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Whatever happened to SIMON HARRISON?

Started by Mogster, 13 April, 2004, 12:46:33 AM

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Fatboydale

Had the pleasure to spend some time with Simon at his studio , i ended buy a few pages of original artwork from him ..

He also showed me his material for his new book , fooking amazing is an understatement ,it really messed with my head for weeks ....i cannot and will not explain it , but i will be the first to buy the book .

  Simon expressed a desire to return to 2000ad for a few covers , as he was a fan first .. i also got him to do a commission of an updated Judge Dredd ( it somewhere on the forum ) , if anybody wants his details drop me a line and i will pass it on .

  For me you have to see his original artwork to really understand his talent ...it really was on a level as Bisley .

 




Fatboydale

#31
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Fatboydale


I, Cosh

Quote from: Fatboydale on 12 April, 2012, 10:59:40 PM
Simon expressed a desire to return to 2000ad for a few covers , as he was a fan first ..
This would be amazing.

While I can now appreciate the problems some people have with it, Simon Harrison's small body of work remains, as I like to say every time the subject comes up, some of my favourite ever to have graced the Prog. I would be very interested in anything he might produce in the future.
We never really die.

A.Cow

Quote from: maryanddavid on 12 April, 2012, 05:05:13 PM
His artwork in 2000ad was just on the wrong characters except for  Revere which really is a classic.

That hits the nail on the head.  He has a very distinctive style that fits certain things very well but he was definitely not the right choice for Strontium Dog.

judda fett

Would love to see new Simon Harrison 2000ad work. Always dug his style, thought he shared a few similarities in approach to John Hicklenton. That piece I think fatboydale put up of his Slaine tryout page is pretty cool too.

Emperor

Quote from: SmallBlueThing on 12 April, 2012, 07:22:02 PM
I really hope that remark of the forum comments being 'an accurate description of the work at the time' isn't a self-deprecating acknowledgement that his stronty, bradley and revere come in for a lot of stick online- because for everyone who states their dislike there's someone like me who absolutely loved it. Revere is one of my all-time favourite strips and the Extreme that collected it together a treasured possession. The more the merrier, i'd say- so yes, definitely.

Me reading of it was that it was a frank assessment of his work and the reactions to it. As can be seen: some people loved it, some didn't and some thought it worked on some stories but might have been a bad match on others (few would doubt how well it worked on Revere - one of the best Extreme Editions there).

I think the thing is that we only really got to see him right at the start of his artistic career and further developments have been largely off the radar since he left the prog in 1995 (presumably one of the casualties of the new broom coming in). Quite a few droids have "grown-up" on 2000AD surviving regime changes and we have seen their styles change a lot from their earliest offerings - Henry Flint's early work was pretty good it is just that his current output is awesome, Simon Coleby's early work in the prog is clearly a long way from the impressive style he'd later develop and Edmund Bagwell's recent Meg interview didn't even want to mention the pseudonyms he'd previously used at 2000AD (although his early work has its fans). Now imagine all we'd seen from those three is a window of a handful of years at the start of their careers and the rest of their development had happened away from 2000AD (actually kind of like Bagwell's work). So he is looking at his work now and his work back then and it seems difficult to compare the two, unfortunately, few of have seen his recent work although the one we know who has seems to like it ;)

Quote from: Fatboydale on 12 April, 2012, 10:59:40 PMHe also showed me his material for his new book , fooking amazing is an understatement ,it really messed with my head for weeks ....i cannot and will not explain it , but i will be the first to buy the book .

So I suspect he is looking back saying: "it was OK but it is pales by comparison to what I'm doing now".

I don't think he was self-depreciating or reinterpreting his work in light of the comments, he seems very realistic and relaxed about it. After all they are about 17-25 year-old work and he knows his current work is good.

Quote from: Fatboydale on 12 April, 2012, 10:59:40 PMSimon expressed a desire to return to 2000ad for a few covers , as he was a fan first ..

While I'd be up for this, Tharg tends not to give old droids gigs who aren't working on a story in the prog, unless they have gone on to high profile gigs elsewhere (like Frank Quitely). Although never say never. I have, after all, put him back in touch with John Smith and when those two get together...
if I went 'round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

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Pete Wells

Nah, I'd argue that Tharg is well up for dusting off old droids to do covers - Liam Sharp, Nick Percival, Mark Harrison, Dave Gibbons and Bolland to name a few (yeah, I accept those last two are in a different bracket.)

I'd really like to see Simon Harrison back, he had an excellent sense of design...

   

Fatboydale

Simon has a great understanding & respect for 2000ad and talked me through a bit of his 2000ad artwork , like he did it yesterday , he no way undermined his comic art to his more modern artwork , it is just different , a bit like looking at Simon Davis comic art to his portrait art ...

  It would great to Simon something with 2000ad again , even a future shock .... anyways i could not wait and Simon did me a great updated Dredd



Here is a few pages i got to snagged and 2 sketches for me and my pal












maryanddavid

Some INCREDIBLE pages there Dale. Oh to have cash!
After 2000ad he did work for Warhammer monthly in around 2000. Ill dig them out and have a look.

Emperor

Cracking pages.

Quote from: maryanddavid on 14 April, 2012, 12:03:27 AMAfter 2000ad he did work for Warhammer monthly in around 2000. Ill dig them out and have a look.

Shadowfast in WHM #7-13.
if I went 'round saying I was an Emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!

Fractal Friction | Tumblr | Google+

Judo

yesh, simon harrison, yesh! I was just asking a friend what had happened to him a couple weeks ago as some of his work is my favourite. we were playing the better cover or back cover game x
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

TordelBack

That one of Feral and Bradley and the Thatch is an absolute classic piece of late '80's art.  Love it.

Goosegash

Nice to see Harrison getting some respect on this thread. His work on Revere was stunning, particularly Book 3. The art practically seems to drip off the page.

brendan1

I didn't much like his art in 2000AD bitd, but I'd be interested to see what it looks like now.

Most artists improve incrementally over time, a few others improve massively, some decline. But who is to say that Harrison can't join the likes of Alex Ronald, Simon Coleby, Carl Critchlow, Kev Walker et al, who maybe didn't have that many fans when they first started out, but improved and changed style to become firm favourites and brilliant artists.

(that's possibly a bit harsh on Walker and Critchlow, but you get my point)