Latest Prog: 2080
First Meg: 2.08
(aka issue 28)
Latest Meg: 327
Total appearances: 76
-including a bunch of inking credits
Art credits:
Judge Dredd
Nemesis the Warlock
Anderson, Psi Division
Synnamon
A couple of one-offs
-and inking duties on
Killer, Rogue Trooper and Synnamon
Notable character creations:
Judge Corey
Notable characteristics:
Dude likes drawing
long-legged ladies, sometimes in what you might call sexy poses. Many of which
one feels were photo-referenced. To be fair, he has toned that side of his work
way down in recent years, and has become
noteworthy, in my eyes anyway, as one of those artists who really goes to town
on loading up the backgrounds with all sorts of meticulously-rendered details.
It really makes his recent strip work shine!
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| Scantily clad ladies fighting? Call Mr. Roach! Bonus point, mind, for the hilarious knee and arm pads, and for that cool black line effect to show facial impact on the ground. Words by Alan Grant |
He’s also improved his
action panels, so they have more flow and a little less of a stilted look that
marked his early work.
Roach possesses one
heck of a brushstroke, put to good use as an inker for a while, with some
really lush lines that can hug a curve and also mark out a straight-edged piece
of machinery.
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| Roach fleshing out pencils by Staz Johnson Words by Gordon Rennie |
On David:
Way back in the early
days of 2000AD, 1977 and all that, Pat Mills and Co have remarked on the
influence of a certain French comic on the look and feel on the Galaxy’s
Greatest. We’re talking Metal Hurlant,
or ‘Heavy Metal’, in its translated version. That comic was notable for some
seriously cool artists, who delivered astonishingly imaginative and downright
weird Sci-Fi and Fantasy worlds. Which 2000AD absolutely embraced right from
Prog 1. Metal Hurlant also delivered
topless ladies with a fair amount of frequency, which 2000AD did not deliver
until somewhere around Prog 1066.*
What’s all this got to
do with David Roach? Well… for better and for worse, Mr Roach is indelibly
associated, in his early 2000AD work at any rate, with what has been called
‘good girl’ art. Or, to put it another way, drawing strips that lean heavily on
the female characters but with the male gaze in full force. Roach didn’t
actually show any topless ladies at this time, but he didn’t shy away from
using some, shall we say, specific, poses.
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| Purity tackles a Terminator Words by Pat Mills |
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| Anderson enjoys bantz with a fellow judge while, er, relaxing on her lawmaster words by Alan Grant |
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| Anderson and Corey get dressed for work Words by Alan Grant |
Now, this kind of
thing is not all he’s done, by any means, but it’s such a glaring feature that
I have to lead with it. I don’t know what then-editor Richard Burton was
thinking, but he clearly wanted it and asked for it. To be honest, it’s kind of
in line with the late 80s style of 2000AD that aimed to appeal to a more grown
up readership – and what’s more grown up than a comic with sexy ladies in?**
Certainly I saw
Roach’s art as being ‘for grown-ups’. It’s not just the long-legs and twisting
torsos – it’s his meticulous rendering of people. It’s the kind of art that
looks really difficult to do, frankly, and can be super impressive, even as it
occasionally struggles to have that quality of movement that action comics
often need, and, especially in the early days, when he put so much effort into
the people there wasn’t always time to do much in the background. Overall,
Roach felt like a new direction for 2000AD art, finally embracing the sexy side
of that old Euro-comics influence. It’s not a million miles from Glenn Fabry,
just put to very particular use. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a
bit of sexiness.***
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| Gratuitous shower scene alert! Words by Alan Grant |
Right, that’s enough
of that, not least because I don’t want to denigrate Roach, an excellent
artist. Let’s not forget, he was alternating art duties on Nemesis with the mighty John Hicklenton, and on Anderson with the even mightier (your mileage may vary on that)
Arthur Ranson. To an extent, his Nemesis work was an intense example of learning on the job, although with flashes of greatness, but he'd pretty much got good enough to hold his own even with the likes of Ranson on his Anderson work. No mean feat!
Much like Redondo on
Nemesis Book II, Roach’s Book 8 of Nemesis
provided a bit of a breathing space between slices of extreme weirdness. Purity’s Story is a mostly a flashback
to a setting shortly before the events of Nemesis Book I, with occasional interludes
of Purity and Nemesis in the ‘present’ day. And it’s pretty straightforward
stuff, with young Purity pretending to be in love with Torquemada in order to
spy on him. Roach’s style delivers all this very clearly, bringing Purity to
life as a person, fleshing out the rather simple goody freedom-fighter
character that she had been before.
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| Up close and personal with Purity Brown Words by Pat Mills |
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| Artwise, 10/10 for Purity and the deeply horrible alien outfit; 5/10 for Torquemada looking fidgety in the background. Words by Pat Mills |
He also renders the
nightmare world of Termite as a scary place, with the haunt of thought police everywhere, and the desolate
atmosphere of smooth, metallic tube walls with no greenery or anything organic
around.
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| Bringing the backgrounds to life this time! Words by Pat Mills |
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| Nemesis has always, kind of, been the actual devil. Rarely has the sentiment behind this been so visually explicit. Words by Pat Mills |
Pretty soon after he
was a regular on Anderson, Psi Division,
alternating with Arthur Ranson and playing around with a couple of different
styles, depending on whether he got the colour pages or not, and just generally
getting better as an action strip artist with each new story, as with so many
2000AD greats. The Prophet is fine
and all, but you can sort of tell Roach at this time was far happier working in
black and white.
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| This scan taken from the greyscale repro in Anderson Psi Files Vol. 1 In some ways, this shows off even better the ultra early 90s baddie design, complete with robot motif, blades and saws! Words by Alan Grant |
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| Cass 'n Corey bop their troubles away, in an example of Roach using his affinity for drawing pretty ladies to enhance the emotion and tone of a scene. Words by Alan Grant |
I do especially admire
the thing he does where, when showing faces in close-up, he renders them in a
super-detailed portrait-study style. It’s kind of the opposite of cartooning,
but because he uses the style sparingly, it has a cartoonish effect of making a
panel really stand out emotionally.
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| Panel 1: H'mm. Not sure you'd do that if it were Joe Dredd, hey? Panel 2: using portrait power to full effect! Words, and, just maybe, detailed panel descriptions by Alan Grant |
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| It's as if he's drawn every bristle on the beard. Masterful. Words by Alan Grant |
I don’t think it’s
controversial to say that Roach built up to a peak with Engram, a story that he co-plotted with Alan Grant. Sadly that
story had to be split into two parts, with part 1 ending on a hell of a
cliffhanger, and a part 2 that didn’t run for more than a year,
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| One of my all-time favourite and indeed most memorable panels from 2000AD. It's so grimy and upsetting, amazing work with shadows and texture and geometrical arrangement. Truly haunting. |
The wait was
interminable, I can tell you! And I fear this wait slightly took the shine off
that story. Briefly, it all kicks off when Cass runs a crazy-powerful psi-baby
in the Cursed Earth. This baby unlocks some Psi-blocks hidden inside our Cass’s
mind, which temporarily drives her insane, land ultimately leads her to learn
some dark truths about her pre-Judge childhood days, and a level of
manipulation by Justice Dept to hide them from her.
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| Roach's use of models and/or photos really pays off when drawing children, so rarely done right in 'grown up' comics for some reason. Words by Alan Grant |
On the one hand, it’s classic
early 90s ‘comics are all grown up and miserable now’ stuff. On the other hand,
it’s actually a well-told story, with most of the emphasis on how sinister Justice
Dept is, very much drawn out in Roach’s meticulous artwork.
But just as Engram
finished, Anderson moved over to the
Megazine, and Roach disappeared from 2000AD for some years, returning as an
inker, for the most part.
(And indeed he’s
devoted quite a proportion of his career to inking duties in the world of
Doctor Who).
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| Roach brings his nib/brush talents to work on Staz Johnson's kinetic pencils. Words by Steve Moore |
Perhaps inevitably,
his return to full pencil duties was yet another sexy lady series, Synnamon. And yes, there are more legs.
But there’s also a lot of attention to the expressions of the characters and
the general tone of mistrust / spyworld shenanigans baked into that series.
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| Synnamon: never knowingly under-boobed. Words by Colin Clayton & Chris Dows |
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| Synnamon also delivers some hard-hitting emotions, too. Words by Clayton and Dows |
Since then, Roach
generally pulls out a new Dredd one-off every year or so, mixing up action with comedy and
tragedy ably. And, occasionally, fleshing out the backgrounds to an
almost Chris Weston like level of detail.
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| Well worth the wait to get this kind of sumptuousness! |
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| Reining in the catfight temptations to deliver simple action beats. Words by Alan Grant |
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| At ease with western trappings Words by Michael Carroll |
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| Equally happy delivering poingancy with a touch of horror Words by Michael Carroll |
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| And some good old silly comedy, too. Words by Al Ewing |
Also the odd one-off
here and there, typically making use of Roach’s skill with a portrait.
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| This story is literally called 'Warts and all'. Roach doesn't shy away! Words by Si Spurrier |
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| Focussing on the emotion to tell the story. Also note the aptness of a story's very title forcing the imagery to focus on a leading ladies back, not her front! Words by Alec Worley |
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| Channeling 1977 era Dredd for a 'Lost Case' Words by Arthur Wyatt |
A long-time reliable
artist, Roach kind of took everyone by surprise when, for the Prog 2000
anniversary spectacular, he emerged as the fan’s favourite on a long overdue
return to Anderson, Psi Division. He put together a genuinely excellent fight
sequence between Anderson and Death,
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| Roach out-Bollands Bolland, and delivers one of the very best Anderson triumphs. Cathartic! Words by Alan Grant |
and absolutely won the
right to return as a series regular artist, where he’s really pulling out all
the stops!
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| Super detailed faces and hair, coupled with mind-blowing cityscapes. Words by Emma Beeby |
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| So much beautiful detail on display in the set dressing, the textures, and an unreproachably posed sexy lady to boot. Words by Emma Beeby |
More on David Roach:
Outside of his role as
a 2000AD/Megazine artist, David Roach is something of a legend in the world of
comics history. He’s written/edited/contributed to a whole raft of books on
comics, including superheroes, war comics and a certain long-legged sexy lady
vampire. Check out his ‘books’ page:
But perhaps of greater
interest of readers of this blog he’s worked on the important project of
identifying and celebrating the uncredited creators of British comics,
especially the Spanish artists who found work through IPC:
and indeed he’s still
working hard to get credits for the creators of many girls comics:
Check out the rest of
his website, too!
Seems like there ought to be some interviews somewhere talking about his actual artwork, though, especially the Anderson stuff.
Seems like there ought to be some interviews somewhere talking about his actual artwork, though, especially the Anderson stuff.
Personal favourites:
Nemesis the Warlock: Purity’s Story
Anderson, Psi Division: Engram;
A Dream of Death
Judge Dredd: A whole New Dredd; Inversion; Witch’s Promise
Synnamon: Arc of Light
Tales from the Black Museum: Girl with the Gila Munja Tattoo
*If someone wants to
chart a history of all the nudity in 2000AD, they are most welcome. I’m just
picking on the ‘Sex Prog’ because it’s an easy target. In fact there had been
boobs (and a whole lot of wang) before that, and plenty of both since, too.
**This is sarcasm. But
also not?
***Although it is best
if it manages to either not objectify people, or at least objectify people of
multiple body types and genders.
