That was particularly true in the case of Brian, whose appeal as an artist is literally worldwide, particularly with the success of his Killing Joke strip. Instead, I look at them as a kind of portable art exhibition, bringing together artwork from disparate collections which almost certainly could never practically come together in real life, in one place. I don’t think the format is necessarily the best way to read a comic strip, it’s perhaps too large and unwieldly for that. The joy of the Artist's Edition format is the chance to luxuriate in artwork at the highest possible resolution, shown at the actual size it was drawn. Going back to my first question, there was no doubt in my mind that the book deserved to appear - and more than that, I felt it needed to happen. I’m still not entirely sure how it happened. Somehow, within a day of replying I had become the main writer and curator of this project and was also simultaneously compiling a companion volume devoted to another 2000 AD great, Mick McMahon.
Having just finished my Masters of British Comic Art book, which included a small mountain of original art scans, I’d certainly built up a good network of art collecting contacts, so it seemed only fair to help out. I usually conceive my books myself, but on several occasions the publisher has come to me with the concept, and so it was that in May, 2020, Rebellion sent me an innocent-sounding e-mail asking if I could help track down Brian Bolland’s 2000 AD artwork for an Artist's Edition type book (dubbed an Apex Edition for the sake of distinction).
Perhaps there’s a degree of egotism in every writer who sets themselves up as an authority or all-knowing seer, but in this case the challenge wasn’t so much intellectual as organizational.
My motivation for putting a book together usually comes from two questions: do I want this book to exist, and how annoyed would I be if somebody else does it instead of me? There’s more than a little egotism involved in the second question, which contains the hubristic corollary that somebody might do it, but not as well as I could. Features Creating the Judge Dredd by Brian Bolland Apex Edition: A How-to Guide for the Rash and Enthusiasticĭavid Roach | Febru2000 AD Prog 236, Cover, 31 October 1981.
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