Updated, but originally posted on the Secret Oranges Blog: Saturday, 24 March 2012
Back in 2012, I suggested doing a blog post about modelling for comics to my friend Mima who’s played a host of different characters over the years, so she kindly forwarded me scans of some of her appearances.
Mima was working in the Forbidden Planet store in New Oxford Street around the time the Judge Dredd movie was in production. I remember wondering at the time if she’d be interested in modelling for any upcoming projects, and shortly afterwards an article appeared in Empire Magazine featuring a very short interview with Jemima Hancock (as she was then known). I tore it out and kept it, firstly as a reminder but also because it made me laugh. It's Mima revealing her 'take no prisoners' approach to being a female comics reader working in the male dominated environment of a comics shop, as you can see by the clipping here.
I later got to know Mima when she was working alongside one of my best friends, Gillian Bass, at The British Museum. I would sometimes stroll there during my lunch break from the Tavistock Place Command Module. Not long afterwards I was asked to create the cover for 3000 AD, a free 16 page comic set even further into the future, and given away with 2000 AD prog 1034. This was set to hit the newsstands on 18th March 1997, to celebrate the comic’s twentieth anniversary, and was to become one of many collaborations with photographer Alexander Brattell, who had a studio and darkroom just a short walk from my place. Mima was our first choice to model for the cover, and she knew a fashion designer who’d created an amazing cyberpunk catsuit collection as Dane 3001… which of course is yet another perfect example of synchronicity; so that was our team. More about that later.
During the early to mid 1990s, Mima modelled pretty exclusively for the critically acclaimed artist John Bolton, and he did some beautiful paintings of her. Firstly, we see her on the front cover of Atomeka’s Comics Scoreboard from August 1993, which is apparently a bit of a rarity.
Next, she played a starring role on John Bolton's cover for Aliens/Predator: Deadliest of the Species, published by Dark Horse Comics 1993.
In the summer of 1994 Mima played Tank Girl for John Bolton's cover of the Deadline Magazine, summer special.
Then she played a lady of the night alongside The Dark Knight himself for Manbat, published by DC Comics - written by Jamie Delano with fully-painted art by John Bolton in 1995.
Now forward to the year 3000… or 1997 anyway, and our super-soaraway 3000 AD anniversary supplement…
The idea for the 3000 AD cover was based on one that I’d painted for 2000 AD back in 1989. For that commission I’d experimented with photomontage and the transferring of my line work onto photographic paper. This was subsequently coloured using photographic inks, which was not the easiest of mediums to use… at all!
For this new cover, Alex took the photographs and I did the digital manipulation and design work. The 3000 AD logo was first rendered in 3D then turned into vectors in Adobe Illustrator to achieve the effect I wanted. These were early days for Photoshop, and layers had only been introduced in version 3.0 point. Looking at my original files from February 1997, this was most likely the version I was using because version 4.0 had only been released 3 months earlier, and there were no instant upgrades or downloads in those days. Anyway, trying to create a believable Block-War scene for the back cover was quite a challenge at the time. I know I could do it a zillion times better now, but y’know… we live and learn.
Dane gave me one of his catsuit design elements that I utilized for the inside front cover. I gave it a metallic effect and added a portrait of one of our 2000 AD editorial team, Audrey Wong, AKA Cyb-Aud, and the rest is history, or... the future anyhow!
To finish up, I asked Mima if she could just say a few words about her time working on these projects and this is what she said.
"Of all the important things I gained from my time working in THAT comic shop (good friends, a wonderful husband) I have to say that appearing in a comic with Batman has always ranked near the best! The thrill as I look at John's wonderful artwork never fades. That was the exciting thing about being lucky enough to model for comics, I was taken into a parallel universe and until I saw the finished pictures, I never knew where I was going to be sent. The other advantage was in the knowledge that an artist, in his/her very nature, creates magic, and will never paint you exactly as they see you. They won't paint you with bags under your eyes, or that spot on your chin. You're always going to look your best.
This was why I was nervous when Steve asked me to model for 2000 AD on their 3000 AD supplement - I couldn't hide behind the artist's paintbrush there - he wanted to do photos! I shouldn't have worried - he and Alex simply created a different kind of magic, one I've always been very proud to have been part of."
Here’s my own portrait of Mima from 1998. Mima’s tattoos are referenced from one of her favourite Vertigo series at the time, Enigma by Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo.
Big thanks to Mima, and also her husband Ben Cornish for helping out with the scans.
Another excellent read. All these blog articles from Secret Oranges, old and new, deserve a massive audience. They are far more interesting, informative and entertaining than most of the online comics-related publishing.
I recently found a copy of my old 3000AD.. and deadlines, and host of other magazines from the 90's which I poured over for hours. I loved reading your article, thank you.