2000AD art and more offered in upcoming Heritage Auction

By John Freeman on May 13, 2020

Artwork for a cover of Comic World by the late Tony Luke is part of an upcoming Heritage Auction taking place at the end of this month, along with work by a number of other British comic creators.

*Art for the cover of Comic World Issue 26 by Tony Luke*

The cover of Comic World Issue 26 flipped Tony Luke's original art — *The cover of Comic World Issue 26 flipped Tony Luke’s original art*

Details of the lot note the cover is “a different take on Judge Anderson… which touted Judge Dredd Megazine reaching issue #50 (where she had a solo story).”

The piece was originally concept artwork for Tony’s contribution to the “Anderson, PSI” series in 2000AD, but was not featured in the comic. Rendered in mixed media on paper affixed to illustration board with an image area of 11.25″ x 16″, the planets and Anderson are original art paste-ups, and the shoulder pads and hair on Anderson are paste-ups on top of that.

Comic World, originally Comic Collector, published by Aceville, launched in 1992 and ran until 1994, edited by Steve Holland, now best known for his marvellous Bear Alley log and associated publications about British comics.

The art featured on the cover of Comic World Issue 26, published in 1994, and Steve recalls Tony was a good friend to Comic World “and saved our bacon once with a high-speed colouring job on Issue 31”.

Comic creator, animator and illustrator Tony Kuroizumi-Luke, who died in 2016, was one of the first British comic artists to get a major break into the Japanese manga market, reflected in his styling of art homaging 2000AD‘s Judge Anderson. He’s best known for projects such as Dominator and Hellkatt and 2000AD, working on characters such as Nemesis the Warlock for the British SF weekly.

Dominator was perhaps his best known work in comics, although of course he was bursting with many ideas all the time, even developing a 2000AD-like project, Renga, for DC Thomson in 1995.

Animation, was also one of his great loves. Back in 1987, he developed a 12-minute stop-motion pilot for “Nemesis the Warlock” series, which never made it to final release.

Bidding on the art is not yet open at Heritage Auctions, but you can view the art here. The auction, taking place over 24th – 25th May.

*Anthony Williams and John Burns cover for Sonic the Comic 31*

Other art by British creators or from British comics and newspapers includes a “Space Girls” splash from Jason Brashill for 2000AD Prog 1062; a Judge Dredd newspaper strip by Mike Collins published in the Daily Star, from the story “Whodunnit”; a typically idiosyncratic artwork of odd aliens, presumably a book cover, by Josh Kirby; John Ridgway‘s cover for the Marvel/Epic’s Chiller #2 published in 1993; a risque Axa strip that featured in The Sun by Enrique Badia Romero; a Batman: Riddler page by Dave Taylor; and art from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #97 by Anthony Williams and Andy Lanning (and other art by Anthony, including the cover of 2000AD Prog 827 and the cover of Sonic the Comic Issue 31, working with John Burns.

There is also, of course, plenty of art from US and some European artists on offer, including Daniel Clowes, Gene Colan, Kelly Freas, Sam Glanzman, Jack Kirby, Rick Leonardi, Bob Lubbers, Wilson McCoy, Sanjulian, Curt Swan, Wally Wood, and many more

• Check out the Heritage Auctions for 24th – 25th May 2020 here

• You can still check out Tony’s work on deviantart.com or flickr.com | and on the Renga Central channel YouTube

• Read our tribute to Tony Luke here

• Steve shared his memories of Comic World on Bear Alley back in 2017

• Tony’s Anderson “Anderson, PSI” stories feature in Judge Anderson: The Psi Files 04 (Amazon Affiliate Link)

With thanks to Weldon Adams, Steve Holland and The Mighty World of British Comics Facebook Group for highlighting Tony’s art

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.