Practitioners 17: Brian Bolland (Part Two)

Part 1 of this fine article can be found HERE!

Bolland was one of the very first comic creators ‘discovered’ by the American comic industry, spearheading the ‘British Invasion’ of ’79/’80. Joe Staton (co-creator of the Omega Men in Green Lantern and long standing DC illustrator) came to live with the Bollands to continue working on Green Lantern while attending a comic convention. Finding out that Bolland wasa Green Lantern fan, Staton called his editor, Jack Harris and said Bolland would like to draw a GL cover. Green Lantern 127 duly featured the work of a certain Mr B Bolland and the cross over the Atlantic was underway. A ‘trickle’ of covers began however Bolland would design covers that writers would craft stories from including Starro and the Superman Beastman cover (Superman 422 (Aug, 1986)).

Among his earliest interior work with DC was a short chapter in Justice League of America 200 – in which his work sat beside some industry legends – and some artistic heroes – Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino and Gil Kane as the best of the best George Perez, Jim Apero and Dick Giordano. His success with GL 127 had opened the floodgates and following that small start American companies began to look to the small grey island on the far side of the Atlantic for fresh talent – in particular the heavily DC influenced artists of 2000AD. From Brian Bolland – aided in completing some of his works by his UK compatriots could now return the favour – by opening the door ajar enough for the big companies (namely DC offer Dave Gibbons, Kevin O’ Neill… Alan Davis, Mark Farmer and following the artists, Alan Grant ‘went across’ and at some point ‘a certain tall hairy writer from the Midlands.’ The British Invasion had begun and continues to rumble on. A spearhead created by the modest and extremely talented Brian Bolland, an enthusiast of comics he had now opened the door to for so many.
Len Wein, DC Editor in 1982 chose Bolland to be the artist of Camelot 3000, in which King Arthur returns from Legend to defend Britain from alien invasion. From this, Bolland enjoyed ‘being made a fuss of’ being flown to San Diego to represent DC and the sideways glance at the Arthurian Legends. His attempts to ignore the Andru drafted covers handed to him met with consternation from Wein and so Bolland conceded but reversed the ‘N’ in his name to remind him of his artistic integrity in indignant protest. The ‘N’ remains to this day, reversed as Bolland found he really liked it.
Others inked it (initially an irksome scenario to the practiced draftsman in Bolland though he eventually like the results.) Although the first example of a Maxi-series (12 issues), Camelot 3000 was monthly but Bolland struggled to get it out in time, representing the single largest body of work ever created by Bolland. His determination to make each page better and better and his intention to make the artwork in the final editions ‘look amazing’ caused issues 8-11 to go out quarterly instead of monthly, and the final issue cover dated nine months later than the penultimate issue. Camelot 3000 remains a noteworthy work of illuminated detail and careful and precise artwork attached to a great sci-fi story.
At the time Alan Moore was looking to work on a series under DC, talks underway for a crossover with the Dark Knight and Judge Dredd (which occurred some time later) featuring Bolland and Moore. Dc Editor Dick Giordano asked Bolland what project he wanted to work on next. Of this, Bolland says;

“I thought about it in terms of who’s my favourite writer at the moment, what hero I would really love to do, and which villain? I basically came up with Alan, Batman and the Joker.”

Batman: The Killing Joke was born in that moment. Bolland had a fascnation with the Joker, having recently watched the silent movie ‘The Man who Laughs’ and wanted to do a ‘Joker story with the Batman as a more distant, peripheral character.’ The result introduced one ‘possible origin story’ for the Joker and the plot required the sign off of a major character in the Batman canon being horrifically mutilated at the hands of the Joker. Controversial, incredibly influential and wildly popular The Killing Joke may never have happened. Moore was already at odds with DC following the completion of the Watchmen series (with Dave Gibbons) and effectively finished the job for his friend Bolland. With its near completion in 1988 after a considerable time working on it (both creators reknowned for their intricate and unswerving loyalty to accuracy and precision in ink), Bolland was afeared that it would be consumed by the media fire storm surrounding Frank Miller’s ground breaking Dark Knight Returns. He was also hurt when Moore referred to Killing Joke as ‘to him, just another Bat comic.’ Reeling from the statement by his friend regarding a title he held so close to his heart he was again mortified with the presentation of Watchmen colourist John Higgin’s finishes. Having imagined the flashback scenes in black and white he found “garish… hideous glowing purples and pinks… and my precious Eraserhead-esque flashback sequences swamped in orange.”

In 2008 a version was rereleased as a 20th Anniversary edition featuring colouring by Bolland, restoring his artistic intentions to the palate.

Unable to hand work over to other practitioners, and since Killing Joke, Bolland no longer drew any strip that was not penned by him. Disappointed by a masterpiece that took the comics world by storm rather than being overshadowed by the sharper and more muscular Dark Knight of the same period seems an odd response but a true artist has vision and Bolland can certainly be argued to be a true artist.

He wrote and drew ‘ An Innocent Guy’ for the Anthology title in 1996 in which an otherwise normal inhabitant of Gotham plans the ultimate crime: The murder of the Batman. In it he explored idea that nobody could be deemed a GOODIE or a BADDIE but walked a tightrope in between. Bolland created the covers for Gotham Knights 2-47 (from 5 coloured by himself). Eventually Bolland was told he’d be ‘off the book in a few issues time’ but upon discovering that upcoming covers featured Bane and not Penguin or the Joker as he’d been hoping for some time, Bolland said he’d go right away.

In the following years Bolland created covers for some of the most recognisable characters in DC, including 63 issues of Animal Man, covering the tenure of Grant Morrison, Peter Milligan, Tom Veitch and Jamie Delano. His practice of identifying a scene in the comic and then a hook from it that would create an entertaining cover has informed his work throughout.

He worked on The Invisibles (Grant Morrison), deftly dealing with the surrealism of the work (perhaps informed by his 60s college days…), and introducing the countdown numbers 12-1 to count down to the millennium installed, hidden into the cover image in each case after watching Peter Greenaway’s film ‘Counting by Numbers.’ By request he gained cover work on Wonder Woman (as she wasn’t interesting to A-List artists – Bolland not considering himself A-List), as well as Geoff John’s The Flash, Tank Girl, Superman, Green Lantern, Batman and Fables and Jack of Fables, Doom Patrol (though he was often rejected while trying to follow previous cover artist Simon Bisley’s work.)

He has produced odd covers for First Comics, Continuity Comics, Eclipse Comics and New Comics though admits a mild phobia about Marvel comics covers after a bad experience on a Marvel Uk Hulk cover and a She-Hulk cover featuring Howard the Duck. The latter is hard to imagine; even in Bolland’s accurate and realistic style.

He has since drawn (and written) Mr Mamoulian, a Robert Crumb-esque semi-autobiographical stream of conciousness humour strip and The Actress and the Bishop, written in rhyming couplets and based on request work from 1985. Both our personal projects but both are of course beautifully realised.

Brian Bolland is a spearhead, notably well loved in his industry. A mainstay of the art form of comic books – Bolland has sold millions of comic books, revolutionised a long standing hero and worked with some of the most demanding and impressive minds in the comic industry. His work a matter of pride first, he has managed to enjoy a long and respected career in comics. His covers are memorable and indelible, as is the effect he has had on the readership throughout his long and impressive career.

But to me the greatest thing about Brian Bolland is that because of his realism and acute awareness to detail and pursuit of accuracy you would never know how old he is. Within his own lifetime, and beyond thanks to his work on Judge Dredd and Batman, with Moore, Morrison and… more. His work is timeless and will illustrate the accomplishments of a great many more artists and writers for many more years to come. Which is, perhaps, why he, more than perhaps all others, has represented so many others on the covers of such great titles.

Practitioners 17: Brian Bolland (Part One)

Brian Bolland (born in 1951) is a british comic artist known for his meticulous, highly detailed line work and eye catching compositions. Reknowned as one of the ultimate Judge Dredd artists for British comic anthology 2000AD, he spearheaded the ‘British Invasion’ of the American Comics Industry with Camelot 3000 (with Mike W. Barr), the first ever 12 issue Maxi-series to be released by DC comics.

Most notable, however is his masterwork. Along with writer Alan Moore Bolland created one of, if not the definitive examples of Batman in the critically acclaimed Killing Joke.

Drawn into comics in 1960 – a couple of years after they began to arrive on the shores of England (in 1958) – by Dell Comics Dinosaurus! which appealled to his love of Dinosaurs at that age. Turok, Son of Stone and DC’s Tomahawk furthered his childhood fascination with the form and before long he was writing and drawing his own work from his home in Butterwick, Lincolnshire. A fascination with DCs heroes, in particular Batman and Robin was formed from seeking covers featuring ‘any big creature that looked vaguely dinosaur-like, trampling puny humans.’

It was in 1962, aged 11, most likely from comic books bought on a family holiday to Skegness that he came across Carmine Infantino’s Flash and Gil Kane’s Green Lantern and the Atom. His interest locked firmly on the artists of DC at the time, not favouring Marvel, feeling the covers were crude and the paper quality crude. Even at so young an age Bolland remembers taking direct reference from the early artists of the classic superhero series – including Joe Kubert (dad to Andy and Adam of X fame) and Mike Esposito. His appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby came through the eyes of a seasoned professional much later. His interest was in no way limited to US imports as he enjoyed the comparable UK strips of Syd Jordan’s Jeff Hawke and David Wright’s Carol Day as well as Valiant, a weekly comic book collection by Brit practitioners such as Eric Bradbury (Mytek the Mighty) and Jesus Blasco’s Steel Claw.

Coming from a quiet household Bolland embraced the cultural revolution taking place throughout his country while studying O Levels and A Levels in art, moving on to five years at art school in 1969 learning graphic design and Art History.In 1973 he wrote a 15,000 word dissertation on Neal Adams – an artist his teachers had never heard of. He is sited as saying that ‘During my five years in three art schools I never learnt a single thing about comics in any form from any of my tutors.’

His feverish need to understand the form led him to study off his own back the American legends of the burdgeoning art form from across the pond; Foster, Herriman, Alex Raymond and Winsor McCay, Noel Sickles, Mily Caniff and Roy Crane as well as the Europeans… Moebius, Manara, Breccia. Later the Filipinos – Alex Nino, Nestor Redondo. Discovering an untapped resource in these incredible figures of a seemingly undiscovered art form was like sailing the coast of a country no one around him knew existed. In a world in which comic creators are responsible for some of the most influential cultural icons and most reliable film franchises in popular culture its perhaps difficult to understand how exciting this glance at the edge of a culture formally unrecognised in the halls in which he was learning yet precise and clear in its form and intention might have been but I think its a position most of those who collect comic books would wish they could experience. And there he was at the edge of it – having familiarised himself completely with the form. All that was left was to try out for himself.

Bolland self-published fanzines which was published in underground magazines Friendz, International Times and OZ. Following a cover design for RDH Comix featuring Norwich Cathedral. But it was an underground magazine about to hit the big time as ‘the biggest weekly listings magazine’ named Time Out that gave Bolland his ‘first paid job’ producing a proper illustration of Jazz bassist Buddy Guy.

Meanwhile, he produced the first episodes of an adult Little Nemo in Slumberland parody entitled Little Nympho. This took off and he continued to design full page strips for a 50-copy fanzine entitled Suddenly at 2’0 Clock in the Morning as well as smaller strips entitled ‘ the Mixed up Kid’ to the Central School of Art’s college newspaper The Galloping Maggot.

But it was meeting and befriending Dave Gibbons (later of Watchmen / Green Lantern fame) at a comic convention at the Waverley Hotel in London, joining Art Agency Bardon Press Features. A couple of two-page strips featured with DC Thomson but Bolland would refer to this as his ‘lowest time’. However, it was a title through a client called Pikin that offered Bolland a chance to get his hands dirty. It was for a title to be sold in Nigeria (the first of its kind) and was a weekly comic book featuring an African Superhero named ‘Powerman’. He quickly realised that Gibbons could produce a page a day and struggled initially to keep up the pace. The pages had to simple and numbered because of the lack of familiarity in Nigeria to this form of work. Not only was this work “the best way to learn the simple rules of comic book storytelling,” but “better still, it was going someplace where nobody I knew could see it.” He “drew around 300 pages of that very straightforward, simple-to-follow work, and I guess the storytelling flowed naturally from that.” Even so friends from his school days had to help him occasionally to complete as he ‘was always struggling to get the last eight to ten pages finished’. A little help was also offered from Dave Gibbons and 2000AD and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen artist Kevin O’ Neill.

But it was here he struck a particularly lantern jawed law man associated with the success of so many of the greatest artists from the UK. As Gibbons joined Carlos Ezquerra at 2000AD for Prog 1, Bolland remained on Powerman but as it dropped monthly his agent at Bardon, Barry Coker offered him a cover on 2000AD. From his first he created more than a third of the first 30 covers. Moving inside 2000AD as well as taking on occasional inking duties on Gibbon’s Dan Dare was the dream and for prog 41, editor Nick Lauman called on Bolland to complete an unfinished Judge Dredd story from when on he became a regular artist on the title. He offered art to the most prominent Dredd storylines ‘Luna-period’, The Cursed Earth’, ‘ The Day the Law Died’, The Judge Child Quest’ and ‘Block Mania.’ He found it difficult to deal with the requirement to produce double page spreads (as Dredd started at the time) and Bolland struggled to complete the required work, eventually splitting it between himself and Mike McMahon.

Bolland was heavily influenced by McMahon’s ‘impressionistic’ style and described McMahon as ‘ the real idea man on Dredd,’ although acknowledging that ‘the average comics reader, certainly at the time, does tend to prefer realism.’ Aping the impressionism of McMahon and applying his own realism ‘finally cemented the iconic image’ according to Mark Salisbury. It was Bolland who created the look of iconic characters featured in Mega City One – namely Judge Death (and the other three Dark Judges) and Judge Anderson. Judge Death was drawn as ‘just another villain in just another excellent John Wagner script’ and was inspired by the look of Kevin O’ Neill’s Nemisis the Warlock. He also drew the great majority of Walter the Wobot: Fweind of Dwedd strips in 2000AD and the first three Dredd issues for the united states as well as a number of covers.

Mix that together with magazine covers for Time Out and every major comics publications (according to Wikipedia) and fanzines such as Nick Landau’s Comic Media News and Arkensword and the ‘hazard cards’ for a game called Maneater. And, as will be remembered around the age of 30 in the Uk completed two covers of the Fighting Fantasy Adventure Game Books and RPG scenario pamphlets for Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.

He handled ad work through the agency – in particular Palitoy’s Star Wars toys 1n 1977 and on the associated material for the opening of the comic book shop Forbidden Planet. But his future lay across the sparkling Atlantic Ocean with a comic company that had spawned his interest to begin with…..

CONTD IN PART 2 (THURSDAY).