Sad to say, this classic (and much under-appreciated) 2000AD artist passed away recently. He helped set the artistic tone of the magazine during it's golden period, particularly with his work on Slaine and Ace Trucking Co (a favourite of mine when I was a kid), not to mention things like Meltdown Man, The Dead and Flesh.
Flesh is something I only saw later in reprints. The idea is people travel back in time to hunt dinosaurs as big game. Of course things go a little...wrong.
Meltdown Man is another I only discovered after I got some old issues from the second-hand shop down by the Paraparaumu beach shops (the one that had the arcade in the garage out back - Past Possessions I think). It was a bit of a crazy post-apocalyptic mishmash of science fiction and fantasy. Not one of classic 2000AD stories, but silly fun.
And of course Slaine. Hey, I was a fantasy & horror-obsessed 11 year-old. How could I NOT love this?
Arrivederci Massimo!
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Friday, April 20, 2007
Massimo Belardinelli 1938-2007
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I loved Flesh when I was a kid. It was everything that was great about 2000AD for me then - cynical and nasty and brutal, every story basically a lead-up to the moment when a T-Rex ate somebody. His work on that was great, but his Slaine never really felt right, for me. Slaine only really clicked when Fabry came on.
ReplyDeleteBelardinelli's stuff had much more of a pulpy fantasy look as opposed to Fabry's grounded, realistic stuff. Which was fine by me at the time, but in the overall run, Mike McMahon's stuff was when it really worked best for me. I did really enjoy Bisley's run too, even if it laid the path for all the awful painted stuff to come.
ReplyDeleteDamn I'm old, I remember some of those covers first time around.
ReplyDeleteAndymac