User:Ntnon/Bolland

Brian Bolland (born 1951) is a British comics artist, known for his meticulous, detailed linework and eye-catching compositions. Best known in the UK as one of the definitive Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology 2000 AD, he spearheaded the 'British Invasion' of the American comics industry, and in 1982 produced the artwork on the first 12-issue comicbook maxiseries : Camelot 3000 (with author Mike W. Barr).

His rare forays into interior art also include Batman: The Killing Joke, with UK-based writer Alan Moore, regularly hailed as one of the finest realised Batman stories. Bolland remains much in demand a cover artist, producing much of work for DC Comics.

Biography
Brian Bolland was born on March 26 1951 in Butterwick, Lincolnshire and began drawing comics at the age of ten. As a child, his main inspirations came from his comics collection, particularly titles published by Dell and DC Comics. He cites in particular Gil Kane and Alex Toth as "pinnacle[s] of excellence," although he credits his pursuance of art as a whole to a primary school art teacher, who "evidently said all the right things to me." Having taken both O-Level and A-Level examinations in art, Bolland spent five years at art school learning graphic design and Art history. Learning to draw comics, however, was "more a self-taught thing," with Bolland eventually writing a 15,000 word dissertation in 1973 on Neal Adams - an "artist [his teachers] had never heard of."

While at art school, Bolland drew and self-published a couple of fanzines and his work was published in British underground magazines Friendz, International Times, OZ and Time Out. In 1972, at the Comic Convention held in the Waverley Hotel in London, he met Dave Gibbons. On Gibbons' recommendation Bolland joined art agency Bardon Press Features and it was Bardon who provided Bolland's first professional work: Powerman, an African superhero comic published in Nigeria. Bolland and Gibbons drew alternate issues, with Bolland's first published work being Powerman #10. He recalls this work being created specifically to be "really simple; six panels on a page and [all] the panels had to be numbered... I drew around 300 pages of that very straightforward, simple-to-follow work, and I guess the storytelling flowed naturally from that."

2000AD
In 1977, Bardon found places for Gibbons and then Bolland in the new British science fiction weekly 2000 AD. Bolland's first work was the cover of issue, or "Prog(ramme)" #11, with other covers following, as well as stand-alone pages and some inking duties on Gibbons' Dan Dare. When another artist dropped out, Bolland was called in to complete a Judge Dredd story in Prog 41 and soon was established as a regular artist on the series.

Bolland's early work on Judge Dredd was much influenced by Mike McMahon, a talented newcomer whose idiosyncratic style was fueling the interest in the new character. Bolland thought McMahon was "terrific, the real ideas man on Dredd," but noted that McMahon's approach was "very impressionistic," while the "average comics reader, certainly at the time, does tend to prefer realism." Bolland therefore states that he "aped Mike's genius... and then reinterpreted [Dredd] in a style which actually borrowed a lot from the work of the American artists," retaining McMahon's "granite-jawed" look but bringing a level of realism and fine detail to the character, which Mark Salisbury says "finally cemented the iconic image."

In short order, Bolland's distinct abilities with subtle facial expressions, dramatic lighting and the dynamic composition of page layout soon began to emerge and distringuish him from his peers, particularly the rough-brushwork style of McMahon. Bolland contributed artwork to such popular and seminal Judge Dredd story-arcs as "Luna Period," "The Cursed Earth," "The Day the Law Died," "The Judge Child Quest" and "Block Mania." Working on eight-page installments, Bolland's sections often started with a "big, splashy douple-page spread" then the only colour pages of the comic (excepting the cover), which the artist "initially found... very difficult... [trying] to fill that space most effectively." As well as honing the look of the character and contributing to the highest-profile early storylines, Bolland also created the look of two of the wider Dredd universe's most enduring characters: Judge Death (as well as the other Dark Judges) and Judge Anderson.

Other work
In between Dredd assignments Bolland drew horror strips for Dez Skinn's House of Hammer and one-off pieces of artwork for use as record, paperback and magazine covers (the latter including the now-established Time Out). Bolland also produced advertising work, including the earliest pieces of advertising artwork for the then-newly-established Forbidden Planet comics shop.

DC Comics
Bolland was among the very first comics creator 'discovered' by the American comics industry, and in 1979 he began working for DC Comics on a number of covers and short stories. His first DC cover appeared on Green Lantern #127 (Apr, 1980), while his earliest interior work for DC included a chapter in Justice League of America #200 (Mar, 1982) alongside industry legends Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Jim Aparo, George Perez and Dick Giordano.

Camelot 3000
In 1982, DC editor Len Wein chose Bolland to be the artist on DC's Camelot 3000 12-issue limited series, with writer Mike W. Barr. The story, a "re-working of the old Arthurian legend" dealing with the return of King Arthur to save England from an alien invasion in the Year 3000, not only "represents the single biggest body of work" by Bolland - and his only attempt to draw a monthly title - but was also the "first example of a DC (or otherwise) maxi-series." Camelot 3000 also became notorious for the lengthy delays between its final issues. Bolland recalls that he and DC "talked quite a bit about how long it would take me to do the series," and because the series was inked by a third party (initially by Bruce Patterson, then by Terry Austin), he started off "churning the pages out with great enthusiasm." As the series continued, however, Bolland became increasingly meticulous, "trying to make the pages look better and better" not least because he "wanted the final parts of the story to [look] amazing." The added details he introduced into his famously-detailed artwork caused significant delays in the final issues of the limited series, causing issues #8-11 to be released on a quarterly rather than monthly status, and the final issue to be cover dated nine months later than the penultimate issue.

Batman: The Killing Joke
In 1986, Bolland was one of several artists who contributed pages to the anniversary issue Batman #400 (Oct, 1986), his featuring villains Ra's Al Ghul and Catwoman.

DC editor Dick Giordano then offered Bolland the opportunity to partake in any project for DC that he wanted; Bolland's project of choice was a one-off Batman/Joker graphic novel with Alan Moore as writer. The result was the popular, influential and controversial Batman: The Killing Joke, first published in 1988. The 20th anniversary edition of the book in 2008 featured new colouring by Bolland (the original version was coloured by John Higgins).

In 1996, Bolland wrote and drew the story "An Innocent Guy" for the anthology Batman: Black and White.

Covers
However, Bolland is recognized more as a cover artist; Bolland himself has admitted that he works slowly and consequently finds covers easier to supply than whole story artwork. Bolland has contributed covers — in many cases to complete runs/arcs — to some of the more famous landmark comics of recent years. Examples of his work include the whole second and third volumes of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, the first 63 issues of Animal Man (covering the tenures of Morrison, Peter Milligan, Tom Veitch and Jamie Delano), and assorted issues of Tank Girl, The Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman (esp. Batman: Gotham Knights), and many more. Bolland is currently the cover artist on Vertigo's Jack of Fables, replacing previous artist James Jean.

thumb|left|A rare non-DC Bolland cover. [[Daimon Hellstrom|Hellstorm: Prince Of Lies #16 (Marvel Comics, July 1994)]]

He is also noted for his use of bondage imagery in some of his work. Additionally, Bolland has penned the humour strip Mr. Mamoulian, which was printed in various issues of the Caliber Comics anthology Negative Burn. Also his occasional strip The Actress and the Bishop, all of which were collected in the book Bolland Strips! in 2005. In 2006 a sizable retrospective of Bolland's work was published under the title The Art of Brian Bolland with text by the artist.

Awards
Bolland and his work have received much recognition in the industry. The mini-series Camelot 3000, which he created with Mike W. Barr, was nominated for the 1985 Kirby Award for Best Finite Series.

Collected works

 * Bolland Strips (112 pages, Knockabout Comics, May 2005, ISBN 0861661508)
 * The Art of Brian Bolland (326 pages, Image Comics, November 2006, ISBN 1582406030)

Other sources

 * Salisbury, Mark, "Brian Bolland" in Artists on Comic Art (Titan Books, 2000) ISBN 1-84023-186-6, pp. 10-29
 * 2000 AD Profile
 * Brian Bolland @ Lambiek.net
 * Comic Book Awards Almanac
 * Brian Bolland @ Lambiek.net
 * Comic Book Awards Almanac

Interviews
Category:2000 AD creators Category:English comics artists Category:People from Lincolnshire
 * Comicography Interview with Mr Bolland

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