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Brian Bolland (born 1950, Lincolnshire) is a comics artist, famous for his confident linework and eye catching compositions. He is particularly known as one of the foremost Judge Dredd artists for British comic 2000 AD, and as a cover artist for many publications from "the big two", Marvel and DC Comics.
Bolland began drawing comics at the age of ten. As a child, his main inspirations were titles by Dell Comics and Bolland has said in interviews that he was never entirely comfortable with the superhero idiom of Marvel and DC.
While at art school, Bolland drew and self-published a couple of fanzines and sent work to underground magazines. In 1972 he met Dave Gibbons who provided him with his first regular work: "Powerman", an African superhero comic published in Nigeria. It was Gibbons who introduced Bolland to 2000 AD, at first inking some of his pencils and then drawing covers and stand-alone pages. When another artist dropped out, Bolland was called in to complete a Judge Dredd story in issue 41 and soon was established as a regular artist on the series. Bolland's early work on Dredd was much influenced by Mike McMahon who was regarded as the senior artist on the strip and would redraw characters or panels if he was not happy with them. However, Bolland's distinct abilities with subtle facial expression, dramatic lighting and the dynamic composition of page layout soon began to emerge. Bolland's memorable contributions included the introductions of Judge Death and Judge Anderson. In between Dredd assignments Bolland drew horror strips for the "House of Hammer" anthology and stories for Doctor Who Weekly.
Len Wein brought Bolland to the US market as the artist on DC's Camelot 3000 12-issue limited series, with Mike Barr (dealing with the return of King Arthur to save England from an alien invasion in the Year 3000), and on the Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke, written by Alan Moore.
However, Bolland is much more famous as a cover artist; he has contributed covers — in many cases to complete runs/arcs — to some of the more famous landmark comics of recent years. Examples of his work include the whole second and third volumes of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, a large run of Animal Man (covering the tenures of Morrison, Peter Milligan, Tom Veitch and Jamie Delano), and assorted issues of Tank Girl, The Flash, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman (esp. Batman: Gotham Knights), and many more.
He is also noted for his use of bondage imagery in some of his work, in particular his work for adult comics. Additionally, Bolland has penned the humour strip 'Mr. Mamoulian', which was printed in various issues of the Caliber Comics anthology Negative Burn.
Examples of Bolland's art
Awards
Bolland and his work have received much recognition in the industry. The mini-series Camelot 3000, which he created with Mike Barr, was nominated for the 1985 Jack Kirby Award for Best Finite Series.
External links
- Comicography Interview with Mr Bolland
- Photon Torpedoes - Brian Bolland Cover Gallery
- Brian Bolland @ Lambiek.net
- Image Gallery
- BrianBolland.com Homepage
- Brian Bolland's Personal Gallery
- ESSENTIAL Artistic Walk-through on Cover Creation
- 2000 AD Profile
- Comic Book Awards Almanac
Comics artists | British comics artists | 2000 AD creators | 1950 births | Living people | Wonder Woman artists
"Brian Bolland"