Taking Sides: Mike McMahon v. Brian Bolland

Kiss my new answers, Punk.

McMahon. Deffo.

I cite Block Mania as my proof. NOBODY did pat wagons like McMahon. Or those silly helmet-hats most blockers wore. Or Slaine, taking dramatic foreshortening to new and undreamt of heights, with Slaine's axehead gigantic in the foreground and Slaine a tiny figure in the distance. Ace.

Bolland occupies a special place in my heart, but really his slick draughtsmanship is just that, not the gritty grainy looks-like-it's been-scrawled-by-a-demented-child JEENYUS that is MM.

does anyone remember the BRILLO story in Doctor Who Monthly, drawn by McMahon, natch, where these interstellar salvage guys find a Tomb- style Cyberman which procedes to do all sorts of bad things in a logival manner.

It was GRATE.

yess... it's on a space freighter, a kind of rag and bone ship, in the cargo hold. Fantastic head flanges.

It has the fingers and head of CYBER MONDASIAN (Tenth Planet style) and the chest pack of early CYBER TELOSIAN (tomb). It's a while since I've seen this one, but I think its also got teardrop holes on the eyes, which is a Tomb feature but on a Tenth planet head. KERRRRRAZY!

I was thinking maybe it was a Tenth Planet style Cyberman... thanks for setting the record straight.

On the other hand, McMahon never did "GAZE INTO THE FIST OF DREDD!"

I'm sure he could have done if they'd given him the script.

For me, Bolland's work was beautiful, and he produced gorgeous covers, but McMahon was the most genuinely exciting comic artist Britain ever produced.

Brian Bolland, tangentially, is both the sweetest and least tactful man alive. To Steve Ditko (veteran American comic great, co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange): "I always imagined you were a midget". To Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (Argentinian Superman artist) in the late '80s "I should be at war with you". He's a lovely man, honestly...

I'm going to take the unpopular answer here and say Bolland--one of the funniest artists comics have ever produced, because the jokes are delivered absolutely deadpan. And the glinting uniforms and helmets play up the weird parodic-fascist undertones of Dredd really well.

I like Brian Bolland best too. Especially on "Father Earth" giand carnivorous siren-plants - yay! I like the super-slickness, with a vague undercurrent of fanaticism. This means that my favourite (& Very occasional) dredd artist is Kevin O'Neill. I like Ian Gibson best as 2000ad artist, as i may have droned on abt before, but dredd was never his strong point i think. McMahon's work on the earlier "Slaine" episodes is ace tho'.

BTW I have no idea who draws/writes dredd these days & if they are any good. Is it worth picking up?

mike mcmahon is gonna lead the detroit lions to next year's super bowl.

any time I've looked at 2000AD recently it's been a bit too arch, and a bit too aimed at people who will appreciate in-jokes going back twenty five years. This is especially true of Judge Dredd, where they really do seem to be just rehashing old ideas.

that said, last time I looked at the Judge Dredd Megazine (because they were reprinting FLESH), the main Judge Dredd story seemed quite good and almost made me want to buy the next issue to find out what happened.

I just buy the collected stories now.

For me McMahon , though I understand Bollands appeal . fwiw I always kinda liked ron smiths dredd work too.

Bolland for his attractive girls.

Oh, and his clean lines.

I like McMahon too.

I'm afraid I can't stretch to Smith: that always made me sad.

Anyway, hold on - I've just realized that you mean BOLLAND and the pix I had in my thread were those of STEVE DILLON. I mean, *he* REALLY knew how to draw clean girls and attractive lines.

Steve Dillon can't draw.

I like the way Ron Smith always focuses on Judge Dredd's arse.

Bolland does it for me, but then Smith, Dillon and McMahon do too.
Ezquerra is my absolute fav though. Here's why: Ezquerra page
I know I mentioned it before but there's a game due at the end of the year Dredd Vs Death Looks amazing!

I like early Ezquerra art, but the later stuff is a bit tired. Although it's not as bad as his art for the Apocalypse War, which was as dull as that terminally dull story.

by the way, I enjoyed the link on that Ezquerra page to those sexy Judges. Phwoarrr, they can send me to the IsoCubes any time they like.

Hm. And you don't like Steve Dillon??

I like A-War actually: also BLOCK MANIA

Block Mania = GRATE. Possibly featuring the last JD art by both Mike McMahon AND Brian Bolland?

Apocalypse War = Tiresome. It just went on and on. If I want future war I'll read The VCs.

SUCK IT IN! Dirty geeks!

Yay. i'm glad someone revived this thread.

McMahon's Pat wagons in block mania are the definitive judgemobiles. Tip top.

For early Ezquerra I would like to refer the forum to the distinctly classic 'STRONTIUM DOG GOES TO HELL', prog 110 or thereabouts, lasted about 10 issues. Blimey. Super. I do think his computer coloured stuff of the last 10 years or so gets a bit tiresome tho'.

Dillon is a weird one - he's brilliant when he takes his time over a thing, but he tends to rush. The worst Dillon art ever (and one of the worst 200AD stories - 'Hit One' with Rogue trooper.

Brendan McCarthy anyone?

i'll use this as an excuse to witter on about the fact that last month i dug out my old progs from when i was like 13 or so, and I guess I was just lucky cos that was the time of all the great Alan Moore one-shots, then Skizz, then Halo Jones. Pretty much everything else I skipped over... Judge Dredd? Rub Dredd more like. Strontium Dog?? Strontium Dog Doo I say. Rogue Trooper? Rogue Poop... [you get the idea]

Strontium Dog's earlier hey day is well worth reading - Portrait of a Mutant, the Shickelgruber Grab, the Doc Quince case, that one with Bupo & The Bad Boys - RoXoR. by the time you mention was it in that AWFUL Ragnorak storyline?

Rogue Trooper - generally very good art (Gibbons, Cam Kennedy, Colin Wilson) let down by really lame stories. Despite the future setting the stories were straight out of some unreconstructed '70s war comic. I mean, they want big time for the awfulness of war, but any characters who had opted out of it - deserters or the marauders or whatever - were presented as straightforwardly BAD. which was stupid.

never liked strontium dog though. the progs i had included the tail end of schicklegruber and then all of portrait of a mutant (tho these slightly predated the ones i bought proper for myself).

there's a great letter to "the mighty one" about Johnny Alpha's mutation saying that alpha particles are stopped by a piece of paper or several cms of air, so his eyes can't be much cop. to which the editor of the galaxy's grebtest comic says "yeah, well fuck you", actually no he says "well, maybe alpha rays are better in the future". class.

I was amused by all the "review droids" -- I had forgotten all about them. Ro-Jaws used to do the occasional film review, but then D- Mil stepped in. There was also DJ-1 who did music reviews, largely consisting of "The Human League read 2000AD readers! zarjazz". there was another one that reviewed sci-fi books, but i forget his name.

Those ALan Moore one-shots really do stand out. A LONG way -- despite the obvious Douglas Adams-yness. Which is a long way round to saying: artist_A v artist_B, BOLLOCKS. it's the writing innit.

CLassic (ie original, pre Hit One, pre Friday) Rogue Trooper was written by Gerry Finlay 'Dugga Dugga' Day, an older writer than the majority of 2000AD writers of his day who cut his teeth on war stories just like DIrty Vicar describes. He wasn't know for his wit, depth of characterisation or humane values. ROgue trooper is, in essence, just Battle Action Library bobbins transcribed to the far future. TO see just how awful a writer he was, check out the ridiculoous homosexual characters Mr Bland and Mr Brass, (the looter/profiteers who want to kill Rogue and nick his kit). On Nu Earth Homosexual = weaselly and wicked.

Rogue got some of the best art work bar none though. Colin Wilson stands out - he did some pre-apocalypse Dredd in the strand of stories known as the Mega-Rackets. Fantastic stuff.

He was blue = He was ace.
Same is true of Jon/ Dr Manhattan.

Gotta disagree w/ Alan - if it weren't for the purty pics, most comics would be a TOTAL waste of time. Case in point - Mike McMahon's 'Slaine' strips.

Dillon - just ok, but even when he's not trying (ie 90% of the time) still a million times bettah than Ron Smith, the king of UGerly.

Colin Wilson - major Moebius swiper who ended up drawing young Lt. Blueberry albs for the French market.

b-but, wot i r saying is... take a good comic, one you really like, and say (for the sake of argument) that you HAD TO change either the artist or the writer. which would you choose? s'easy for me, cos without the writer, it's NOT THE SAME COMIC. like when Alan Moore left swamp thing, i tried to carry on, and of course there's an attachment to characters, but ultimately it just turned to shit without him.

Hmm, I guess I am in a minority here. I also resent serial comics for their reliance on the "attachment to character" thing too.

you are right, Alan.

but also wrong - a comic that has bad art will not get read in the first place.

ok, no argument. having said that, again i'm probably being terribly indie-ist and in the minority, as i'd rather buy a small- press "scratchy" b/w comic than the latest water-colour marvel crossover hardback.

I am anti-indieist with comics.

does that make me rockist?

Scratchy B&W indie art is not automatically inferior to glossy painted Marvel art! Don't be silly! I'm perfectly happy to skim-read comics with great art and rubbish stories, if they're not offensively bad (I very much like really stupid old superhero stories), and pretty happy with great stories and rubbish art, as long as it doesn't completely fail the story (i.e. make action incomprehensible or make it hard to tell what emotion someone feels). I have no real favourite comics with genuinely bad writing but fantastic art - I tend to find I just praise Toth or Kubert or Ditko rather than the comics, while I'll happily say that I adore Steve Gerber's Defenders or Grant Morrison's JLA, even with their crappy art.

At the other end of the scale, a good script with really terrible art is often ruined, whereas a terrible script with good art is worth having, just to look at. Like a beautifully directed rubbish story in movies might be better than a good story appallingly directed, except a movie director as comparably inept as LOTS of comic artists is very rare. Too much money at risk to have completely incompetent directors, poss.

Hello I'm from Spain!:
McMahon --- very good , he really got his style
Ron Smith --- sometimes good, but quite boring
Steve Dillon --- i like his work very much, i think he understands perfectly judge dredd's world style
Ezquerra --- sorry, but he's not one of my favourites
Brett Ewins --- Wow, i think he's the best, very psychotronic and funny, I think in a word- crazy!