Back in March 18th 2011 Dave Evans, also known as 'Bolt 01' Editor of the Galaxy's greatest Fanzine 'Zarjaz' contacted me to see if I was interested in drawing a Strontium Dog based strip for the fanzine 'Dogbreath', which, as most 2000ad fans will know, is set in the world of the character 'Johnny Alpha'.
I thought, "Great I'm going to get a chance to draw Alpha!" I received a script by Greg Meldrum entitled 'The Big Scab' featuring as the main character (a baddie known as 'Impetigo Jones') and as I scanned the script I could find no mention of Johnny anywhere in the story...my heart sank a little...
Quickly putting this aside I read the script which was nicely typed and laid out. Greg also added visual references when needed, which is most helpful. After finishing the script I thought "This is great!"
How Greg had managed to pack a great plot, a whole host of gags, puns and general wit into 5 pages with-out complete overkill is beyond me! Should you wish to read more about Greg's thought process behind his script, click this link to go to his blog site: http://hisowndrum.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/impetigo-jones-big-scab.html
Now it was down to me to sell the story visually and I began work on the rough page layouts.
You can see (above) the layout for page 1 next to the finished artwork on the right.
Above: Layouts for pages two and three.
Above: Layouts for pages four and five.
With a full time job it took me about 5 weeks to finish the artwork and I emailed my efforts to the Editor Bolt 01 on the 21st April 2011.
This was was my
first ever comic strip to be published and I was lucky enough to get a fairly
good review from 'Everything Comes Back to 2000AD's' very own 'Flint Lockjaw', who doesn't mince his words!
Here is a link to the podcast page on the ECBT2000AD website: http://ecbt2000ad.libsyn.com/webpage/ep61-ecbt2000ad-zarjaz-and-dogbreath-review
Should you wish to read 'The Big Scab' it appears in issue 24 of 'Dogbreath' and can be bought from the Future Quake online shop via this link http://www.futurequake.co.uk/shop.php
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