expatNERD

Tag: PJ Holden

  • The Thrill-Cast

    The Thrill-Cast

    With all this Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon, and PJ Holden love, particularly with their 2000ad work, I couldn’t help but revisit all my acquired 2000ad collections, old progs, and hardbacks that I collected over the years. I love 2000ad and because it has been going on since the late 70’s, the body of work is staggering. And it has a lot of range.

    I was racking my brain on what I would recommend this week. I know we’ve talked about Rogue Trooper before and of course Judge Dredd gets mentioned quite a bit. I mean, with the amount of content out there, where do you start?

    Then the answer hit me like the fist of Dredd. Which also means this recommendation will be something different. It’s not a comic recommendation but actually a podcast recommendation.

    One of the scary things about 2000ad is where do you actually jump on and how can you get an understanding of its universe? That’s where the 2000ad Thrill-Cast comes in! It’s a podcast updated on a weekly basis that will also include deep dives into the characters within 2000ad as well as spotlights on the creators.

    The weekly Wednesday episode will generally focus on a topic and how 2000ad influenced or perhaps was influenced by that topic. It’s wonderfully hosted by Michael Molcher, the 2000AD Brand Manager and Chloe Maveal. The pair are really great together and the way they play off each other can be either comical or tragic. So there’s a lot of fun there.

    Molcher will then interview a creator, be it writer, artists, editor, etc and these are called the Creator Tapes. What I found interesting right from the start is that there is no issue referring or even discussing the creator’s work with other companies. Molcher has great knowledge of 2000ad, is a fan, and he has a nice interview style that obviously helps the creators feel at ease. He did a wonderful two-part interview with the legend Simon Bisley that is an incredible watch.

    Then Steve takes it over (or rather ST33-V) and will have a co-host, which seems to usually be an American, to discuss a character or some other aspect. It’s very informative.

    The point is, with these three concepts, you can quickly gain an understanding of this universe and with recommendations plugged throughout, you can figure out what may or may not appeal to you. And like I said, with the range of stories being so immense, chances are you will find something that is in your wheelhouse.

    Or you could simply start with Shako, a bear that ate some top secret CIA trash and ends up going on a rampage, killing everything in sight as the CIA try to retrieve his meal. Below I did a quick sketch of Shako about to eat Curt. I think that’s appropriate.

    That’s it for this week’s recommendation and hope someone learned something today. Because always remember…

    Man lernt nie aus!

    Bis bald,

    Franka

  • The Lion & The Eagle

    Coming off last week’s Garth Ennis Judge Dredd recommendation, I thought I would point toward something that is relatively new.

    What many non-US audiences probably don’t know about Garth Ennis is probably his love for war comics. Part of what he is doing nowadays after the immense success of Preacher and the Boys is visiting and contributing to that love. He restarted the Battle Pictures Weekly called Battle Action at Rebellion (the same organization currently behind 2000AD) and he also wrote The Lion & The Eagle with AfterShock Comics, beautifully drawn by PJ Holden and magnificently colored Matt Milla.

    The Lion & The Eagle might have been lost to the tales of time because it was during the period that AfterShock started going bankrupt. Thus, a lot of news around these four issues would probably have been drowned out by that event. Neverthless, if you didn’t pick it up the first time around I can highly recommend it.

    The Lion & The Eagle depicts a group of British soldiers in the Pacific Theater during World War II to retake Burma from the Japanese. It’s very layered and shows how the British Empire was organized and how they used soldiers from their colonies. Plus, Ennis does a great job to make sure he doesn’t romanticize war as this could be tricky with war comics today (especially outside of the United Kingdom) and The Lion & The Eagle definitely stays away from making war black and white. In addition, PJ Holden does an incredible job depicting the violence while making sure it does not go over the top and to the more campy/grindhouse side a la Quentin Tarantino.

    And really the star of this, in my opinion, is PJ Holden. Holden is one of my favorite artists working today and he does a lot of incredible work. One of my favorite things he does for 2000AD in Judge Dredd’s world is definitely Noam Chimpsky. Noam Chimpsky is a super smart ape who uses his super-intelligence to try to thwart the overall system of oppression, propped up by the Judges. Chimpsky sees things that no one else can see in the Big Meg and it’s always great when he drops in on the weekly prog.

    Even when I do not get him in a particular year, I will also have a PJ Holden dose, every Halloween, because I re-read Soul Plumber from DC Comics. I have the collected version but Holden’s style is very appropriate for the message and style of the book. I absolutely do not want to give anything away about Soul Plumber because it was one of those experiences that I thought I knew what was coming but then I didn’t. And now I can remember that experience every single year.

    So there you have it folks. What started out as a Garth Ennis recommendation quickly turned into a PJ Holden tribute and love letter. That’s how these things go. And to put the final touches on my obsession with Holden, I decided to whip up a portrait of him after scanning his Blusky account. Yes it’s that bad. Plus, his account is charming and I can heartily recommend that you follow him. He currently is redefining himself as an actor. Nuff said.

    Bis bald,

    -Franka