Blow-Up!

Vintage 2000 AD Production Art in detail

One for the Squaxx dek Thargo's

Back in ye olde days of my first blog I posted some examples of 2000 AD production art from my collection, alongside enlarged scans to show all of the glorious detail that went into these works of art. Gathering this collection was another case of rescuing items before they went into the rubbish skip, during one of many office building clear-outs. Initially I hesitated, because it just meant I had to find somewhere to put all this stuff, but in retrospect I’m so glad I came to my senses!

As an explanation of the process; The black & white line art has been printed onto an acetate overlay and a duplicate of that has been printed onto a separate sheet in blue line. The colours have been hand painted onto the blue line sheet and the two are married together before being sent to press. This is how things were done in the 2000 AD Command Module, circa 1981!

Close-ups from 2000 AD Prog #238, 14th November, 1981 (with a slight shadow from the overlay). Art: Kevin O'Neill with colours by Tom Frame. Plus the complete cover below, all held together with Sellotape.

Sam Knows The Score!

Next, we have close-ups and the full cover from 2000 AD Prog #285, 9th October, 1982. (Slightly out of register) Art: Ian Gibson with colours & letters by Tom Frame. 

Now for some Black & White camera-ready artwork from 1987; not original art, but a paste-up of pmt's (photo mechanical transfers) and Letraset. Another prime Judge Dredd piece by Brian Bolland.

If you’d like to see more of these… just say the word!