The Story Behind an Awesome Cover!
Are you ever curious just how much thought and effort goes into producing a truly knockout and eye catching comic book cover?
Recently Andrew J Lewis shared with me some of the hard work and thought that went into producing a cover for issue 3 of the latest volume of Zarjaz. 
"The cover of ZARJAZ Prog 3, depicting Judge Dredd about to be eaten by a couple of children, is very much inspired by the sort of cover that might have been seen on an issue of 2000AD back in the early 80s. In fact, its creation is specifically linked to a couple of those covers as well as to a 1936 surrealist painting housed in London's Tate Gallery.
"I asked Brett Burbridge to design a cover to accompany the Judge Dredd 'Ricochet' story he was already illustrating. I told him that my preference was for a thematic rather than wholly representative image, with Dredd being prodded with cutlery by the story's cannibal characters, Ma and Pa O'Shea, an image that I thought would grab the attention of the viewer, prompting the all-important question: How will he get out of that?
"I sent Brett two pictures for reference. The first was the Brian Bolland cover for 2000AD Prog 199 in which Dredd is being strangled by the cyborg pirate Captain Skank.
"I suggested this was the sort of size I'd like Dredd to be, his agonised face prominent with the leering figures of the O’Shea’s close in on him from behind. The second image was a painting by surrealist artist Salvador Dali, 'Autumn Cannibalism', because I liked the bizarre way Dali had depicted the knife, fork and spoon: cutting into the figures without a trace of blood, like they were huge slabs of butter or something.
"Brett sent me a few different rough sketches and I noticed that the O'Sheas looked quite childlike which prompted me to ask that instead of Ma and Pa jabbing at Dredd we could substitute them for a couple of their cannibalistic offspring, making the image more macabre. 
"We agreed to make the children look like kids from the 60s/70s (hairstyles, clothing etc) to give the image a retro feel, something which was eventually extended to the colouring. I also asked that rather than focusing on their 'Dreddy-meal', the children should be looking straight out at the viewer, more like they were posing for a snapshot or in an advert.
"That was one of the things I'd liked about the original Captain Skank cover, the fact that he's breaking the fourth wall staring straight out at us. I'd noticed this in other Bolland covers such as Prog 216's classic Synthetti-Men. 
"I stressed to Brett that I wanted the kids to be very young and have innocent faces rather than being bloodthirsty or 'evil' looking. In fact, if you look at the waiter in the Synthetti-Men image he doesn't look evil or sinister at all, and it's the contrast between the seemingly pleasant, innocent figure and the monstrous creature he's unveiling that produces the impact.
"When Brett sent me the full sketch I was knocked out: the kids were incredible, the boy with his gappy-toothed smile and the girl looking so pleased with herself. I knew then we had a real stand-out cover on our hands. Brett offered two versions of the cutting, and it wasn't easy to decide which to go for: in one he'd kept in line with the Dali painting, the knife-cut clean and hardly making an impact. But in the other he'd added a peeled back section of skin, and this seemed more shocking. Brett agreed to prepare two separate versions with this detail done both ways so we could make the final decision later. In the end we went with the peeled-back skin version and experimented with the colours for the exposed piece of flesh. I am very fortunate that Brett is very patient with me and my repeated requests to tweak things!
"Eventually the image was presented in two different ways, the standard front cover with the ZARJAZ logo and a second version on the rear cover which was made to resemble a magazine advert from the 70s. This was very much Brett's idea, since usually the rear covers present the art in an adorned version. Brett did a lovely job creating a new Judge Dredd logo which resembled a hot-dog!"
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