Zarjaz Special focuses on Dredd's Dark Judges

Conor Boyle's cover art for
'Dark Judgement'

Comic writer Richard McAuliffe and artist Conor Boyle have put together an ace but very creepy Zarjaz Special focusing on Judge Dredd's 'Dark Judges', which will be on sale at the British International Comic Show next month.

Dark Judgment is a not-for-profit fan project published by FutureQuake Press and will cost a measly £1.50 of your Earth money. The project presents a series of admittedly gruesome but riveting shorts featuring the four Dark Judges that definitely takes them back to their roots as some of the nastiest creations ever to grace the pages of 2000AD.

Richard is the writer of Damaged Goods, one of the Insomnia books now looking for a new home. "I got speaking to Conor Bolye at Bristol Con about possibly doing something together," he told downthetubes, "and we both decided it might be fun to try and make the Dark Judges nasty again as they'd gone a bit comedic over the years.

"I wrote four stories, expecting Conor to pick one to draw and he decided to do the lot. We showed these to the guys at Zarjaz and off the back of that they decided to let us put out a one off special edition which is gonna be launched at Birmingham."

"The idea is that this will be a return for the four Dark Judges to the days of their first appearances in 2000AD, when they were just plain nasty," adds Conor, "as opposed to the slightly camp pantomime status they achieved in later years."

Having just been read a 'sneek peek', I can safely say they've achieved their goal.

While all four Judges appear, I think the tale featuring Judge Fire is possibly the creepiest and most effective of the stories, as Fire torments a young mother with an impossible choice as he terrorises her in her own home.

This is definitely a comic that will appeal to hardened horror and Dark Judge fans, but be warned, it's not for the faint-hearted, with all age groups, including children, coming under attack from the soulless Judges...

You have been warned...

• Check out sneek peeks of art for the comic at Conor's blog

• More about Zarjaz on their official blog

• More about the Dark Judges on 2000AD Online

The Judge Fire tale in the Dark Judgment special is, perhaps,
the most disturbing of all the stories in this special. Art by Conor Boyle.

 

Comic Artists Map their influences in popular Internet 'Meme'

PJ Holden's 'Influence Map'

2000AD artist PJ Holden has joined the growing number of comic artists who have created 'influence maps' of their work, assembling the art of creators that has inspired him into a pleasing graphic (right).

The project is just part of an Internet 'meme' - a phrase coined by the web's credited creator Richard Dawkins back in 1976 -  defined as a concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an esoteric inside joke.

Among Paul's influences are Steve Dillon, Cam Kennedy, Belfast cartoonist Ian Knox, Gil Kane and Mike McMahon.

"My intent was to start with the guys that probably influenced me in a thousand untold ways, people I read and loved as a kid and probably copied or imitated," he says in his Meme post on Facebook about the map. "Many of whom I haven’t really tapped into since I was 12. Then I wanted to move into people who are more obviously an influence, people who’s styles I’ve conciously borrowed techniques/renderings from.

"I will borrow a rendering style from an artist but i try and keep my art style – the actual shape of my drawing – my own. But, of course, it’s already been influenced by those that have gone before.

"...It’s been quite a trip through memory lane."

The Forbidden Planet International blog recently reported that several artists have recently created these maps, including Adam Cadwell. John Allison, Aaron Diaz and Rene Engström. Others are Hugh Raine, Paul Shinn and Hi-Ex co-organiser Vicky Stonebridge.  Illustrator Marian Bantjes has created her own design of Map, but it's also fascinating.


But this is just a tip of the iceberg, as this search of ace art community site deviantart reveals.

Paul suggests that those interested in creating their own could do worse than check out the http://britishcomicart.blogspot.com for artists who may have influenced you.

• Fox Orian created the template which seems to be being used by most artists for this 'Meme'; check out his own Map here

• Check out the Influence Maps on deviantart

Bloodwhat comic reaches its online finale

Bloodwhat, the online comic creation of Worcester film-maker Douglas Wilson, has recently reached the story's conclusion after an impressive regular three times a week schedule for the past year and a half.

With some 6000 views per month, the comic has just shy of 200 strips of fantasy spoofs, parodying a 1980's computer game which Douglas grew up playing. He now hopes to compile a book from the now completed story and is using fundraising site IndiGoGo to pre-order copies with incentives for donators, including a credit in the final printed book and original artwork from the comic.

Creator Douglas Wilson is an animation graduate of the University of Central Lancashire who has worked on the feature film Billi the Vet in Glasgow and Rocket Jo in Angouleme, France. Currently working freelance from Worcester in animation and illustration, he runs two regularly updating web comics, K-9 Lives and Bloodwhat. He's also writing and drawing a graphic novel, The Von Spleen Experiment.

The strip's web site recently underwent a re-design, bringing a bit more personality to the look. "I've made the menu bar quite playful and amusing and hopefully having that same link panel across the whole site makes navigation a little simpler," Douglas explains.

"I also wanted to add hand written notes explaining a little more about what I am trying to do with the site and its contents [and] back-up the handmade, personal aspect of my work in the design."

• Check out comics at: www.dougwilson.co.uk

Panel Borders: Making Marvels in the UK

Continuing podcast and radio show Panel Borders month-long look at British creators who have written and drawn superhero comics for both the American and domestic markets, in a panel recorded in front of a live audience at the London Science-Fiction Film Festival, Alex Fitch talks to a quartet of Marvel UK luminaries who were responsible for some of the best action-adventure titles in the 1980s and 90s.

Dan Abnett and Gary Erskine co-created The Knights of Pendragon (along with John Tomlinson), a series which gave UK superhero Captain Britain a new, darker spin in the 1990s by adding him to an Arthurian team of heroes. Simon Furman was (and still is) the primary writer of Transformers, as well as the scribe behind a dozen installments of the Doctor Who comic strip, plus many of Marvel UK’s most memorable SF titles including Dragon Claws and Death’s Head. John Freeman helped create many of Marvel UK’s early 90s titles such as Death’s Head II, Warheads, Killpower and Motormouth and edited Marvel UK's intended rival to 2000AD, Overkill, for much of its run.

Alex and the four creators discuss the rise in popularity of Marvel UK as a producer of original material in the 1980s and some of the memorable comics they founded along the way.

• Panel Borders: Making Marvels in the UK (Part 1 of 2) airs at 5.00pm on Resonance 104.4FM (London) / www.resonancefm.com, on Thursday 9th September 2010. For further information visit http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/4477

• The podcast is available here on archive.org - or just play it via this embed...