2000AD trading cards - series 1 (2007) - part 13

From 2007 here's my look at Strictly Ink's 2000AD trading cards. I've collected the basic collector cards (#1-72) but there were also Gold Foil, Costume & Bonus Cards.

As it points out on the packaging the odds of finding hand drawn sketch cards or bonus cards are 1:20 packs (so 1-2 per box). Foil cards were 1:12 packs and each box contained (on average) one hand drawn sketch or bonus card.

Cards 1-9 were here

Cards 10-18 were here

Cards 19-27 (part 1) is here

Cards 19-27 (part 2) is here

Cards 28-36 is here

Cards 37-45 (part 1) is here

Cards 37-45 (part 2) is here

Cards 46-54 is here

Cards 55-63 is here

Cards 64-72 (part 1) is here

Cards 64-72 (part 2) is here

Ian Gibson cards only are here

In the final look at these cards I've collected up the images relating to a particular character or artist - next up is Sláine...

The front of card 20

The front of card #26

The back of card #26

The front of card #44

The back of card #44

The front of card #68

'Johnny Red' artwork for sale

Over here on that ebay a page of Johnny Red artwork has just gone up for sale (I'm not the seller) - at the time of writing bids are at £51 and the reserve price hasn't been met.

A great example of John Cooper's art style The board is marked as Battle issue 617 and is a great example of John Cooper's art style. Plus, Johnny's in almost every frame! How will bidding for this go? I'm going to stick my neck out and say £500

Bidding ends on Thursday morning at 11:15 GMT so good luck if you bid.

Samuel George London talks 'Band of Warriors'

Just a reminder that Sam's Kickstarter closes today (Friday January 29th) so the good news is that there's still time to get onboard as a backer for this...

I recently caught up with one of the busiest men in comics...Mr Samuel George London...not only does he present a weekly podcast ('Comics for the apocalypse - catch-up on any episodes you've missed right here ) but he can often be found Kickstarting new comics. Sam was kind enough to spend some time chatting to me about his great sounding new project, Band of Warriors...

‘Band of Warriors’ then...give us the elevator pitch... Jordan Thomas summed it up best by saying "boobs, bloodshed and betrayal" but to slightly expand on that, BoW merges actual historical events with Celtic and Greek mythology in an epic tale of adventure, betrayal and vengeance.

I think the story is partly inspired by your wife’s connections in France – is that right? That's right. My wife is French and specifically from Brittany. Breton people are very proud of their history, particularly their Celtic heritage and I relish the opportunity to try and capture that spirit in a comic.

So was this a particular period of time that you’d studied before? Or was it a more recent discovery? I had some knowledge of Greek mythology but I had no idea about the actual history from around the time of its creation. So, it was really interesting to learn about the history based on fairly recent archaeological discoveries.

You envisage this potentially as a 6-part series is that right? This first issue is part of a 6 issue arc I have planned but it also has scope to become an ongoing series if we get the right level of support. I hope we get there because I'd love to tell the full story.

So, you have plans to really flesh out this world...is it one particular geographical part of the world that you want to focus on or would you like to see the characters travel their world? Great question! This first issue is based in one particular part of the world, which is the palace of Knossos specifically but for the rest of the story there's a fair amount of travelling to other locations involved.

You’re clear that the art for the book is historically accurate. I've made it as historically accurate as I could but with mythological elements thrown in. So that bit won't be but it'll be a lot of fun.

I’m not sure I can think of any other comics from this time period – have you come across any? I’m sure there are probably loads of bande dessinée books out there but I’m just not familiar with them... Kill the Minotaur is set at the same time and even includes King Minos as well but it's more of a comic book interpretation of the original Minotaur mythos. Whereas BoW is attempting to reflect actual history along with the mythology.

You’re perhaps best known as the writer of the ‘Milford Green’ comic series but you’ve written a number of different comics series I think... Thanks and yes. My other series include The S Factor with Chris Panda published by Action Lab, which is about the dark underbelly of a superhero dating reality TV show. Then there's Project Hoax with Dan Butcher, which is an all-ages one-shot horror comic. And lastly, there's Access Denied with Mikael Hankonen from the Milford Green series, which is about humans visiting androids living on Mars for the first time.

Federico Avila Corsini is an artist I haven’t come across before – how did you ‘meet’ him? I put an artist call out on both Twitter and Reddit, and thankfully Federico got in touch with me via Reddit. I'm so glad he did because otherwise I wouldn't have come across him.

What was it about Federico’s art style that made you think he’d be the right artist for this project?

He has the right balance of realism and fanaticism in his art to capture the historical accuracy as well as the mythology. When he first sent through the character designs, I was over the moon at how they turned out.

What has Nicole, the editor, been able to add to the project would you say? I've worked with Nicole on every project I've written so far apart from the original Milford Green but she seems to be able to point out small things in the story that needed tweaking in order to really put the icing on the cake. In regards to BoW #1, she managed to iron out the creases that I had in a big action scene. I honestly can't wait for everyone to see it.

Thanks for your time Sam!

You can find Band of Warriors on Kickstarter right here

You can follow San on Twitter @SamuelGLondon

2000AD trading cards - series 1 (2007) - part 12

From 2007 here's my look at Strictly Ink's 2000AD trading cards. I've collected the basic collector cards (#1-72) but there were also Gold Foil, Costume & Bonus Cards. 

As it points out on the packaging the odds of finding hand drawn sketch cards or bonus cards are 1:20 packs (so 1-2 per box). Foil cards were 1:12 packs and each box contained (on average) one hand drawn sketch or bonus card.

Cards 1-9 were here

Cards 10-18 were here

Cards 19-27 (part 1) is here

Cards 19-27 (part 2) is here

Cards 28-36 is here

Cards 37-45 (part 1) is here

Cards 37-45 (part 2) is here

Cards 46-54 is here

Cards 55-63 is here

Cards 64-72 (part 1) is here

Cards 64-72 (part 2) is here

In the final look at these cards I've collected up the images relating to a particular character or artist - first up Ian Gibson...

The back of card #23

The front and back of card #39

The front and back of card #42...

Russ Abbott & Carlos Ezquerra - part 2

The great thing about Russ Abbott's fun book is that it's been illustrated by some top-notch artistic talent from Bardon Press. I looked at it the other day here

Next up, 2 more pages of Carlos Ezquerra...

David Pugh original art

Artist David Pugh no longer draws - he's now a writer - and you can find him on Facebook under 'David Dharma Sutra Pugh' or look for his '90s comic art for sale at David Pugh FAN PAGE (also on Facebook) - so when the chance to snap up a bit of his art comes along well you can't say no really can you? 

I was therefore delighted to acquire recently this sketch of Sergeant Antenor from the story Obvious Tactics (from the pages of Warhammer Monthly).

Here's the trade paperback of Obvious Tactics - cover by Martin Hanford - with Sergeant Antenor front and centre

This is the only other sketch I have by David - as you can see it's a Dan Dare piece

I've got some non-Dan Dare and non-Warhammer original concept sketches that David did, some examples here...

but check out these posts here , here and here to see them in there full glory and you can check out all references to David on the blog here

A space oddity

An interesting item this...I've been approached by an individual who has the following piece of artwork (for sale) but he's love to know more about it.

I don't recognise it but it has echoes of Dan Dare (the collar of the spacesuit, the moustache) but the quality isn't quite that high (the right arm of the main character seems a bit 'unresolved' to me). Anyway, it's a great looking piece of space age art - the only question is can anyone shine any more light on it? 

If you're interested in acquiring it then let me know and I'll put the vendor in touch with you

 

2000AD trading cards - series 1 (2007) - part 11

From 2007 here's my look at Strictly Ink's 2000AD trading cards. I've collected the basic collector cards (#1-72) but there were also Gold Foil, Costume & Bonus Cards.

As it points out on the packaging the odds of finding hand drawn sketch cards or bonus cards are 1:20 packs (so 1-2 per box). Foil cards were 1:12 packs and each box contained (on average) one hand drawn sketch or bonus card.

Cards 1-9 were here

Cards 10-18 were here

Cards 19-27 (part 1) is here

Cards 19-27 (part 2) is here

Cards 28-36 is here

Cards 37-45 (part 1) is here

Cards 37-45 (part 2) is here

Cards 46-54 is here

Cards 55-63 is here

Cards 64-72 (part 1) is here

Cards 64-72 (part 2) is here...

Merry Christmas from Just Comics & Kev O'Neill

Here's something you don't see every day...yes it's a series of Christmas cards illustrated by Kevin O'Neill! They were produced by comics shop Just Comics - I'm not suggesting this is all the cards that were produced but it's a lovely selection...

Just to show that the interiors of the cards weren't exactly the same...