This week’s 2000 AD cover (for Prog 1765) made me smile – a Nikolai Dante cover with the fine Steve Yeowell pastiching pop artist Lichtenstein, which seems fair given Lichtenstein made money emulating (some say copying) comics artist’s work without attribution or recompense, so turn around by parodying his approach seems like fair game to me. Plus it is a cool, smile-enducing cover. Well, I thought it was, but our chums at the excellent Everything Comes Back to 2000 AD site commented on Twitter that it hadn’t gone down quite so well with some other friends of Tharg, but that’s the nature of individual taste, I suppose, I certainly liked it.

They just don’t do superhero covers quite like that today… (art by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson, (c) DC Comics)

Actually it’s a top week for some cracking new graphic novel releases, including the gorgeous looking slipcased Parker the Martini Edition, Bocquet and Barthelemey’s The Adventures Of Herge,

And it’s a pretty diverse mix of new titles this week too, including one I have been really looking forward to – it is big and it is clever. Okay, it is big and it is rude, maybe… It’s a big-ass hardback of Evan Dorkin’s bonkers but brilliant Milk & Cheese. I love it, this is how some of us (sick, twisted puppies that we are) entertained ourselves in the days before Jamie Smart’s Corporate Skull…

And as if this isn’t enough there’s this extremely tasty hardback collection of the brilliant Lynda Barry just in the door from D&Q, volume one of Everything:

All this plus a slew of new releases from Marvel and DC too (including the fifth Preacher hardback collection, which has one of my favourite chapters, where Jesse lives his cowboy dream as a small town sherrif). It’s a damned fine week for comics reading, peeps, there’s more just come in the door than we’ve got time to read!

The BBC has an article up celebrating 50 years of Private Eye‘s distinctive covers, complete with their trademark comics style speech bubbles overlaid on a new story photograph. I’m of the personal opinion that satire is the best defence in any democracy for keeping free speech free, for making sure ‘our betters’ don’t get above themselvs and making a serious point in a way that everyone can get (and give them a laugh at the same time as making a point), so I’ve always had tremendous affection for the Eye, especially for those covers and for the legions of cartoons which have appeared within its pages over the decades (still one of the important regular employers for cartoonists here).

(cover images from Private Eye and (c) Lord Gnome and his minions)

As the article says sometimes they are spot on, sometimes they get it wrong, sometimes they cause outrage (the post Diana death cover angering some at the time as the country went emotionally potty, in retrospect as folks cooled down and looked again it seemed actually they were spot on again), but outrage is often a part of the game and in an increasingly tame media environment where many journalists seem reluctant to tackle movers and shakers in government, big business or institutions for fear of having their media access cut off to them it’s reassuring to know the Eye continues to cock a snoot at all that and go its own way. More power to ‘em. An exhibition of Private Eye covers and other graphic satire (including contributions from luminaries like Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman) will be coming to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum next month, running from October 18th to January 8th,  and on the Eye’s own site you can browse the covers online.

I love D’Israeli’s cover for this week’s new 2000 AD (Prog 1752). He explains that it is influenced by the great Hokusai, although looking at the stripey bag flying like a makeshift flag I’m thinking there is also a wee nod in there to Banksie’s famous image of kids saluting a Tesco bag flag.

And on the subject of D’Israeli, you should get yourself over to his blog, which is always worth a read as Matt frequently posts up some fabulous art and insights into the creative process. More specific to 2000 AD at the moment he’s just posted up a bit on the new Lowlife for the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic, including a great panel showing his vision of Hondo City, while paying tribute to earlier inspirations like Mick McMahon’s fab double page splash showing off Texas City years back for the Judge Child epic in Judge Dredd (“walk tall!”), Otomo’s amazing Akira cityscapes and Geoff Darrow’s work. He also comments on getting back into the UK work schedule groove and the regular deadlines after a more relaxed lifestyle approach when living in Greece and the life of an artist trying to balance out commerical interests, deadlines and being able to do good work in the time and still be able to make a schedule (and so actually get paid on time hopefully too!). I know we’ve said it before, but if you haven’t already, Matt’s blog is one you should have bookmarked to check regularly by now. 2000 AD Prog 1752 (complete with Lowlife) goes on sale on Wednesday.

(D’Israeli’s brilliant interpretation of Hondo City for the new Lowlife. Art by D’Israeli, (c) Rebellion, Hondo-City created by Robbie Morrison & Frank Quitely, Lowlife created by Rob Williams & Henry Flint)

(cover to Prog 1746, Zombo by Al Ewing and Henry Flint – we love a bit of Zombo – 2000 AD (c) Rebellion)

I’m not sure if I may have seen some of these before, some do ring a very vague bell, but even if I have it’s well worth posting up a link again because these are simply brilliant – classic comics re-imagined as vintage paperbacks. They’re really well done, I’m sure I have some old 60s and 70s science fiction paperbacks, Panther, Penguin, the old New English Library imprints etc (you know, from the days when authors could create an entire, engrossing SF novel that didn’t have to be 600 pages long) that are very much in the style of some of these versions. Of course in today’s publishing world many books have been reprinted with either retro vintage covers to celebrate anniversaries or had cover makeovers by comics creators. (link from Thaeger blog, via Ernesto Priego for the link)

And in case you missed it first time around, here’s the 2000 AD progs covers video:

Talk about nostalgia rush; I was about ten when the first prog appeared (complete with “free space spinner”) and I was hooked right away along with a bunch of my friends. Seeing these covers flicker past it is amazing just how many I remember, even from the earliest progs from over 30 years ago (really? Where did that time go?). Okay, taking the nostalgia glasses off I must admit they aren’t all masterpieces – with a punishing weekly schedule it would be remarkable if every single issue’s cover was superb – and many of us will remember how poor the paper quality was for the early years. And yet there are still some there that I love, not just for the happy, warming glow of nostalgia they create in me, but simply because they were cool comic images that have stuck in my mind for decades.(via David Bishop, by way of Dave Gibbons’ Twitter)

(art by and (c) the one and only James Jean)