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Inspired work from deserving winners.  Not to mention a doffed hat to all the other entrants, too.
Another great month, CrazyFoxMachine.  Always a pleasure to see the entries.

[1 - JTPegg - Joe Pineapples]

Firstly, they were all amazing -it's great to see so many great entries!

Right with you there, Skullmo.  Hell, even prattle-guts me is too stunned to waffle... much...

1 - JTPegg - Joe Pineapples - So cool as to be decidedly chilling
2 - Chris_Askham - Hammerstein - Really captures Hammerstein's ro-bustness
3 - Darren Stephens - Mechanismo - Not least 'cos of the uniform greens amidst all the juicy brightness

HM - Colin_YNWA - Snow-Jaws - Brilliantly fun.  Tempted me to be a copycat.

The Dead Man aside, I don't think the Sisters of Death turned up anywhere else in the Prog but they've shown up a couple of times in the Megazine.  Way back in the very first 12 issues, there was the Judge Death story My Name Is Death* which features them in Death's origins as the alien super-fiend from jolly old Deadworld.  More recently (though, I suppose, not all that recently) they showed up in the Anderson story Half-Life.  I think I'm right in remembering that in both Megazine appearances they were still alive - or, at least, not the moldy rotting green hags of Carlos Ezquerra's depiction during Necropolis, which chronologically postdates both stories anyway.
Mind you, I've got a couple of Megs missing from my collection so I may've missed something someone else knows of but so far as I can see both My Name Is Death and Half-Life show the Sisters of Death at a time prior to Judge Death's first visit to Mega-City One.

* Reprinted by Rebellion, natch - Judge Death: Young Death - Boyhood of a Super-Fiend.

That Steven Austin's not wrong, you know, and I just saw the Joe Pineapples.  ABC...  Absolutely...  Brilliant... Contenders!

While some of us (well, okay, me) only enter the art competitions for the fun of it with what amounts to little more than fat-fingered cartoons that get diddled about with on Gimp, it's a regular pleasure to see the entries from others who enter with a clearly deserved sense of pride in their offerings unto the eyeballs of their fellow squaxx.  There's already more than enough enjoyable style, skill and discipline in the five proper contender entries to date to make voting a right bugger again this month - and we've still got, what, over two weeks to go?!

Thanks for the thrill-boost between progs, guys.  Best of luck when it comes time to get the votes you all so obviously deserve.

Making his first public appearance since the forced demolition of Meka-City, the Bling King of the Squared Ring addresses the rising tide of 'Ding-a-Ling Dem' sympathies in the citizenry...

So, what does the King of Droids make of the Art Comp's voting system and, specifically, WhitBloke's chances of getting this month's HM slot after all the other entrants get less flippant entries in..?

[Well done, that fan]

A hearty Well done, that fan to the prize-winners and runners-up.  Another quality cascade of entries that was a smilesome pleasure to view - if a right bugger to vote on!

Any chance of a category where no professional artists can enter... 

Wait...  What?  I have to be professional or, indeed, an actual artist to enter these?         

[1 - Hoagy - Angelus -]

I have a quibbling complaint.  Quite ignoring my own fat-fingered tat for being, well, exactly that... there are too many primo entries!  (Still, it's probably for the best that I didn't finish my Johnny Vermouth's Cadet With A Black Skull Earring portrait of a young McGruder badness of visual wrongitude.)

1 - Hoagy - Angelus - injected my brain with more than the overt visual content so it's drokkin' ART, innit?
2 - Archie - Judge Rodin - Beautiful
3 - Daveycandlish - Magritte Normal - I'm still waiting for that apple to him in the face but until it happens... nice one!

HM - Stu1 - Starry Night In Mega-City One - but if anybody has a cure for having 'Vincent' by that American Pie bloke stuck in their head...

Shoddy?  Did somebody mention shoddy?  That would be my cue, I think.
Not so much 'classical' as one of those classic Soviet propaganda posters I've a fondness for but I just couldn't resist this one, though it might go walkies if I can manage to make my 'better' idea look less... well, stultifyingly crappy, actually...  and wind up getting submitted as a replacing entry.



After:

Hang on..!  Thirty nicker all in, weekend pass, early entry... and all in the loathso charming but close-by city of London?  Bugger that Squits gig in Southampton.  I'm crawling out of the WhitCave for this one.

Now, to sell another one of the Evil Nieces' kidneys and get this sorted.  Does anybody know a good organlegger?  Last one was right sloppy and took part of the brain that handles hearing, at least whenever I say, "No, don't paint/climb/ritualistically stab your friends on that!"

"No buts, it's got to be Dillon..."

If that's not Steve Dillon, I'm awaiting another artists-tracing-artists controversy. 
Pretty much certain it is Dillon and, knowing how ferociously fast he was working back then, it probably only took him 17 seconds to do that whole postergraph.

Shit year, great folks.  Glad to be shot of the former and looking forward to more of the latter.  Seeing New Year in looking after a sick missus and, you know, it feels right so that's me signing off for 2012.

All the best to and for you all in 2013*, you Squaxxy gaggle of madsticks.


* 2013 - better than 2012 - it stands to reason, it's bigger and (currently) shiny and new.  Nobody's scratched it or pissed it yet.    It's not us that bugger up each new year we get but other people.  Pesky other people!  Feh!

^^^^^ THIS!

Sixth day poorly (he said, dragging the mood down, the berk) but it's things like your post, Mardroid, that have kept me bouyant over Christmas.  Oh, yes, indeed. 

I do trust you've all had every opportunity to best enjoy what it is you prefer or looked forward to enjoying at this time of year.  Oh, dear.  That sounds a bit catch-all bland, doesn't it?  I'll rephrase!

You're all ever so slighty Wrong in the Good way, in the Best way.      In a way that invites pride.  So, naturally, I'm of the mind you all deserved a drokkin' dandy Christmastime and I find myself enjoying how many contented smiles, lifted hearts and moments of downright laughter have been clocked up between you all over the past few days.

Wishing you a Zarjaz New Year, one and all!

I refuse to believe Michael Caine is dead.  It's Christmas, for eff's sake!

[Shaolin Monkey]

Shaolin Monkey - Plush!  And so very 'Big Meg,' too.  Made like a Simp and red-nosed it out of there.  Top drawer stuff and a gritty but feel-good read that seems to have set me up for the day.  Cheers!

I think Professor Bear's bang on the money there but it's possible that the old tradition of the Hotdog Run is now either a thing of the past - like the Academy - or at least undergoing some change what with Cadets of 'kind-of-acceptable' age and attitudes being roped into the massive clear-up post-Chaos Day.
Pretty much thinking it was/is generally Yr10, though I think it was during McGruder's tenure as Chief Judge that hotshots and fast-trackers were given allowance to graduate early.  (Hmm.  Wonder what happened to any Cadets out on their Run during the Bug...)