Departing The Cupboard Of Doom

First things first - I've already packed me Daleks

All good things come to an end, and our sojourn in Edinburgh is due to end a week today. With the move rushing up on us, it's probably best for me to announce a "planned outage" until, say 15th July. The removal men delivered an unfeasable number of cardboard boxes this afternoon, and I've already packed my Daleks. Only 9,999 books to go...

Meanwhile, in an attempt to liven up a post that's likely to be around for a while, I thought I'd share some of the character sketches I did for Judge Dredd: Time's Squared.

Judge Dredd in the manner of Carlos Ezquerra from 1981
Judge Dredd © 1981, 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Judge Dredd created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra

Although only glimpsed fleetingly, the story features Dredd at various points in his history; I did character sketches of some of them so I could make Dredd look properly in period. Above is my analysis of Carlos Ezquerra's Dredd from The Apocalypse War (1982). I found this Dredd particularly fascinating as it's Carlos's first time drawing the character since he drew the very first Dredd story back in 1977, and he's radically altered the way he draws the character to accommodate the changes made by subsequent artists (most notably Mike McMahon).

I was a massive Carlos fan in my very early teens (when Strontium Dog started), and as a result of copying his drawings back then I can still do a reasonable pastiche of his rendering style; in fact when I did the panel set in The Apocalypse War, it was incredibly easy to slip back into those old drawing habits from nearly thirty years ago.
Analysing his stuff in detail has given me a renewed appreciation for his work, and at some point I'll do something about him on the lines of the Belardinelli appreciation from last month.

(Thanks due to Graeme Neil Reid of this parish for his help finding me reference for some of Dredd's other early adventures.)

Below are character sketches for the various iterations of Herbert George Sewell; with the exception of a new tank for The Brain, this is not so much character design as note-taking to remind myself what I did last time; it is, after all, eighteen months since I drew the last time traveller story...

Various iterations of Herbert George Sewell
Herbert George Sewell © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Herbert George Sewell created by Ian Edginton and Me.

Herbert George Sewell © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Herbert George Sewell created by Ian Edginton and Me.

Herbert George Sewell © 2007 Rebellion/2000AD
Herbert George Sewell created by Ian Edginton and Me.