A cover of Marvel UK’s would-be 2000AD rival Overkill has just been sold on eBay featuring popular superheroine Motormouth, painted by Steve Sampson.

Bidding, which ended earlier today on the item, saw the art sell for just under £85. Bidding was at £25 when we first posted this story earlier today.

Steve painted a number of brilliant pop art covers for Overkill in the 1990s and went on to grace the pages of several UK titles. Featured below is how the art above was finally used, in the days when digital design was in its infancy, and it shows!

There’s some limited information on the actual issue here on Comic Vine: strips in the anthology title, which occasionally ran originated content for the UK market as well as stories also commissioned for US books, included Death’s Head II, Digitek and others.

Steve’s official web site (darkinker.com) is packed with some stunning graphics, including his work for Judge Dredd: The Megazine which have to be seen to be believed.

Steve lives and work in Brighton, UK, and, along with partner Ghy Kurabayashi is well known for combining his illustration and graphic design skills with his love of colours, manga, games, vinyl toys, comics, music, pop+ urban art and all things Japanese. These days, their clients include ILEX Press, German publishers Brandlounge and Brazil’s Editora Abril.

This item was updated in 2023 to amend Steve’s web site information from the old sampsonart.com link

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.

Categories: Art and Illustration, Auctions, British Comics, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds

Tags: Marvel UK, Motormouth, Overkill, Steve Sampson