I’m a lucky man.
There are moments in life that are forever indelibly etched in our memories. One of mine was taking the phone call that offered me, a wet behind the ears artist, my first ever Judge Dredd story. That was the first time I got to tick the ‘ getting to draw a character I grew up reading and loving’ box (obviously quite a big box to cram all that in).
And here I am 30 plus years later and I’m doing another Dredd.
Looking at my old stuff next to the new stuff has got me thinking about how my style and skills have developed over the years. Back then I was flying by the seat of my pants and learning on the job. My grasp of anatomy, storytelling and colour choices were somewhat shaky. But drawing comic stories day in day out is the best way to learn the fundamentals. The pressure of deadlines and relatively low page rates kept me cranking away at the drawing board and churning out pages at a ferocious rate. Often times it wasn’t the best I could do but the relentless nature of the job meant I was learning fast.
Here’s a question I might regret asking. What did you do 30 years ago that you can still do today? Keep it clean folks!
