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Heavy Metal Dredd by John Hicklenton and Clint Langley |
A year or so ago, I showed some of Johnny's pages from Judge
Dredd - The Tenth Circle to my co-creator on Requiem
Vampire Knight, artist Olivier Ledroit. He looked at them in awe
and exclaimed. "How does he sleep at night?!" If you've seen the Tenth
Circle, you'll know what Olivier means.
Actually, I took it as
a compliment as Requiem is also pretty
dark. And Johnny slept very well. His art might be disturbing for some,
but never for me, for reasons which I think 2000AD fan
Jonathan Fisher has summed up best: "John's work is subversive, sublime
and perverse yet beautiful and intriguing."
For me, Johnny is the Jimi Hendrix of comic artists. Easy viewing comic "muzak" he's not. His grotesque images bear comparison with Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman and are not for the squeamish. Yet his elegant thin line work has much in common with Aubrey Beardsley. Internationally rated by artists such as Moebius, let me take you now on a brief tour of some of his creations.
Johnny's first work was You're Never Alone With
a Phone, a Future Shock
written by Neil Gaiman. (Curiously, the only story of Neil's that 2000AD ever
published). Johnny sent it to me and on the basis of this and other grotesqueries,
I asked him to draw
Nemesis. He at once brought a scary organic
sensibility to the Warlock and a psychotic look to Torquemada, a psycho-look
he recreated later in the Inspector Ryan stories
from Third
World War.
The racist, deranged Ryan was conceived by my co-writer Alan Mitchell
and Alan brilliantly directed Johnny on the story, choosing Angela Kincaid
to colour it which she did beautifully, without destroying the artist's
black line, a common problem with colourists.
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| Inspector Ryan, drawn by John Hicklenton. Story
by Pat Mills and Alan Mitchell. Below: a page from the story: click here or
the image for a larger version of the page |
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Many regard the Inspector
Ryan series as his finest work and certainly they did in Europe.
It was reprinted in graphic album form in German, French and Dutch editions
in an elite masterwork series. But never in the UK, alas, although I hope
reader requests might persuade a British publisher to follow suit one day.
Then there was our Zombie World Tree of Death saga
for US publisher Dark Horse, about a Satanic cabbalistic map based
on the London Underground map which brings demons into our world. It was
reprinted recently in the collection Winter's Dregs.
(Johnny is credited as Johnny Deadstock after the band he was a part of).
We went to the catacombs in Kensal Green Cemetery to research the story
and had an enjoyable Goth day out wandering underground amongst the Victorian
caskets wondering, "What
if...?". The
black comedy results include exploding coffins with a zombie stuck to the
ceiling. The demons featured are also brilliant: my favourite is a wolf
with a huge distended belly elevated high above us on tripod-like legs.
The German publisher Extreme, backed by top German band Die
Arzte,
also loved Johnny's work. They said they wanted extreme, so we produced
the graphic novel Torturer for them, set
in Cathar France. This was a return to the demonic Inquisition world Johnny
first captured in Nemesis. His range of demons
seems inexhaustible. Many of them have appeared in his Judge Dredds and
especially in The
Tenth Circle when Dredd visits Dante's Inferno. Reproduction
problems may not have shown this story to best advantage but I think that's
being looked into now.
And who else but Johnny could create man-mountain Hungry Jacko? X Face?
Or Darcagis, the demon with stakes through his eyes? And the triple George
Bush bleeding oil?
I always regretted that Johnny never drew my recent
Dredd story "Birthday Boy" about a villain
with candles stuck in his face and body. If he had, it would have become
as memorable as Pinhead.
Johnny started a biographical novel based on his multi- award winning
documentary about his fight against MS (www.heresjohnnyfilm.com).
It was great, but then he decided to write and draw a fantasy story instead
as his final work: 100 months. He completed
it just last week.
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The cover and an interior image for John's final,
yet to be published work, 100 Months |
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More about 100 months, Pandora and
two other Johnny classics -- Bedlam and Fearteachers --
another time, other than to say they are all fabulous and worth an article
to themselves. Once again, though, it's other countries that often seem
to recognize his talent: 100 Months first sold to two countries in Europe,
although I've just heard a UK publisher has also picked it up.
But 2000AD was always his first love.
His wonderful partner, Claire, told me: "Please know that Johnny, my beautiful
Johnny, was funny, wise and brave to the last -- just as he was every other
day of his war. The day before 'D-day' he wrote the afterword for Slaine and
drew two wonderful sketches to sit alongside it."
Clint Langley and I
intend to feature these sketches and words in a future Slaine volume
dedicated to Johnny.
Sleep well, my dear friend.
Pat Mills, 23rd March 2010
John Hicklenton: 8 May 1967 – 19 March 2010
This article was also published in Judge Dredd:
The Megazine and elsewhere and is reprinted here with the full permission
of Pat and Rebellion.
• If you would like to pay tribute to John, please post your comments
on this downthetubes blog post which links to this page
