Judge Dredd Megazine
Fay Dalton brings some ‘Mad Men’-era style to comics
As a prime mover in U.K. comics since the 1970s, Pat Mills has been directly or indirectly responsible for promoting entire generations of artistic talent. He was IPC’s go-to guy for launching comics in the mid-’70s, and even after his stint editing 2000AD; many great artists there tended to get their first breaks working on his strips, which surely can’t be coincidental. Similarly, although he didn’t edit Crisis, he was arguably the driving force behind the comic, where again an entire generation of new comickers earned its stripes 00 and then yet again at Toxic!, where several noticeable new artistic talents worked on strips written or co-written by him.
Mills is at it again, bringing on Fay Dalton as co-artist with Clint Langley on American Reaper in the Judge Dredd Megazine. Mills was on the panel of judges when Dalton won a competition ran by the illustration agency Pickled Ink in 2010 to find an artist to draw the graphic novel Party Girls by Jenny McDade, some sample pages from that project can be seen at her website, her work then revealing the possible influences of James Jean and Frazer Irving. A further look around her website now reveals an artist influenced by the golden age of commercial illustration, such as the work of Robert McGinnis, and her comic pages (as previewed at Mills’ blog) show some influence from Look In-era John M Burns. She’s came a helluva long way in the three years between the two projects. Here’s hoping she stays in comics for the long run: her work is like nothing else being produced in the form right now.
Comics A.M. | The Walking Dead reasserts bookstore dominance
The Walking Dead Compendium Book One
Graphic novels | Two volumes of The Walking Dead Compendium topped BookScan’s list of the Top 20 graphic novels sold in bookstores in March, and Vol. 60 of Naruto was No. 3, but ICv2 thinks the new Avatar: The Next Airbender graphic novel premiering at No. 4 is headline-worthy. [ICv2]
Awards | With his duties complete, Charles Hatfield describes what it was like to be an Eisner judge. [See Hatfield]
Creators | Gilbert Hernandez talks about his childhood and that influences, from Dennis the Menace to Steve Ditko, that shaped his latest graphic novel, Marble Season. [The Chicago Tribune]
Big week for Brendan McCarthy fans
Good news for fans of the lesser-spotted psychedelic comics legend Brendan McCarthy. This Wednesday will see the release of IDW Publishing’s The Zaucer of Zilk #1 in the United States, and in the United Kingdom, the new issue of The Judge Dredd Megazine (#329) comes festooned in a wraparound image of Judge Anderson. This cover is something of a warm-up for McCarthy, as he has an Anderson back-up strip in Issue 2 of IDW’s upcoming Judge Dredd comic, written by Duane Swierczynski. Images from both below.
Anyone who missed the U.K. publication of The Zaucer of Zilk is in for a real treat. McCarthy says the work has “been described as Harry Potter meets Yellow Submarine. .. Mix a bit of David Lynch in there and I’ll go along with that.” I’d throw in a recommendation for fans of Dr. Strange (it’s a massive Ditko fan doing a story about a dimension’s Sorcerer Supreme, after all), and McCarthy’s previous cynical hipster superheroes, like Paradax, Zenith and Rogan Gosh.
What Are You Reading?
Godzilla #1
Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading?, where each week we talk about what comics and other stuff have been on our reading piles. To see what the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below.
Grant & Trevallion bring Ratfink back to Judge Dredd Megazine
Inside the new issue of 2000AD is the above teaser for the lead strip in next month’s Judge Dredd Megazine (scan via ECBT2000AD). Any day with news of upcoming art by Tiernen Trevallion is a good day, so I tracked him down to his local golf club and ruthlessly extracted the following preview page from him: Continue Reading »
Andy Diggle and Jock bring Snapshot to Judge Dredd Megazine
Snapshot, the long-teased comic reuniting The Losers and Green Arrow: Year One collaborators Andy Diggle and Jock, will at last debut in late March in Judge Dredd Megazine #322.
First mentioned as early as November 2008, the thriller is described as a “tale of cold-blooded killers and sinister conspiracies” about a San Francisco slacker who finds a smartphone containing photos of a murder victim. “Then the phone begins to ring …”
The duo’s first creator-owned project, Snapshot marks the return of Diggle and Jock to the Megazine, where they first worked together on the Judge Dredd spinoff Lenny Zero more than a decade ago. At one point, the comic seemed destined for Image.
“Jock and I have been chipping away at Snapshot for a few years now in our spare time, assuming we’d approach a publisher once we had enough material to show,” Diggle told the 2000AD blog. “But when I bumped into Matt Smith at the New York Comic Con, he suggested the Megazine’s creator-owned slot might be the perfect place for it. After all, the Megazine was where Jock and I first worked together on Lenny Zero, back before The Losers or Green Arrow: Year One. So it feels like coming home.”
Judge Dredd Megazine #322 arrives March 28 in the United Kingdom and April 11 in North America.