Carlos Ezquerra Tribute.

If you're a follower of this blog, I'm sure you're already well aware that the comic world lost one of it's greats last week in the form of Judge Dredd co-creator Carlos Ezquerra.

Ezquerra brought a modern European 'spaghetti western' feel to British comics in the 1970's. Before him, the artwork British War comics hadn't changed for 25 years, the art in British Sci-Fi comics was stuck in a Gerry Anderson-style gleaming future. After him, war comics seemed more real & sci-fi had a used dirty look about it.

His work on a lowly British boys paper could have stood shoulder to shoulder with the greats of Metal Hurlant. Those early Strontium Dog episodes look as fresh now as they did when he first drew them over 40 years ago.

He will (in all likelyhood) be remembered mostly for the fact that he created the look for Judge Dredd, & in so doing changed the face & the future of British comics forever, but for me it was his work on the aforementioned Strontium Dog that I will remember most fondly, & for that reason I put aside my plans for the first day of  Inktober last week & drew this instead.