Above: Ricardo surveying his territory.
I was contacted by Bolt 01 Editor of 2000ad fanzine Zarjaz on 26/07/12 to draw a 24 page script for Zarjaz featuring New Judges hitting the streets for the first time. After reading part 1 of the script (which I liked) he marked me down to do the full 24 pages. I mentioned to him that I was in the middle of drawing 50 pages for ‘Martillo’ and would not be able to start drawing until January 2013.
Now due to me misunderstanding the situation I thought all 24 pages were to be published as one in issue 18 of Zarjaz with a deadline of May 31st. So on 05/01/13 still working on ‘Martillo’ I got cracking on the art for Baby Jays thinking I had less time. I spent a little time producing rough layouts and character designs (see pictures below).
Above: Rough page layouts pages 1 and 2.
Above: Rough page layout for page 3 and some rough character thumbnails for page 4.
Above: Rough page layouts pages 5 and 6.
As can be seen above I spent a little time working out the difficult movements for some the characters on page four before penciling the first page. I have provided the pencils for both page 1 and 2 (please see below) I put as much detail into the buildings, technology and faces as possible.
Above: Finished pencils for page 1.
Above: Finished pencils for Page 2.
As Zarjaz is published at A5 and therefore half the size of 2000ad I didn't overwork some of the faces as on the smaller page panels they can look cluttered when reduced. I’ve always seen Mega-city one as a futuristic city and therefore tried to make the buildings and tech look more advanced than a lot of the 'near-future' artwork you get in a lot of Cyber-punk stories. I love taking time to draw the classic lawmaster which I hope comes across on page 2.
I managed to finish page six of Baby Jays part 1 on 21/01/13. I started working on Part 2 after drawing the final part of Martillo on 07/03/13.
Zarjaz 18 with the wonderful 2000ad artdroid 'Ben Willsher' cover can be bought from the future Quake online shop via this link here.
I've provided a link to the blog site of scriptwriters Alistair Mclean & Richard Swabey here.
A review for Zarjaz 18 on the ETCB 2000AD website via this link here, Thanks to all those who took the time to write the reviews for Zarjaz and Dogbreath so far. I hope a few more of the regular reviewers (Orlock?) post reviews (maybe even publish a regular Zarjaz and Dogbreath podcast again Flint and Richard?).
