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For once, I'm speechless!!!

Supremely talented boarder Filip Roncone contacted me out of the blue to say he wanted to do me a commission. Naturally I jumped at the chance and, just a few weeks later, was frikkin' THRILLED to receive a jpg of this bloody brilliant image...






The actual picture itself arrived today and it's absolutely stunning - an A3 masterpiece which must have taken hours and hours to do! The detail is incredible and the care and attention he must have put in is amazing - I'm overwhelmed! I feel SO lucky!

Naturally I've already thanked Filip but I'd like to publicly say a HUGE thank you to him. I don't know what I've done to deserve such a brilliant piece of art but I'm absolutely thrilled to bits with it!

You can see a bigger version here: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v76/Wellsy/FinkvsJudgeDredd.jpg

I am a very happy Pete!

Oooooooooooooooooh! I first asked for this years and YEARS ago and finally Colin has been able to do me a commission! I asked for the usual, well almost - I tend to ask for Dredd battling a villain of the artists' choice at Pete Wells Block. However, I've always adored Colin's Mechanismo Robots so asked him to do me Dredd knacking a Mechanismo Droid at my eponymous block...

Not good enough for Mr MacNeil though who suggested Dredd battling a horde of decommissioned Mechanismo Robots at Pete Wells Mech Wrecking Yard. Somehow the droids have reactivated to get revenge. Quote - "A scrap in a scrapyard if you will!"

So... here it is:



Not too shabby eh? Here's the roughs too...



I'm absolutely delighted with it! It's well worth the years of waiting. Mega, mega, mega thanks to Colin for all the work he's obviously put in. What a happy fanboy I am!

I'll post a huuuuuuuuge version soon.

It's that time again folks where we sign up to the 2000AD Message Board Advent Calendar! If you don't know what I'm wobbling on about, for the last two years in December we've had an EXCELLENT advent calendar where the talented so and so's on the board have given a little prezzie to their fellow boarders each day during December.

A prezzie you say? But I'm skint! Fear not earthlets, the present can be a drawing, a poem, a short story, something really shite featuring piss stains in Microsoft paint, a film, compo, quiz, anything you like! The 24th is a free for all, where any stragglers can add stuff and loadsa the pro's do something which is freakin' cool!

To get an idea of what has been done in the past (or just to wander down memory lane), you can see 2009's version here: http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,27221.0.html and most of last years here: http://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php/topic,31127.0.html (sorry I didn't get time to do a proper end of calendar thread for last year - I'll try this year, promise!)

So what are ya waitin' for? Sign up folks! Please note, we can (and hopefully will) have more than one entry on a particular day if the calendar proves as popular as previous years!

Here we go then, just choose a day and add your name to the list...:

1st - Pete Wells
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th
10th
11th
12th
13th
14th
15th
16th
17th
18th
19th
20th
21st
22nd
23rd
24th - EVERYBODY!

Please vote in the annual family pumkin carving compo! I won't say who's is who's, but one of 'em is mine, one Mrs Pete's, one Jordan's (age 16) and one Sophie's (age 3). They're not in that order above, obviously.

Please place all four in order - I'll award 4 points for first, 3 for second etc. Hopefully I won't f**k this up like I did the covers vote!

1)   2) 
3)   4)

Thanks everyone in advance!

I think someone has missed the 3 from the front of the price so HMV.com is selling this game for £9.90 on the Xbox 360.

Get it quick!: http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=225;6;-1;-1;53&sku=237612

Only three strips this month but three fooking corkers.

Cover - Veeeeery nice American Reaper cover from Clint.

Dredd - Excellent. A really nasty first parter by Mike Carroll. This story made me wince several times which is always a good sign. I love the ambiguity of the main characters, I'm a rootin' and tootin' for them but am looking forward too seeing what happens when Dredd catches up to 'em! The judges names had me beaming too! Art from John Higgins is, well, it's art from John Higgins isn't it? Absolutely masterful stuff with loads of little details to make you smile (especially the little mouse on page 7.) Loved it!

American Reaper - I friggin' loved this. Big, in your face visuals that simply blew me away. I think this is going to divide the readership but I'm firmly in the Mills and Langley camp. Clint's visuals are so cinematic (yes, I know they're photos!) and reading this actually did feel like watching a rather cool movie. I really like the premise and the pages with the main character's (do we get his name?) [spoiler]son[/spoiler] gave me quite a shock - genuinely chilling visuals there. I'm a fan!

Koburn - Another chiller, it seems this is quite the Halloween special! Great work from Rennie and Carlos, as you'd expect. I'm really enjoying this...

Not read the text stuff yet but a cracking Meg for me. Oh, and Team Proudfoot lead the letters again!

Okay, so I'm a huge fan of both Droid Life and the ABC Warriors. I adore both Cat Sullivan and Kev Walker's work and one of my all time favourite 2000AD covers is Kev's amazing cover of Prog 750 (shown below) which features the Warriors blasting their way through a huge metal door. 

Kev's Cover:



I've been gagging to get something from Cat so I thought it would be fun to see his take on such an iconic cover...

Today, I was thrilled to receive this in my inbox:



I was absolutely chuffed with it and couldn't stop giggling, however there were three things missing:

• Firstly, I wanted P14 to be getting crushed under Hammerstein's tracks;
• Secondly, I wanted Joe to be tranny-ed up;
• Thirdly, I wanted some poo on Ro-Jaws shovel.

Half an hour later, I got this masterpiece which I'm absolutely in love with:



Ha ha! Just looking at it is making me smile. It's 8 1/2" by 14" so will be nice and big when I get it.

I'm REALLY over the moon with this one!

This is great! Really professionally made, I love to see a Portal, or indeed a Half Life 2 film...

http://www.kontraband.com/videos/27948/Portal-Gun/#show

Ace twist at the end too.

A looooong time ago I asked 'king of blocks' Dave Taylor to do me a commission. He sent me the finished article today, Dredd being attacked by a group of robo ninjas - what's not to like?

It's no secret that I'm a huge, HUGE fan of Kev Levell's fantastic work. In fact, I think I'll be even happier than him on that glorious day when Tharg finally sees sense and puts him in the prog. I'm sure we'd all agree, looking at his breathtaking commissions and superb sequentials in Zarjaz, that he's easily got what it takes.

So, as well as being a supremely talented so and so, anyone who's met him will also attest that he's one of the loveliest, kindest fellas you'll ever meet (though he's never been seen to get a round in.) I first met Kev at Hi-Ex and after bonding over beers, a love of 2000AD and a mutual fancying of his lovely wife he started drawing me a sketch. Unfortunately the sketch was never finished and has been the subject of much ribbing ever since. Fast forward to this week when I was woken by the postie with a git big envelope for me. Inside was the amazing 'sketch' below!



It's absolutely gorgeous and made me laugh out loud when I saw it. The details are amazing and I keep noticing different things in it. I'm so lucky!

So a massive, massive thanks to Kev for making my week! A really lovely gesture that warms the cockles of my thrill receptors! All hail King Kev!

At last, a Henry Flint blog - and it's been going for THREE months, how did I miss that!!?!

Gaze at his genius here: http://henryflint.wordpress.com/

Oh my giddy aunt, I need a lie down!

Hot on the heels of Commando Forces and Strontium 71's brilliant commissions comes my latest, by the fantastic Tiernen Trevallion!

Wahoo, I stalked Tiernen like a good 'un till he agreed to do me a commission and here it is! I thought with his creepy style he'd be perfect for The Fink (and of course Ratty) so gave him the brief (crikey that sounds pretentious) to do "Dredd fighting Fink and Ratty in the Sewers of Pete Wells Block." Needless to say, I'm absolutely delighted with the result.

I'll show finished pic then sketches, WIPs and a High Res belter. Drumroll please...




Not bad eh!?!

Right, so here are the pencils:



And the beeeeautiful inks:



Blocked in...



Nearly there...



And again the final image, woohoo!



And as promised, a git whoppa High Res version:



I am a VERY HAPPY Pete! I have to say, Tiernen was an absolute joy to 'work' with. His emails were hilarious and, once he got a slot in his schedule, he rattled (no pun intended) the image off in a week, with many updates as he went along. The price was good too.

Hope y'all like, sorry LOVE it as much as I do!

Check it out folks, my absolutely brilliant commission from the fantastic Karl R. I've been DYING to show you all this. No Pete Wells Block this time!

I'll post sketches etc. later on plus a link to the Hi Rez version, enjoy!

Alex won Scottish Independent Comic Book Artist of the year at the Glasgow Comic Con. Truly deserved, everything he's done for AGES has absolutely blown me away and his latest Zarjaz cover has already won the cover of the year award despite it not being on the prog!

So, I'm finally getting round to clearing my pile of games I've bought but never played. I'd picked this up REALLY cheap but never bothered with it because of the comparisons with Bayonetta (a game I fucking HATED!)

However, I've just spent a VERY enjoyable few days blasting through it. The graphics are amazing, on a par with anything I've seen on the Xbox. The story was pretty good and suitably epic and some of the set pieces were great.

Recommended if you can get it cheap (Zavvi's Mega Monday is always good...)

Cover - Ha, love the tag line of the cover! The image itself is the Sean Phillips image we saw a few weeks beck. It's a nice painting...

Dredd - Frikkin' BRILLIANT art by Lee Carter, the city looks alive! The multiple heads effect on the scream victims is super effective and every lawmaster shot has so much movement it's dizzying. It looks like I'm going to get my wish and see Dredd up against some scary looking, Lee Carter perps next week too, yay! Lee has totally captured the feel of the city and the Justice Dept, gush, gush, gush!

As for the script, it's a cracker by Grennie which has Dredd and a psi tracking down a drug gang. Lots of signature Megacity madness and grumpy Dredd (loved the off panel beating of the juves in the car) and an ending that harks waaaaaaay beck to the early days of Dredd. Superb.

Terror Tale - ahhhh, the return of Jesus Redondo and very nice it is too. An intriguing script with a decent payoff, I liked it. Isn't David Ballie normally an art droid though?

Anderson - my goodness! That panel on page 1 made me splurt out my cuppa! Beautiful art by the Ezquerras and a superb script by Grant, phwooor, that Malinda's a bit of alright isn't she? It struck me as I was reading this that Anderson was scrapping with Shark Man, is this Carlos' way of thanking our Legendary Shark for organising the 'Get Well' comic? I hope so. Good stuff all round, looking forward to finding out about Mel's past and seeing the job she has in store for Cass...

Red Seas - a great episode bursting with ideas, the ending was particularly satisfying with Jack being a real cool bastard. It's all good!

Absalom - is an absolute git! More superb writing from Gordon and spine tingling art from TT. I'm dying to know what Harry is scheming, it must be big with the sacrifices he's prepared to make for it. Another brilliant last panel too, Mr Critch is brilliantly designed and Harry's drinker's nose is perfect!

Star Scan - a rather extreme Dredd by Clint Langley, it very much reminds me of John Hicklenton's work. A cool image beautifully coloured.

Got this from Lovefilm and am wondering why it got such bad press. It's really atmospheric, fast paced and exciting.

Some parts are VERY challenging and there's some excellent set pieces and beauty shots. Certainly worth renting. Anyone else got this?

A cracking prog, even the Nerve Centre had me excited!

Cover - quite a Harryhausen-esque affair from Cliff Robinson so all's right with the world!

Nerve Centre - some cracking strips coming up as well as some hints for the next Wagner Dredd epic, wahoo!

Dredd - A great old school Dredd from Alan Grant which made me chuckle a couple of times (particularly when Dredd entered the toilet!) I was also tickled on the last page when [spoiler]Dredd shot the falling perp,[/spoiler] it was so silly and OTT! Doherty's artwork was really nice with some excellent panel layouts, particularly the Dredd's-eye view ones. My only minor criticism is that, despite the cracks, the city looked a bit too white and sterile. Yup, a nice little one off, I could have imagined this being done by TB Grover and McMahon...

Red Seas - ace! I loved the double page splash (ha!) and, though not a lot happens, what does is great!

Cadet Anderson - Anderson goes Wally in this issue which is well written by Grant who I'm really enjoying being back in the prog. The dialogue is great and I liked the reveal on page three. The Ezquerras continue to be an awesome combo, the juves look great and the city looks dirty and horrible (take note Doherty!) Enjoyable stuff.

Absalom - continues to be brilliant! Lots of lovely dialogue coupled the most amazing artwork. The panel of Harry at home on the final page is beautiful. Great stuff.

Dante - aaaaaaagh, I didn't know this arc was ending this week. And what an ending, poor Nikolai looks well and truly beaten in the final panel and I hope that Elena is okay (her cutting a swathe through Lulu's creatures would have made a lovely cover.) Jena is as cool as 'owt and it's all, quite rightly, getting a bit Flash Gordon. A wonderful end to an excellent prog.

Here you go son, this is how it's done. Four Butchers Choice sausages from Sainsburys, fried egg (for sausage dipping) and some spicy wedges. Note the Jack Daniels sauce for dipping the sausages and the wedges into once the egg has gone.

Textbook.

[very]

So, this week I bought a very exciting Judge Anderson page from the wonderful Boo Cook (more on that later) and I, erm... Jokingly suggested he could pop a sketch of Anderson in the tube. I may, or may not, have suggested she could be taking a bath with strategically placed rubber duckies protecting her modesty. To be honest, that's more a question of his morals than mine. Anyway, fine chap that he is, Boo did indeed produce the aforementioned mentioned sketch and here, for the enjoyment of all, it is!

Wahoo!