Posted in: Comics | Tagged:

Mark Montague Wins Dredd Talent Competition as 2000AD Opens Submissions Again

You wait ages for a chance to break into comics and then three come along at once – just days after their talent searches at Thought Bubble turned up new artists and writers for them, 2000 AD has announced the winner of their new pin-up competition.

Mark Montague is the winner of the inaugural 2000 AD Art Stars competition, which has been running for the past few months.

If you're going to riff off anything in Judge Dredd's history, it clearly pays to riff off the best – Mark's image is a take on one of Brian Bolland's famous covers from the Eagle Comics reprints of the 1980s.

Unlike a lot of other 'new talent' searches out there, Mark will apparently now get paid the going rate for his work, which will appear in the future issue of 2000 AD. The runners-up were Adam Farquharson, Andy Lambert and Jason Davies – they don't get into 2000 AD but they DO get some graphic novels as a consolation prize.

As well as this and the Thought Bubble competition, which has produced newer talents like the near-ubiquitous writer Rory McConville and the managed-to-shock-an-entire-audience writer Laura Bailey, 2000 AD's open submissions have…well…opened again – so that's the usual slush pile open for the next six months. For a venerable title like 2000 AD it can seem like a bit of a closed shop (quite a few American creators seem to think it only ever hires Brits and it's an easy mistake to make but ignores creators like Chris Burnham, Alex De Campi, Babs Tarr, Katy Rex, Liana Kangas and, with his cover for this week's issue, the mighty George Pérez) so it's good to see it opening its doors ever wider for new talent.

Congrats to Mark. Here's the competition's blurb and I understand the next theme will be announced shortly:

2000 AD Art Stars is a chance for would-be comic book artists to get into the pages of 2000 AD AND get paid for it – every four month we announce a new theme based on a 2000 AD character or series and issue a call for artists to send us 'Star Scan' pin-ups. The winner, chosen by the editorial team, will be published in a future edition of 2000 AD. It's an incredible chance for amateur artists to follow in the footsteps of some of comics' greatest artistic talents and maybe even get their big break in the comic book industry!

Star Scans have been a staple of 2000 AD since its earliest days: single-image pin-ups of the greatest characters in the galaxy, from Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog to Dan Dare and Rogue Trooper, drawn by some of the best artists in comics from Brian Bolland and Dave Gibbons to Jock and Liam Sharp!

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!