Matthew Badham talks to Al Ewing and PJ Holden, ostensibly about their new 2000 AD strip Dead Signal, but as Matthew comments the conversation, as they usually do, rambles on to all sorts of other areas, including the small press in the UK, the US market. Dredd, influences and aspirations in a massive, multi-part interview:
“MB: OK, chaps. Rewind a bit. Give us a Dead Signal pimp. Why should we read it, in art and script terms? You’ve gone all postmodern aintcha!?!
AE: It’s basically the furthest Matt’s allowed me to go so far.
MB: In terms of content/style/both?
AE: He’s really let me do whatever I wanted, both in terms of story and art. By which I mean that I’ve been given PJ, who can do anything and cheerfully agreed to. Best artist I’ve worked with and I’m not just saying that because he’s here.
(some of PJ Holden’s art from Dead Signal, script Al Ewing, published in 2000 AD)
MB: Are we talking a mix of art styles then, PJ?
PJ: The art. Well, I’m trying my little heart out. I thought long and hard about how I was going to get this series to look unique and how I’d be able to play with the art in the different levels of… well, I can’t say too much.
But, you know the flashback panel in the first episode where the series goes from noir to cartoony and back to noir again (drawn in a very weak approximation of the style of Little Nemo in Slumberland)? Expect another change in art to reflect the difference in the story. It was easily the toughest thing I’ve drawn, and, I think, for a typical 2000 AD reader the episode with that change in will be the most difficult episode.”
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