BSFA NOMINATES FRAZER IRVING FOR DEATH!

Fraser Irving has made it to the the shortlist of the British Science Fiction Association Awards for Best Artwork 2002, for the first page of of Judge Death: My Name is Death, in 2000AD Prog 1289 (1st May 2002).

The BSFA awards are voted on by the members of the BSFA and the attendees of the British Easter Science Fiction Convention. They are the most prestigious awards in non-comics-based British science fiction.

More details about the award can be found at at http://www.bsfa.co.uk.

Frazer had this to say on how the page came about.

	This sketch was done in response to a discussion I'd had with Andy Diggle. We had talked about what strip I'd like to draw the most, and judge death was top of the list BUT I kinda had to "audition". I tried a few variations based on other guys designs, but this one had "gravitas" as andy so rightly said, and I went with it.		This was the pencil art for the revised page 1. Seeing as how Wagner had asked for the original image I kinda knew I had to keep the main elements but I also knew I had to evolve it a little. This was drawn pretty quickly one night, and I was undecided about what death should be grasping for...
	inking this image was fun...i got a chance to use many tricks which other strips hadn't allowed me, and it was all done in an afternoon. The idea here was that this was the scene as death kills the last living person on the planet...probably over dramatic but it sorta worked for me. This artwork was given away in a competition on the pixelsurgeon website.		This is the final art for the first page. Right at the end whilst inking I decided to use a baby in the image, as it quite nicely symbolised the idea of judge death killing the last living thing on the planet, the complete opposite of himself. I was very proud of this image, and was kinda sad to see it go when I sold it...but I knew that it would go to a good home:)

To read Frazer Irving's insights into some of his 2000AD covers, visit the Cover Sketches page.