 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
PROFILES >
"There's often talk of artists' artists;
those practitioners whose work is particularly beloved of their
fellow professionals. Artists whose work inspires, amazes and reinforces
one's enthusiasm for the art itself. Alex Toth is
often, and rightly, cited as an example. So is Sergio
Toppi. And so is Mike
McMahon. Don't just take
my word for it. Ask Frank Miller. Or Walter
Simonson. Or Brian
Bolland. Or a host of others." "Mike has created his own personal vision and everything in it
is correct according to its own rules, and in doing so he creates
people, places and situations that are more recognisably real.
People are never seen standing chest out, legs four feet apart.
They stand as you or I would stand, weighed down by the world,
fed-up." "I've been told that I'm the most exciting artist in Britain,
which is very nice, but it means nothing, it doesn't make any difference
when I'm doing it, when it's just me and that blank sheet of board.
What I'm trying to be is the best artist I can, and that's about
hard work, not fretting over my place in the scheme of things." Mike McMahon began his comic artist career in 1977 working on the the first Judge Dredd story to ever be published, appearing in 2000AD #2. It was fascinating to watch Mike art style develop in real time, as each issue of 2000AD was published. Constantly inventive, constantly evolving, Mike defined the look of Judge Dredd, together with a host of other 2000AD characters, including ABC Warriors and Slaine. In the 1990s, Mike broke into the US comics market with titles like The Last American and Tattered Banners, yet he never compromised on his distinctive artwork. As he stated in his Comics Journal interview, "As long as I can feel that I'm making some sort of progress, however slight, from one job to the next, then I'm satisfied with how things are going." Since then, his comics have appeared only sporadically, with the occassional story appearing in 2000AD or Sonic The Comic. Whatever happened to Mike McMahon? If any one knows, please tell me. The 'Lost' Interviews: Resources: |
 |
ESSENTIAL READING: |
|
"...for me this is one of the very best comic-books ever published...
Pilgrim has a gallery of nightmares to face beyond anything mere
science-fiction or horror could offer. But he also finds hope, in
the story's last and most affecting sequence, and that - perhaps
- is The Last American's greatest surprise." "Under the editorial guidance of the late greatly missed Archie
Goodwin, with darkly funny scripting by John Wagner and Alan Grant,
Mike fashioned some of his finest pages. Here are all the elements
that characterise his work. His idiosyncratic vision, his command
of storytelling, his sense of humour, his sense of drama and his
sheer good craftsmanship." |
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
"Slaine is based on Celtic history
and legend and is set during a legendary golden age of Celts. His
world of Tir Nan Og, the Land Of The Young, appears in many Celtic
myths under different names. They are full of stories of lost lands
beneath the waves and terrible disasters... There are historical
records of early Celts going into battle naked, demented with rage.
All this indicates there was once a class of Celtic berserker who
put the Viking variety in the shade. Naturally, Slaine had
to be one." "...when I was doing Slaine I switched
to water-colour paper, I don't know why, and so I started drawing
everything with these pens, but it didn't work at all, it was too
blobby, but I liked the things I was doing with these pens, but they
were to uncontrollable... I was really nervous, inking on pencils
on paper, I'd lost my nerve a bit so I did it on tracing paper, and
that's where the cross hatching look came from because when you fill
things in on tracing paper, when you lay it down you notice you haven't
filled it in properly, and I thought, well
that looks all right." |
||
|
||
"John Wagner created the character, Alan Grant co-wrote almost
all the best stories with him, and Mike McMahon's depiction of Dredd is
regarded by those in the know as truly definitive. You simply can't
think of these three without The Judge coming to mind." "I couldn't believe my luck, especially
when I saw that the other artists in the comic, all much better
than me, were having to work on what I considered to be much less
interesting characters... people were going, 'Wow, look at those
feet, that chin,' it
was like a running joke, so my approach changed, I thought 'I'm
on to something here,' and I just sort of lurched into a more
cartoony look. I think it was around the time that I started to get
some sort of grip on what I was doing." |
||
|
||
 ABC Warriors: The Meknificent Seven with Pat Mills, Kevin O'Neill & others DC/200AD "It was creator and writer Pat Mill's ABC Warriors which continued a cycle of stories he had begun in Starlord Weekly, a companion publication to 2000AD and which was later to merge with it. Ro-Busters were a group of reclaimed oddball robots bought up by Howard Quartz - Mr 10% (so named because only 10% of him - his brain - was human). Quartz controlled many companies and one of them, Ro-Busters, operated a disaster rescue squad staffed by robots. Two stars of the Ro-Busters series were Ro-Jaws and Hammerstien, a bizarre double act consisting of a gross sewer droid, Ro-Jaws, and a super-square ex-military robot, Hammerstien. Despite his vivid imagination, Pat Mills soon exhausted suitable disasters from which to have humes (humans) rescued, so he completed this phase of the series with a stunning multi-part story, The Terrmeks, which was superbly drawn by Dave Gibbons... The ABC Warriors were set chronologically before Ro-Jaws and Hammerstien had met and features only the latter from Ro-Busters in stories set in his military past... One artist, Mike McMahon, shouldered the burden for the major part of the series. McMahon produced one stunning episode after another - despite the crippling schedule. He shares credit, along with creator/writer Pat Mills, for the astonishing success of the ABC's." Kevin O'Neill, from the introduction to the 1983 edition |
||
|
||
| SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY: | ||
2000AD Collections: Other Books: Comics:
Short Stories: |
The Last American 
Tattered
Banners #1-4
Slaine
Judge Dredd