Anthony Williams - The Willy Wonka of Comics!

After working for the mighty one for twenty one years, Anthony Williams has certainly cemented himself in 2000AD legend with an incredibly broad portfolio for both 2000AD and beyond. Starting his 2000AD career illustrating PJ Maybe's exploits during Necropolis, he quickly became principle artist on strips such as Sam and Samantha Slade, Kola Kommandos, Babe Race 2000, The V.C.s and most recently, Sinister Dexter. While some may question the quality of some of those series' scripts, no one could ever doubt the quality of the top notch artwork.

Tharg isn't the only fan of Williams' work as his portfolio reads like a who's who of Mega corporations including giants such as the Google, the BBC, McDonalds, Burger King and of course Marvel and DC. Not too shabby eh?

Anthony has taken his immense creativity and used it to form something of a cottage comics and illustration industry. Branding himself as the Comic Stripper and employing several like-minded, Oompa Loompa-style creatives to create a host of custom comics and artwork. You can see his excellent website here, for which I urge you to subscribe to his weekly newsletter which is ace! Anthony and co are obviously having far too much fun in their comics factory, producing spoof adverts such as the one below. Who wouldn't want to work there!?!

Note Anthony's excellent Dredd-style grimace at the end of the ad...

Back in 2000AD, Anthony has returned to Sinister Dexter, continuing to plot the gunsharks' adventures in Charon's Crossing. After being hurled six months' into their future, Ray and Finny are busted from custody by a mysterious, shape-changing agent of a shadowy organisation known as Context. Below is Anthony's rough, I love how the image is framed by those swords...

Next, we have Anthony's very cool pencils...
And his gorgeous inked image...
Finally the extra details are added digitally by an Oompa Loompa known only as Rob to really make the cover snap, crackle and pop!
Thanks to Anthony for finding the time to send the images, they're ace! Quick, go and subscribe to his newsletter!

Clint Langley - Digital Chaos.

Yes!!! The return of Clint Langley! On the day when a brand new Dredd epic kicks off and we get a new, rather cool photograph of Karl Urban from the forthcoming Dredd movie. A hat trick and no mistake!


Clint's image is for the opening part of Day of Chaos, the brand new Mega Epic by John Wagner. The first arc of which features stunning art by the brilliant Ben Willsher which features more Dreddworld cameos than you can shake a daystick at! I asked John to give us a clue as to what Day of Chaos was about. He said "Let's just say that it's 30 years since the Apocalypse War and the destruction of East-Meg One. Some people might be a little...bitter?"

John gave details of the format of the story in a recent interview with goodcomicbooks.com. The tale will be similar in structure to more recent mega epics such as The Pit and the amazing Tour of Duty being made up of "a lot of shorter stories, some of which may seem at first only obliquely connected to the bigger picture – building up to an electrifying and violent conclusion!" Can't wait!!!

Below are Clint's fantastic inks for the image, I love how pissed off Dredd looks...


Next, as if by magic, Clint digitally enhances the picture to brain scrambling proportions! Just look how realistic Dredd's flesh is! And check out the burning city in his visor, I have a feeling this epic is going to be just that!

Thanks as ever to Clint for sending the images. He tells me he's working hard on American Reaper for his Repeat Offenders company at the moment, but hopefully he'll be back on ABC Warriors soon.

Henry Flint - "Pleased to eat you!"

Celebrate Earthlets! Not just because the zarjaz Henry Flint is back in the prog, not just because lovable, codpiece wearing zombie Zombo has returned, but... (Drumroll please...) Henry Flint, the living embodiment of 2000AD, has got his own blog!!! Happy, happy days!

You can find and love it here.

WAIT! Wait! Before you rush off to melt your eyeballs with it, don't forget to read the rest of this post, sheesh! So, the amazing Mr Flint is back on cover duties with this wonderful Zombo and Obmoz illustration. Below we can see Henry's initial ideas; personally I'd have love to have seen number one - I think Zombo in his codpiece contrasting with Omboz in his smart suit would have been hilarious!

Once a design had been approved, Henry inked it up all nice like...

Henry uses tracing paper a lot in his work and I'm guessing he used this to get those insane textures.
And again, the brilliant final image

Thanks to Henry for letting me plunder his blog! Right I'm gong back there to ogle some more!

The Incorruptible Garry Brown!

So, here's the cover for Prog 1741, the second from Garry Brown, however, the first that the artist had sent. He says "This was actually a spec cover that Matt liked enough to buy. I emailed him and asked if there was any work available, he said if I did a spec cover of a generic Dredd image he'd take a look at it. So I did..."

Below is Garry's rough sketch...
Followed by these rather splendid pencils...
And of course, his raw and dirty inks...
Garry, who has been doing an amazing job colouring his incorruptible covers, sent this version off to the very hard to please Betelgeusian editor however "He didn't like the colours originally, he liked the composition and the lineart (the cover was also the wrong dimensions, been working on US covers for a while now), but not the colours..."

Garry continues "So I edited the cover and he liked it enough to use it." Hmmmm, I have to say I don't know which I prefer. I like the contrasts in the top cover but also the warm colours of the chosen image...

Plundered from Garry's Deviant art gallery are several more Dredd related images staring with this cutey below...
And this rather brilliant try-out piece. Judging by this (no pun intended) I'd love to see Garry work on an actual Dredd strip.
The next few early images of Dredd are from when Garry was "messing around, trying to get a version I like..."




Finally another spec cover that Garry sent to Tharg which unfortunately old green bonce didn't go for. Such a shame as it's ace!



Thanks again to Garry for sending the images. Remember you can visit his website here and I urge you all to take a look through his Deviantart folder here!