascinate me. Those two knew each other from the start and both started out with similar almost interchangeable styles. Over time McCarthy kind of evolved, simplifying his linework and going mad with colours. But Ewins art just got more and more basic.

McMahon's new stuff looks like it was drawn by a disinterested child.

With crayons.

Not really trying.

And blind.

Using a ruler.

Thats a bit extreme. I like the style but the inking is a joke. I could do better with a black pen. If you look at other stuff like the last American he has the same style but with clear, well-defined lines. Much better.

MacNeil is a classic example of an artist who has lost something,
compare "song of the Surfer," Mechanismo " and "America" to the Devlin Waugh we recently saw and you have to ask what's happened?..

I think artists like Mcniel prove so popular they spread themselves too thin. I mean, what about Kev Walkers ABC stuff? Will he ever produce that sort of standard in his strip work again? His current photoshop colored Mignola rip style is nowhere near.

they mature and change, like all great artists. from superb singers and song writers. to wonderful novelists and script producers.

also our perception changes with age as well.
some of the artists who have developed a differnt style i enjoy now, where as before i was not interested.

some grow with grace. others with in a diverse manner.
it adds strengh to the artist.

but rushed work is poor no matter whom the artist is.im no siku fan boy, but the recent meat monger stuff was disgraceful, whilst his pan africa judges was breath taking in its approach to subject matter.

its all about the effort they put in. which i feel is what we truly judge them on.

Hey Dud, you old reactionary, you ;)

I though Brett Ewins' stuff got worse over time.
The first couple of books of Bad Company were great, but by the time we got to the one where Kano was living on a farm, having renounced his violent past, it looked like he was drawing it with his left hand.

Same goes for McMahon. Sloppy.

Never felt Mike jumped the shark with any of his work, not even when he did a stint on Sonic the Hedgehog!

++ ..but that new cover for Last American looks good again. ++

Was so impressed by it, I paid homage to McMahon with this..

Link: Hammerstein charity toptrump artwork here

Nice!!

Dunno if anyone else has picked up on this already- but I found these pics on the com.x site this pm..





All-new stripwork from Mike maybe?

++ ..McMahon. Sloppy. ++

Hardly.

Link: more HEAVY PLANT material here

Man that is GOOD!  I may have to take back some (seemingly ill-judged) comments about McMahon, after all...

The diggers are good, granted - but the people just *irk* are wrong!

Nonsense. The man is clearly drawing with a ruler. Since when did people have such oddly proportioned bodies? Compare this to his Cursed Earth stuff to see how far the mighty has fallen.

Hardly Dr X, Mick's always done crazy anatomy! That's why other artists rate him so highly. I hope he does do Heavy Plant, if he finds the time.
Comics is all the poorer for his working in games.
I've got pages and pages of sketches by Mick, I'll start scanning them and work out how to stick em in the original art section. I'll also scan Muto Maniacs Originals, absolutely beautiful!
 Mick's handling of volume and proportion is unparalled. I know alot of people just see the surface 'cartoony' finish, ( his older style everyone now harks back to so fondly was derided as scrappy and rushed by fans then) but his use of space, character and volume really is mind boggling.
I'm a fan because he's an artist that makes you think and question how you perceive things.
Rufus

See, now that's McMahon actually putting some effort into his work. I like it. Contrast that with some of his latter-day Dredd stuff. Doesn't compare well, does it?

Errr...again, the last Dredd he did was really nice. I'll scan it.
R

"his use of space, character and volume really is mind boggling."

Can't improve on that really - McMahons work is totally "unnatural" looking, yet the most 'real' looking art you can get - those images, freaky as they are, look as if they could walk of the page!  Those images look a lot more solid and believable than even the best rendered Bolland piece, AND achieve a completely unreal look at the same time - Perfection

Yes Esquerra's new computerised-approach sticks out like a sore thumb.

He is also prone to the odd blunder, such as Dredd's non-existent arm in a recent story.

Still, a top Dredd artist for a while yet I think.

This is the introduction from the old "Judge Dredd 2" Titan reprint book that collected a load of McMahon's Dredds...

"Why does Mike McMahon give Judge Dredd such big feet?" It's a very familiar question. All over the country young people are wringing their hands and shaking their heads at the size of Mike's 'feet'. It was at a comic convention that I saw one soul grinding his teeth and showing all the signs of this particular anguish common in so many of his contemporaries; so I told him he ought to ask the man himself, which he did?

Mike McMahon came out of obscurity in early 1977 to start his professional career with the first ever public appearance of Judge Dredd. His drawing style, at first only partially formed, was an imitation of the artist who co-created Dredd, Carlos Sanchez Ezquerra. Carlos pulled out of the series early on, but here was a fresh new artist named McMahon who could do a reasonable Carlos impersonation. I wandered into the 2000 A.D. office soon afterwards and couldn't get anybody to talk to me, and the reason was that six pages of artwork had just arrived from Colney Heath. It was The Return of Rico story which appears in this book. A choice piece of Pat Mills' writing had inspired some very tasty Mike McMahon artwork and to this day a lump comes into the throat of those of us old enough to remember it.
Around this time a style emerged that, throughout his work on Dredd, and even now, is still developing and changing while remaining instantly recognisable. It's hard to explain what's so good about this work when I can see so clearly what the unconverted might find disagreeable. The lines appear to be slapdash; often the anatomy goes out the window; I personally often find the overall texture of the pages a bit uniform; and as for those feet? weeell!

Allow me to pull the veil from before your eyes. Mike sweats and slaves over his pencils, often spending over a day on one panel, occasionally throwing yesterday's work in the bin and starting again? and the result is exquisite, precise and delicate (yup, delicate ) pencilled pages, with lines so faint they never have to be erased after inking. Then, with everything worked out, ON GOES THE INK! Or if this is full-colour artwork, out comes the plastic raincoat and the bog-roll and ON GOES THE WATERCOLOUR! The latter processes taking hours rather than days. This is known in the Art trade as "Expressionism", and has the effect of making artwork look fresh, and alive, and un-stodgy? but it can also make it look deceptively simple.
There's some pretty weird draughtmanship in there too, but Mike has created his own personal vision and everything in it is correct according to its own rules, and in so doing he creates people, places and situations that are more recognisably real. People are never seen standing chest out, legs four feet apart. They stand as you or I would stand, weighed down by the world, fed-up. For all their weird clothing they are people less recognisable from comic books than from 70s and 80s London. Take a good look at Dredd. Some say he's a very straight-forward character, but with his face looking like a slab of raw meat, and those feet, he's a very complex and contradictory character. He's heroic and macho, he sneers and postures, but the joke is on him because he doesn't know that he looks ridiculous. In fact the joke is on some readers too, because they fail to see the fine balancing act between straight adventure and the comic satire that's always present in a Dredd story, and at its best under the team of Wagner and McMahon.

Mike won't approve of this blurb. He's a nononsense type, like the people who populate his pages. He disagrees with intellectualising about comics; in fact the word is that he secretly believes that if he spends his time analysing and discussing his work, or even using reference, it'll spoil the direct act of drawing comics and the simple pleasure of reading them. Well, I'll go along with that, but don't be fooled reader, for what you'll see in the following pages is a great deal of subtle wit and imagination.

Oh, and before I forget, the official word from McMahon himself is: "Dredd doesn't have big FEET... he has big BOOTS!"
Brian Bolland. London. December 1982.



'Nuff said. :)

Yet they are tight, so he must have big feet!

well, that was written before Dredd got tight boots. You'll notice McMahon draws him with smaller boots these days ;)

Bart, that is very nice. a lovely homage to Ol' Red eyes.

Bolt-01

Maybe I've just missed the good stuff of late. I seem to recall a few Dredd's that looked like they were drawn in about five minutes with a set of chunky markers.

However, I'm more than willing to stand corrected, Rufus. :)

Yeah i thought his last dredd was fantastic,
I really like his recent work,
I'm just reading Tattered Banners,
he's one of those artists whose work is genuinely exciting.

steve.

OK - I've checked. I was referring specifically to "Future Crimes" in Prog 2000. Utter pants.

Granted, his work in "Doomsday" was better, but still not a patch on his early work (or on this new, non-2KAD stuff).

Alright Noisypants..... His last Dredd was 'Voices Off' in...1308, I think. Really good, check it out. I'll scan some of his sketches tonight!
: ) R

So Mr McMahon is leading his considerable talents to a games company - what games company?
What games can i expect to have that McMahon touch? and what role does such a well respected artist have?

The company I work for has had a host of applicants from minor 2000ad artists, but i can't imagine an artist of McMahon's caliber or any other old school artist applying.

Mike is working full time as a concept/3d/texture artist at a game developer in brighton.

I asked Mike when we would see a game he had worked on recently:
?give us a chance, only started last september - my first environment, for a
racing game, will be published in november?

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Mick's done modelling work on Aa HotWheels game, and is now designing whole levels.
R

OK, yeah. Went back and re-read "Voices Off", and it's not as bad as "Future Crimes".

It's not half as good as (picking an example off the top of my head) any of the stories from Titan's old "The Streets Of Mega-City" collection though, is it?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing for the sake of it. I like McMahon's work overall. I voted for him over O'Neill in the Droid Worl Cup thread. I just don't think his later work is as polished or as detailed as the stuff he was doing twenty years ago.

Personally I like Mike McMahon's new style, I especially liked The Last American (even though that was quite a few styles ago) but...

When I look at the stuff he drew for The Judge Child quest, I just think wow, it doesn't get much better than this.

So his new stuff just reminds me that there won't be anymore.

Wow. Rise, thread, riiise!

Got to admit I didn't look when the last meassage was submitted, I picked up the thread from Google.

I noticed Mike McMahon's new picture of Slaine on the Tom Frame Memorial poster last year. It's the only picture I have seen of what must be
his matured approach to drawing the Celtic barbarian. While the work itself has a better, much neater appearance( On closer inspection, it does look really good, details. More comparable with Glen Fabry.) than his old stuff.

So while I notice that his work these days is a full circle improvement. I still do have a setimental attachment to his older way of drawing. Slaine in aparticular.

On Clint Lanely. I found that I stiull prderf his old work rather than his photoshopped style he took to Slaine: Books of Invasions with.
Incidently this is the work that attracted my attention to back to the comic/Magazine and the character Slaine who I had for amount of time neglected. I see Clint Lanely hitech artwork as
a lure. It's very flashy, but as with Mike McM
ahon's work, I appreciate his earlier method
more. I have noticed that some of his Slaine Invasion work can be alittle tastless at times. Though this may be more of a fault in the art direction.

Seeing too much of this is like drinking to much straight Burbourn. I like the stuff, but I also know and have learnt that too much is not good
for me.

As for Kevin walker. I like some of his work. I am actualley thinking of cover he did late last year. It had a picture of Tharg and some of the more regular characters underneath him. Great picture and great work. I don't think his art has changed much since then or I haven't really taken much notice of his earlier style. Unless somebody wants to enlighten me about changes in his method also.

Great thread, completely missed that it was a necro-post.  Artists who have either greatly improved, or morphed into an equally good 'second' style:

Adlard (terrific new B&W style)
Elson (much better sense of movement and space)
Langley (pushing the boundaries)
Critchlow (almost unrecognisable from Thrud but still brilliant)
M. Harrison (again, a huge leap forward from The Travellers to his later colour stuff)
Ezquerra (quality fluctuates, but watching the transition from idiosyncratic B&W to the demands of computer colouring has been fascinating).

The artist that has most amazed me is Simon Coleby - I hated his Friday work, and struggle to see a connection between it and his current stuff, which can be truly brilliant (the recent Dirty Frank tale with the babies, for example).

I'm torn on the questions of Walker and McMahon.  I love their earlier work, and their new work, but I'm not sure it's an improvement per se.  Walker used to do some horrid things in his painted work (the Anderson on Mars sequence is particualrly uneven), but drew some great robots and aliens too, but while his new work is achingly spare I think it suits Dredd really, reeally well.  McMahon is just a genius, and while I stand in awe of everything he's ever done, I do prefer the Judge Child chapters to anything before or since.

Quite interestingly I had this conversation with Carl Critchlow at Bristol as I can remember meeting him years ago when he first painted the Flesh story Legend of Shamara (sp?) and what he said was that at the time with Simon Bisley et al producing painted artwork it was requested if he could provide painted artwork as that ws the fashion at the time. His recent Lobster random stuff is really more true to his style than the painted stuff. What he found was that he'd then been pidgeon holed into being a painted artist, so when that 'trend' dried up he had to then re-invent himself and re-educate editors that he could provide much more and a very different and in my eyes a much more commercial style. fascinating really how much an editor can dictate an artists career?

I don't think any of the artists mentioned in this thread or the previous thread along the same lines have deteriorated in quality.

People need to make a living first and foremost and so I can quite understand simplifying your methods (those painted pages must have left some of the artists on the bread line - they are labour intensive).

As for Kev Walker - his new stuff is brilliant (a favourite of mine) - and I prefer it to his painted work.
Same goes for Carl Critchlow.

As for McMahon - his old stuff is fantastic - but then I think his new stuff is fantastic as well.
I'm quite happy to see artists try out new stuff rather than endlessly regurgitating a style they used 30 years ago. I imagine it could get a little boring for the artist.

If I want to look at his old work (which I do frequently) - I just get it off my shelf!

"Kev Walker used to be much better than he is now IMO. I know noone agrees with me but I really feel he was."

What, apart from the whole "not actually being able to draw very well" part of his old style, presumably?

Cheers!

Jim

This stuff from Mike McMahon's online folio is brilliant!

...I still wanted more of the 'Judge Child Quest' style though. Perhaps that's the idea, 'always leave them wanting more'.

Link: Mike McMahon's online folio

Looking at Mike McMahon's work on that website. I notice that Judge Dredd. The colourised art has taken a turn for the better.

Though the other stuff, the in game art ( I'm not sure what that is all about?)
 doesn't look quite as good. Some of looks like it;'s meant for Warhammer 40,000. Which I know is better than this stuff. Looking at it makes me pine for his much older work.

Looking at Mike McMahon's work on that website. I notice that Judge Dredd. The colourised art has taken a turn for the better.

Though the other stuff, the in game art ( I'm not sure what that is all about?)
 doesn't look quite as good. Some of looks like it's meant for Warhammer 40,000. Which I know is better than this stuff. Looking at this other stuff makes me pine for his much older work.

I would have thought that Mick's designs for the game stuff would be designed with the limitations of the game engine, such as polygon count, camera view etc.

If it's all viewed from a far camera, then it has to be quite bold and distinct to make it easy to recognise different characters, if they were highly detailed they would just be mush.

So I'd say he's trying to approximate what it would look like in game as much as possible.

- Steve

This image sends shivers down my spine. The only 2000AD cover I have on my studio wall. Iconic and much copied.

As I have said before, I really like the stuff on the folio site, does anyone know which issues of Sonic the Hedgehog Mike drew? I wouldn't mind getting hold of some copies.

P.S. how do I put a little icon on my posts, the instructions don't seem very clear. I'm using a Mac, could that be the problem?

Link: Mike McMahon folio site

"P.S. how do I put a little icon on my posts, the instructions don't seem very clear. I'm using a Mac, could that be the problem?"

How do I get an icon on the message board?

1. Choose your icon
* Icons are 32x32 pixel gifs.
* There are many examples on the website already, just check the properties of the image you want to find its name.
* If you can't find a suitable icon, you can create one and send the image to wake(at)2000adonline.com
* Animated gifs are permissable, but should be no larger than about 5k
* If you can't create one, send a description of the type of icon you would like to the same email address.
* Icons will usually be uploaded to the site the same day, but if it isn't please be
patient.
2. Follow the link to the database chat room (below)
3. Type "/icon xxx" where xxx.gif is the filename for your icon.
4. Find a message on the message board you have previously posted to check. Icons are backdated, so you don't need to write a new message to test them.
5. Enjoy your new found expression!

Cheers, now I'll have to sort myself out something more unique.

I'd say David Roach is an example of an artist who's style has changed for the worse. Some of his early black-and-white work is stunning, but it feels like his recent stuff has been spoilt by digital colouring - I think it makes everything he draws look really plain and workman-like. Just compare his work on the Anderson strip "Engram" with his most recent efforts on Synammon - it's no contest, really.

And what about Steve Yeowell?  Compare his work on Zenith to what he's doing now on Detonator X.  Nowadays he draws everyone with their eyes shut.  And a lot of his characters have the same face...

I thought the artwork on the cover was the best part.

I haven't really got into reading the story.

Yet!
 
You know that with comics one third of the sotruy is the quality of the artwork. The rest is the art direction and the dialoge/narration.

I just try that again!

Now I'm no McMoonie, but McMahon does no wrong except for not drawing comics. Smith should commission a longer Dredd story from him or a new series that he is the only artist on.

Langely and Critchlow are better now than before.

Most of the artists mentioned I think are just as good just with alterations. Ezquerra needs to go back to pencil and ink. Gibson, I prefer in black and white.

I always liked Dillon, but after seeing the Case Files I have to admitt he has lost some of his touch.

PJ Holden is improving year by year. He's arriving at that point where you just have to see one panel to know who the artist is.