2000 AD Online Forum

Da Bish's thoroughly entertaining TPO Blog threw up this gem:

"City of the Damned suffered an ailment common to mega-epics, using four different artists to keep the strip going. Steve Dillon launched the story but Ron Smith, Gibson and Kim Raymond had to be brought in to meet deadline pressures. Grant is still angry about the last of those artist â??Fuck! Fuck! We tried and tried to stop Kim Raymond ever doing Dredd again. We called up every fucking week to complain about it. Some really poor artists have done Dredd and Kim Raymond did the worst Dredds of all. It stank! Iâ??ve seen other Kim Raymond art and it wasnâ??t bad, but it was like he missed the point of Dredd â?? maybe he was trying to rush it out. Ugly art.â??"

Okay, I'll admit, I just don't get it.  I know we've been over this before, but what exacly did Alan (and John, presumably) have against Kim Raymond on Dredd?  I loved his work at the time, and I think it still holds up well.  I'll cite the terrific Rookie Dekker storyline as my key witness.  Anyone know what in particular offended them?

Link: Bisho-blog

To be honest, I didn't like Kim Raymond's Dredd much either (not that it means much). It's hard to put my finger on, it was just a bit bland...

I seem to recall really puffy kneepads, and the hardware not being drawn particularly well, or the uniforms for that matter.

I would have liked Dillon to have done the whole lot, but then again I would have liked Ezquerra to have done the whole of the Pit (who wouldn't have)

- Steve

Don't think she was that bad...

Is this the same Kim Raymond?

Link: gallery

Larf... Don't forget the Covers were layed out by Robin Smith....

Although I too like some of Kim's Dredd.... though not City of the Damned.
 But when artists are brought in at the last minute, they are under pressure, and that can lead to rushed work.
 Hey, that's publishing...
:-) R

"Although I too like some of Kim's Dredd"

I always had Raymond in the same bracket as John Cooper on Dredd ... perfectly good artist, but somehow just not quite right for the strip.

That's really not a criticism of the artist ... some artists just don't work on Dredd. Personally, although I'm a huge fan, I never thought Dave Gibbons' handful of outings on the character ever convinced. Nor Glenn Fabry, for that matter ...

Cheers!

Jim

Raymonds stuff isnt great in comparison to his(?) contemparies, but its a bastard sight better than a lot of the stuff we saw once Dredd was filling his own magazine...

Kim = female.  I wonder how many times I've learnt and forgotten that fact?  

City of the Damned as a whole was an artistic disaster zone, won't be arguing that one, but I genuinely liked stuff like Superbowl, Making of a Judge, the Many Happy Returns one, and of course Gator.  I like the look of the improbable sweeping skedways, the curvy bocks and the spiky rope-swinging Dekker.  There are far worse offenders, to which list I would have to add Alex Ronald on 'True Grot', and old 'Marmite' Siku on just about anything.

But Jim is spot on - Dredd isn't for everyone, even some of the greats aren't suited (are you listening, Frank?).

Signiature on the cover and the paintings look fairly similar.

OH, it's a bloke on that site.

Quote from: +rufus+ on 14 September, 2006, 01:41:45 AM
Larf... Don't forget the Covers were layed out by Robin Smith....

Robin Smith is an OK artist but he's TOTALLY unsuited to comics.  His images are far too static, and it drains the life from the page.

Look at Young(-er) Tordelback dissing Alex Ronald and Siku!  What a knob, good job he's not around any more.  I believe I must have eaten him.  I still agree with him about Raymond though.

And hang on, Kim is a man, right?  (here we go again)

Quote from: TordelBack on 14 September, 2006, 12:35:30 AM
what exacly did Alan (and John, presumably) have against Kim Raymond on Dredd?  I loved his work at the time, and I think it still holds up well.  I'll cite the terrific Rookie Dekker storyline as my key witness.  Anyone know what in particular offended them?

Wagner's definitely not a fan (http://www.2000ad.nu/classof79/jw_interview.htm) either:

"Dredd, because he doesn't belong to one artist in particular, seems to get whoever is available, whoever can draw the story in the required time - often short. This has frequently worked to the story's detriment. Dredd's had some right ropey artwork in his time. Why, for instance, give Dredd to an artist like Kim Raymond, who was so obviously unsuited? That's just one example, there have been many. And the wrong artwork can destroy a story"

The common charge appears to be that the very manly Raymond (http://www.kimeraymond.talktalk.net/Kim_Raymond.html) was a last minute fill-in artist and that he either didn't understand the strip or that there was something about his aesthetic which made him inherently unsuitable for Dredd. The mention of John Cooper above sums it up for me; both are more than capable artists whose depiction of Dredd himself are actually pretty good, but who fall some way short of understanding what makes the city and its residents tick, and who struggle with essential elements of the strip like the technology, mutants, and robots.

To be honest, I don't really get the Wagner/Grant absolute detestation of Raymond either, and artists like John Burns and Pete Doherty - whose strengths lie no more in the creation of novel technology or the gruesome depiction of body horror than do Raymond's - have done sterling work on some of the best Dredd stories of all. One of the first Dredd tales that popped through my letterbox as a kid was the single setting character drama of 518's The Interrogation, which Raymond did a great job on, so I've always been indulgent of the elements of his Dredd that are perhaps more suited to Roy Of The Rovers or Mandy.

I remember reading that it stems from the thinking that Dredd is strong enough to survive the odd unsuitable artist, (maybe in TPO) but yeah I can imagine how frustrating it must be for a scriptwriter.

Picking out Kim Raymond seems a bit unfair, I can think of a few others I didn't particularly like either on Dredd.

Quote from: Steve Green on 27 April, 2014, 09:15:26 AM
Picking out Kim Raymond seems a bit unfair, I can think of a few others I didn't particularly like either on Dredd

The strength of Wagner and Grant's invective made me imagine there might be a personal enmity behind their attempts to have him barred from working on Dredd, but there was no love lost between Wagner and the great Ron Smith, and he drew more Dredds than any other artist during the eighties.

The funny thing is that I actively like Raymond, even more since I've just re-read that period the other week. 

I like his cityscapes, I like his eldsters, I really like his lawmasters at funny angles on crazily narrow sloping skedways. I'm not mad about his judges, but they're okay - certainly not exceptionally awful (there's definitely a problem with the way he renders the dark uniforms, so that they end up looking a bit like paper dolls). He was a regular artist for quite a long spell of excellent stories, and I think his work stands up well - exception being City of the Damned, but as noted 7.5 years ago, the dissonant art on that one is a bloody disaster anyway (IMHO).

I absolutely respect Wagner and Grant's opinion on what does and doesn't work on their stories, but in this instance I can't agree with it.

However, I have completely changed my opinions of Alex Ronald and Siku...

Quote from: TordelBack on 27 April, 2014, 10:03:36 AM
The funny thing is that I actively like Raymond, even more since I've just re-read that period the other week ... However, I have completely changed my opinions of Alex Ronald and Siku ...

I'm glad my 12 year old self's opinions regarding the merit of Brendan McCarthy aren't lurking somewhere on the internet to embarrass me. I was so disgusted with his art on The Blood Donor (http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/sauchieboy/AD519-Page16McCarthyBlooddonor.jpg), one of the first Dredd stories I read, I hubristically decided to redraw the strip to show the talentless amateur how it should be done. The disappointing results left me with a greater appreciation of the fundamentals of McCarthy's technique; just a few weeks later, his cover for Pit Rat (http://www.2000ad.org/covers/2000ad/hires/524.jpg) won me over to his style; and by the time the Judda episodes of Oz saw print, just six months later, McCarthy occupied the same lofty position in my esteem he holds to this day.

This was my introduction to the work of Kim Raymond (http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/sauchieboy/AD518-Page16KimRaymondInterrogation.jpg), and it met with much more instant approval. His grasp of the architecture and tech of MC1 are spot on, and his portrayal of Dredd is in the epic heroic mode of Bolland and Smith. I'd echo your appreciation of his character work in those early stories, but you can see that his grasp of the tech and how everything fits together (http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/sauchieboy/2000AD373-Page16KimRaymondDekkermakingofajudge.jpg) isn't quite there at that point. Ironic that by the time Raymond was firing on all cylinders he would never work on the strip again. Alex Ronald, Siku, and countless others took their time to get the hang of the intricacies of Dredd too - Weston detests his sophomore strips.

Yeah, while at the time of publication my young self didn't like Raymond as much as McMahon, Ezquerra, etc, I was in no way adverse to his work on Dredd. One of the things that stuck out was that I couldn't remember seeing his art in the prog on anything else, but I had seen it in other comics, read by my friends. To my pre-teenage mind, this was at odds with 2000AD's ethos- in that the prog should never even remotely resemble what everyone else was reading. It was an elitist, bollocks mindset that did not hold water- not least because 2000AD looked to everyone else exactly like every other comic from the IPC stable.

But, while I wasn't particularly against it, I had no real love for it. However, looking at that second page Sauchie linked to above... that final panel is one of the most dizzyingly, vertigo-inducing drawings of Mega-City One I have ever seen, and exactly how I view the city when pondering it. Quite brilliant.

SBT

Quote from: SBTHowever, looking at that second page Sauchie linked to above... that final panel is one of the most dizzyingly, vertigo-inducing drawings of Mega-City One I have ever seen, and exactly how I view the city when pondering it. Quite brilliant.

Yeah, that's one of the pages I really love - long time since I've seen it colour, which actually adds to it.  Going back to another recent thead, I'd certainly prefer it to any MC-1 cityscape Bolland drew (although it's not a patch on his wonderful Bedlam in Judge Child) .  There's a later panel, I forget which story, which is just a standard Dredd-on-Lawmaster-receiving-info-from-Control, but Raymond draws a rather spiffy full side-profile Lawmaster which for no real reason is speeding along a painfully-narrow strip of plasticrete at a 45 degree angle - making a necessary info-dump into an exciting evocation of a truly crazy environment.  I love a good filthy Cam city-bottom, Higgins oversized Metropolis, McMahon tween-block plaza, Jock concrete aprons, Ewins Sector House, MacNeil looming pillars, or Flint intubated gherkins, but for crazy aerial roadways, Raymond holds his own.

I guess it is a personal preference on the readers side but the writers side may make a difference as it of course your script being intrepreted but the level of disdain seems rather over the top in this case.

Personally I like Raymond's short run and fondly remember the Dekker rookie to judge story arc and I have to say his depiction of Hershey as a vamp in every sense of the word in City of the Damned was especially interesting to the teenage JudgeRufian  :)
You can add me to the John Cooper camp on Dredd though, was never especially blown away by Bryan Talbots Dredd either and whereas I do enjoy most of Steve Yeowell's work, his Dredd and MC-1 always fell flat with me. But then again, I always prefered Brett Ewin's Anderson to Arthur Ransons!

Quote from: judgerufian on 28 April, 2014, 11:26:08 AM...I always prefered Brett Ewin's Anderson to Arthur Ransons!

Heh, me too!  While I do think Ranson's work is fantastic, there's something about Ewins' bubbly take on Bolland that preserves Anderson's original sense of fun better than Ranson's more sombre, realistic stuff.

This is in danger of veering off-topic but I've never 'got' Arthur Ranson... (give me Ewins any day).
Didn't enjoy Shamballa on the 'slog' and with Button Man up shortly, I'm hoping the writing there converts me.
May be another 'not suited to comics' instance. Plus, the praise lavished on his art in the prog seems a bit excessive.

Quote from: Fungus on 28 April, 2014, 02:54:13 PM
This is in danger of veering off-topic but I've never 'got' Arthur Ranson... (give me Ewins any day).
Didn't enjoy Shamballa on the 'slog' and with Button Man up shortly, I'm hoping the writing there converts me.
May be another 'not suited to comics' instance. Plus, the praise lavished on his art in the prog seems a bit excessive.

His Buttonman is excellent as it suits the story more, I just found his Anderson (while looking great) a bit less dynamic than Ewins bold B&W style.

Brett ewins Anderson definitely my favourite.

Always liked Kim Raymond too, and I may be more minority, but I also liked the artwork throughout city of the damned (with one of Steve dillons pages hanging pride of place on my wall).

The Kim Raymond spread I always.remember has the sjs busting in on Dredd, with Dredd having an impossibly large chest and his helmet seemingly on in bed. Got to love it.

Aye - Ranson's wonderful art was perfect for the tone of the stories Alan Grant wanted to use Anderson as a conduit for, but Ranson's interpretation of Psi-Division's finest was a completely different character to the one we'd gotten to know. I loved everything about Ranson's work on the strip except his take on the title character.

Quote from: SIP on 28 April, 2014, 05:12:48 PM...I also liked the artwork throughout city of the damned (with one of Steve dillons pages hanging pride of place on my wall).

Almost all the art on CoD is great on its own, with superb individual episodes and Dillon in particular delivering some of his best work, but the mix and the endless transitions between the vastly different styles and interpretations of Dillon, Gibson, Raymond and Smith just didn't work. 

That's not to say multiple contrasting artists can't work, but I think you need the planned episodic structure of a Judge Child or an Oz to pull it off: while CoD looks like it's going to adopt that style of storytelling, it never does, and there just isn't enough of any one thing to carry four such diverse artists.

Yup, that's a fair point, there are a lot of transitions in that story. I wish Steve Dillon could have drawn the whole thing, not because the other artwork was of low quality, just because his pictures were just so darned pretty.

.....and also on Anderson.....its Bretts artwork in the possessed that I enjoyed the most. Great stuff!

Quote from: SIP on 28 April, 2014, 06:45:59 PM...its Bretts artwork in the possessed that I enjoyed the most. Great stuff!

Yeah, it was super.  I really like the set of Mongoose minis that are inspired by Brett's art on that story:

Was a time I'd have liked to see Brett draw the whole prog - Dredd, Anderson, Rogue, Bad Company and ABC Warriors too.  That would have been a sight.

Its a fantastic looking story.....and maybe Bretts rendition had all the more impact on me due  to being 13 at the time  :-)
His work on Dredd, Anderson, rogue and bad company were fantastic around that era (I've still got my chainsaw warrior game as well for his box cover and comic strip).

My other fave Anderson would be by Steve Dillon, coincidentally from "city of the damned"......bringing us back around to Kim Raymond.

Never understood the Kim Raymond hate either - he's a perfectly capable artist which can't be said for a lot of artists that the drew the strip in the 90s. I do frequently confuse his work with Jeff Anderson's though.

Quote from: radiator on 28 April, 2014, 08:34:53 PM
Never understood the Kim Raymond hate either - he's a perfectly capable artist which can't be said for a lot of artists that the drew the strip in the 90s. I do frequently confuse his work with Jeff Anderson's though.

Now he's an artist that I can take or leave, his episodes of Dredd resigning before Necropolis where a low point art-wise in JD for me, luckily the story was so good it balanced out well.
Going back to City of the Damned, I always thought the odd man out artist on this strip was Ian Gibson. Everyone elses work (Dillion, Raymond & Smith) was gritty and grounded and suited the tone of the story but Gibsons bouncy light line work seemed out of place as if the sun had suddenly come out and the peril had been reduced.

Going to have to respectfully disagree with you there.  Not much of a sunny day:

Urrgh, timed out while I searched for images...

I think that had Gibson been there from the start, it would have worked: he can certainly do horror brilliantly (Tomb of the Judges, as an example).  As it is, it's the cuddlier look of everything that jars - the scene where the monster blinds Dredd* could have been done as a visual mirror of 'Gaze into the fist...", instead the monster looks like Godzuki, which undercuts the (still considerable) impact.  Had Dillon done that sequence, well, would we be having this conversation?


*Can't readily find an online version (telling in itself for such a critical moment), but a word of warning: never do a google image search for "My eyes!".

Quote from: TordelBack on 29 April, 2014, 11:31:02 AM

I think that had Gibson been there from the start, it would have worked: he can certainly do horror brilliantly (Tomb of the Judges, as an example).  As it is, it's the cuddlier look of everything that jars - the scene where the monster blinds Dredd* could have been done as a visual mirror of 'Gaze into the fist...", instead the monster looks like Godzuki, which undercuts the (still considerable) impact. 

ha ha Godzuki!
Yes thats the main problem I have with Gibson's section, the blinding of Dredd was a massive event and the fact the monster that did it looks like a man in a rubber suit lessened it considerable once I re-read CotD.

Quote from: sauchie on 27 April, 2014, 09:29:01 AM

Quote from: Steve Green on 27 April, 2014, 09:15:26 AM
Picking out Kim Raymond seems a bit unfair, I can think of a few others I didn't particularly like either on Dredd

The strength of Wagner and Grant's invective made me imagine there might be a personal enmity behind their attempts to have him barred from working on Dredd, but there was no love lost between Wagner and the great Ron Smith, and he drew more Dredds than any other artist during the eighties.

What was Wagner's beef with Ron Smith? For me, Ron joined Bolland and McMahon as a triumvirate of the definitive Dredd artists.

Ron had a unique style the meshed the clean realism similar to that of Bolland with an outlandish humour reminiscant of Gibson. He could also make Mega City 1 look vast an futuristic in a way no other artist could.

I do think that Ron was a wrong choice for City Of The Damned, but no other artist could have brought to life Otto Sump, Pug Ugly, Citizen Snork or Dave the Urangutang in the way he did.

I'd loved to have seen the awesome Steve Dillon draw all of City Of The Damned. His gritty artwork was perfect for the tale. But his stab at Dave was a sad failure.

But I do agree with John and Alan about Kim.

Quote from: seanharry on 29 April, 2014, 12:34:00 PM

I'd loved to have seen the awesome Steve Dillon draw all of City Of The Damned...

But I do agree with John and Alan about Kim.

City of the Damned was the first epic Dredd where I became more disappointed with the strip as it went on and I think in retrospect that had a lot to do with the chopping and changing of the artists. But I don't think that Kim Raymond was any more responsible for the strip than W&G's script that clearly ran out of steam and wrapped up early.

On a recent re-read of this, and other stories, I was really struck by Steve Dillon's work. I recall reading at the time that he was the go-to artist for fast turnaround of pages when there was a deadline panic in the command module. Am I right in thinking that he used to draw standing up? In any case I never really classed him with the "masters" back in my ignorant youth. Taking a second look has made me appreciate his skill at composition, his real understanding of anatomy and how deceptively simple his economic linework really is.

Plus, anyone who moved to Ireland for the Guinness has to be a genius.

Quote from: Andrew_J on 29 April, 2014, 01:09:29 PM
Plus, anyone who moved to Ireland for the Guinness has to be a genius.

I didn't know that, but I salute the calling.

Quote from: radiator on 28 April, 2014, 08:34:53 PM
Never understood the Kim Raymond hate either - he's a perfectly capable artist which can't be said for a lot of artists that the drew the strip in the 90s. I do frequently confuse his work with Jeff Anderson's though.

I was thinking the same thing. Also, I don't get the dislike of CoD...I loved that story at that time and recently re-read it and enjoyed it just as much. In fact 'Congratulations' is now one of my favourite Dredd one-liners of all the progs.

Steve Dillon's rendition of the water purification plant in Block Mania is also one of my favourite central spreads...it's an incredible scene setting.

Dillon even had to draw one of the final parts of city of the damned twice as the first set of pages that he did were lost (to be discovered years later). The comparison of the two sets of pages is really interesting (to me at least!). He must be quick on turnaround to have achieved that!

I love city of the damned, don't think it ran out if steam at all and my first ever graphic novel is the original titan collection. £4.99 from Chapter One comic shop, London road, Liverpool. Good times.  :-)

There is definitely a better world where Dillon drew all of 'City of the Damned'.  I'm not a huge fan of Dillon on the whole,  classing him as 'supremely competent and consistent' rather than 'inspired genius', but his work in that general period is extraordinary - clean lines with bags of detail, and a great sense of space and mass: 'Wreckers', for example, and before that 'Cry of the Werewolf' and 'Trapper Hag'.  His 'City of the Damned' stuff is amongst his very best.

Quote from: SIP on 29 April, 2014, 01:21:42 PM
Dillon even had to draw one of the final parts of city of the damned twice as the first set of pages that he did were lost (to be discovered years later). The comparison of the two sets of pages is really interesting (to me at least!). He must be quick on turnaround to have achieved that!

I love city of the damned, don't think it ran out if steam at all and my first ever graphic novel is the original titan collection. £4.99 from Chapter One comic shop, London road, Liverpool. Good times.  :-)

Anywhere we can see the pages?

Quote from: SIP on 29 April, 2014, 01:21:42 PM
Dillon even had to draw one of the final parts of city of the damned twice as the first set of pages that he did were lost

That's right! ...I'd forgotten that. I wonder if this was why they had other artists come in on the story?

Quote from: TordelBack on 29 April, 2014, 01:28:39 PM
There is definitely a better world where Dillon drew all of 'City of the Damned'.

Each to his own but I think very highly of his work on Dredd, for example the image of Dredd and Giant... Dillon is just superb, I really think he's one of the greats because his characters appear to be thinking, not every artist can do that, and far from easy with visors::)) . It was reading his Pressbutton that made me sit up and take notice I think...although I'd first read his Dalek Killer stuff and only realised years later. I was bored by the magazine and then suddenly I'm reading this exciting story...it stuck with me....and he had to be about 16 or so when he was drawing that!....kids these days.

Quote from: Skullmo on 29 April, 2014, 03:06:06 PM
Anywhere we can see the pages?

I've seen them...they are amazingly similar...just not sure where. Anyone?

This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYi5u9BhtI)

First Album was actually 2 at the same time, being Led Zeppelin II and Nirvana's Nevermind

EDIT: Wrong thread. As you were

Can't remember where they were printed, have a feeling it is in a prog and  not a special though. They are incredibly similar but I think the reworked pages were slightly better if anything.

Quote from: SIP on 29 April, 2014, 03:29:27 PM
Can't remember where they were printed, have a feeling it is in a prog and  not a special though. They are incredibly similar but I think the reworked pages were slightly better if anything.

I remember it that way too, I seem to recall thinking the first set allowed him to improve in the second. I'm sure I saw them online though.

I thought I saw them on-line, so you're not alone there!

Quote from: hippynumber1 on 29 April, 2014, 03:55:21 PM
I thought I saw them on-line, so you're not alone there!

Could it be on these forums somewhere?

Quote from: hippynumber1 on 29 April, 2014, 03:55:21 PM
I thought I saw them on-line, so you're not alone there!

I suspect a Megazine article as various google searches turned up....nought.

There was a special feature in Prog 610 that showed the pages side-by-side (apparently)!

Prog 610 sounds spot on, it was definitely around that time.

Nice one, Joe!

I have to say, the re-drawn pages (the lettered ones) are, IMO, noticeably better than the originals, despite being re-drawn from memory* and in significantly less time...!

Cheers

Jim

*And, I assume, the original thumbnails/roughs.

Quote from: Bubba Zebill on 29 April, 2014, 03:08:21 PM
Each to his own but I think very highly of his work on Dredd, for example the image of Dredd and Giant... Dillon is just superb, I really think he's one of the greats because his characters appear to be thinking, not every artist can do that, and far from easy with visors::))

That came out very wrong - I think Dillon's work on Dredd (and Hap Hazard and much of his Rogue) is excellent, I just found his later (herculean) work on Hellblazer, Preacher, Punisher etc. to be a bit... samey.  Very few artists could even hope to deliver what he did, ream after ream of crisp, distinctive storytelling, but the style just doesn't wow me in the way his early 2000AD work did.  It is definitely a matter of personal taste rather than a criticism.  I know that's the eternal trade-off for economy and a sustainable wage, but his evolution was not in a direction I cared for.

And that CotD lost episode comparison is nothing less than mind-blowing.

Quote from: TordelBack on 29 April, 2014, 05:08:31 PM
That came out very wrong - I think Dillon's work on Dredd (and Hap Hazard and much of his Rogue) is excellent, I just found his later (herculean) work on Hellblazer, Preacher, Punisher etc. to be a bit... samey. 

Ah, I see!...ok...I moved away from the UK long ago and to a place that had no comics tradition, lost touch with it all for a decade or so. So I kind of missed what Dillon et al went on to do. I've long been aware of Hellblazer, Preacher but never really looked at them. So my knowledge of his work is just Pressbutton and Dredd really.

Thanks for posting that Joe. Very interesting.

Yes, great to see those again. And yes, rather strangely the re-drawn pages are simply miles better.

I do have the prog somewhere, but haven't seen these in a while. Prog 610 it is, then.

I wonder who owns the original pages.....both sets of pages are great but he certainly tightened the angles and compositions on the second attempt.

Quote from: seanharry on 29 April, 2014, 12:34:00 PM
For me, Ron joined Bolland and McMahon as a triumvirate of the definitive Dredd artists.

They way I have always looked at it there are four definitive Dredd artists: Bolland, McMahon, Ron Smith and Ezquerra.

Quote from: Magnetica on 29 April, 2014, 10:47:39 PM

Quote from: seanharry on 29 April, 2014, 12:34:00 PM
For me, Ron joined Bolland and McMahon as a triumvirate of the definitive Dredd artists.

They way I have always looked at it there are four definitive Dredd artists: Bolland, McMahon, Ron Smith and Ezquerra.

Add Cam as No. 5 and you're on.

Although there's a strong case to be made for 'the moderns', Flint and MacNeil.

Quote from: TordelBack on 29 April, 2014, 11:12:32 PM

Quote from: Magnetica on 29 April, 2014, 10:47:39 PM

Quote from: seanharry on 29 April, 2014, 12:34:00 PM
For me, Ron joined Bolland and McMahon as a triumvirate of the definitive Dredd artists.

They way I have always looked at it there are four definitive Dredd artists: Bolland, McMahon, Ron Smith and Ezquerra.

Add Cam as No. 5 and you're on.

Although there's a strong case to be made for 'the moderns', Flint and MacNeil.

Your use of 'triumvirate' is telling, I think. An article in the first Dredd annual (perhaps second?) mentioned the triumvirate of Dredd artists (Smith/Bolland/McMahon). A wee cadet as I was at the time, had to look this up. Ezquerra only returned to Dredd for the Apocalypse War, of course. Later.

My proggage is missing from about '95 for about 17 years, so can't comment on the big picture. But would be interesting to see Dredd split into eras with associated 'key artists'. This kind of thing has probably already been done (and here).

Brilliant - thanks for showing these!

Ezquerra, Dillon, Kennedy and Gibson are all pretty mind blowing, but for me it'll always be McMahon, Bolland and Smith that defined Dredd, his look and his world.

Steve Dillon's work is definitely on Dredd and Pressbutton. As much as I adore Preacher and have enjoyed Punisher, his work on US comics seems a lot less detailed and cleaner, probably to make it easier to colour.

City of the Damned would have been much better remembered if Dillon had been the sole artist. Neither Smith nor Gibson were suited to a dark, gothic tale like this, and I agree with Wagner, Kim Raymond wasn't suited to any Dredd story.

I kinda do have to put Ezquerra in my list of artists who defined Dredd's look.

Purely on the basis that he actually designed Dredd / the uniform in the first place. That's why he is listed with Wagner as having created Judge Dredd in every Prog.

Not forgetting that he has also drawn quite a few stories as well.

BTW does any care to link to some of Kim Raymond's work so we can see what it looks like - I think I have confused him with Mick Austin in my recollection.

Quote from: Fungus on 29 April, 2014, 11:35:18 PM
This kind of thing has probably already been done (and here).

Well, there's this quite brilliant (but maddeningly unfinished) article by D'israeli (http://disraeli-demon.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/lowlife-creation-part-five-all-joy-i.html).

Cheers

Jim

Fantastic find Joe. Thanks for posting those. My admiration for The Mighty Dillon continues to grow.

Getting back on topic I don't imagine Kim Raymond loses much sleep over the opinions of his Dredd. He's now the Senior Principal Artist (http://www.kimeraymond.talktalk.net/Kim_Raymond.html) for Disney merchandising and kid's book. From Dredd to Bedd(time) stories as it were.

Sorry.

Quote from: Andrew_J on 30 April, 2014, 12:54:44 PM
Getting back on topic I don't imagine Kim Raymond loses much sleep over the opinions of his Dredd. He's now the Senior Principal Artist (http://www.kimeraymond.talktalk.net/Kim_Raymond.html) for Disney merchandising and kid's book. From Dredd to Bedd(time) stories as it were.

That's great to read.  I always feel perversely paternal towards these guys who gave me so much joy when I was a kid, and all too often you just see this bit:

QuoteHowever, I felt I was stagnating as an artist during my time in comics - desperate all the time to earn enough money to feed my family of three children, and consequently not having the freedom of time to push against the threshold of quality and my own potential.

...and not the, err, Happy Ever After.  Good man Kim!

Quote from: Fungus on 29 April, 2014, 11:35:18 PM
Ezquerra only returned to Dredd for the Apocalypse War, of course. Later.

And the first artist (I think) to fully illustrate an epic solo (unless you count Death/Dark Judges by Bolland). I didn't fully appreciate The Apocalypse War at the time, it's now my favourite epic of all. I can't imagine it by anyone else and that he did it all really allowed him to put his stamp on Dredd, quite a different Dredd than he had originally designed.

Kim Raymond is a perfectly good artist, but Carlos Ezquerra was born to draw comics, it's not for everyone.

Seeing all the double page splashes that folks are posting on here, makes me wish Dredd still featured them..

Quote from: Magnetica on 30 April, 2014, 06:45:50 AM
BTW does any care to link to some of Kim Raymond's work so we can see what it looks like - I think I have confused him with Mick Austin in my recollection

I'm such a whore. Here's the pages from The Interrogation (http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/sauchieboy/AD518-Page16KimRaymondInterrogation.jpg) and Making Of A Judge (http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/sauchieboy/2000AD373-Page16KimRaymondDekkermakingofajudge.jpg) I linked to earlier.

Quote from: Spikes on 30 April, 2014, 04:44:23 PM
Seeing all the double page splashes that folks are posting on here, makes me wish Dredd still featured them..

You have your Ezquerra double page go and look at that :D

Quote from: sauchie on 30 April, 2014, 04:52:27 PM
Here's the pages from The Interrogation (http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/sauchieboy/AD518-Page16KimRaymondInterrogation.jpg)

Why is SJS Judge Gerhart from Titan wearing a badge that reads Spiegl in that centrespread?

Quote from: Skullmo on 30 April, 2014, 05:01:29 PM

Quote from: Spikes on 30 April, 2014, 04:44:23 PM
Seeing all the double page splashes that folks are posting on here, makes me wish Dredd still featured them..

You have your Ezquerra double page go and look at that :D

There was that impressive double-pager in underbelly.

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 30 April, 2014, 08:42:42 AM
Well, there's this quite brilliant (but maddeningly unfinished) article by D'israeli (http://disraeli-demon.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/lowlife-creation-part-five-all-joy-i.html).

Cheers

Jim

This article is really great - thanks for the link Jim.

It gives a real insight into the evolution of the look of the city.

I had never thought of it like that.  I just used to think of the artists I liked and that was it.

Indeed following your post on the IDW Cam Kennedy thread I checked out my copy of IDW's complete Bolland and was amazed to see how few of his stories featured blocks at all, and when they did they were pretty much rectangular 1960's style only.

(And just so I am clear Bolland is my favourite 2000AD artist of all time).