2000AD to pay tribute to Steve Dillon

By John Freeman on October 25, 2016 • ( 1 )

“All of these fine people have left us,” mourns photographer Steve Cook. “Tom Frame, Brett Ewins and now, Steve Dillon. I hope they’ve found a nice pub elsewhere. R.I.P.” Photo Steve Cook

Honouring one of their finest talents, Steve Dillon, who died at the weekend, 2000AD has announced the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic will pay tribute to the artist in a future issue.

“Over the last two days it has been great to see so many people sharing heart-warming stories about meeting and knowing him,” says a spokesperson for the comic.

“One story that many of our readers have asked to hear again has been about how Steve’s pages for 2000AD Prog 404’s episode of the Judge Dredd story, ‘City of the Damned’, went missing – forcing him (and lettering legend, the great Tom Frame, pictured above with Steve and Brett Ewins) to completely redo them over a weekend.

“It has become a legendary story, which demonstrated just how talented Steve was – not only was he able to redraw the episode in a weekend, but to the eyes of many and even under extreme time pressure he improved upon his original pages.”

And improve them Steve did, because the original pages were run side by side with those published in Prog 610 – and just how the missing originals is revealed here on the official 2000AD web site.

It’s a cracking yarn, up there with stories of art being lost in a casino (possibly a tall tale), impounded by customs (true, it happened to me on Doctor Who Magazine), and never posted because the artist decided he hated them while queuing with the art at a post office…

• Steve’s family has asked that memorial donations be made to Hero Initiative. You can do so at this link

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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as 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.