Mike McMahon (comics)

Michael McMahon (; born 1954) is a British comics artist best known for his work on ''2000 AD'' characters such as ''Judge Dredd'', '' Sláine'' and ''ABC Warriors'', and the mini-series ''The Last American''.

His influences include Víctor de la Fuente, Hugo Pratt, Gino d'Antonio, Don Lawrence, Joe Colquhoun and Harvey Kurtzman.Mike Taylor
interview with the artist
in ''Masters of Infinity'' (fanzine) #7, 1980

Career

''Judge Dredd'' was created for IPC's new science fiction comic '' 2000 AD'' in 1977 by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra, but problems in pre-publication led to both creators walking out, and the first published story was written by Peter Harris and Pat Mills, and drawn by an inexperienced young artist called Mike McMahon. Mills, who was editor at the time, chose McMahon because he could do a passable imitation of Ezquerra's style, but the more he drew the more his own style emerged. When Wagner returned to his creation, McMahon became the character's most regular artist. Other artists, such as Ian Gibson and Brian Bolland, followed his lead, putting their own spin on the way McMahon was developing the character and his world.

McMahon's early work was characterised by a quick, spontaneous approach that verged on the messy. His figures were lean and loose, his pen lines thrown down with verve and energy, and hatching was done with a fully charged brush. He drew the bulk of the first long-form ''Judge Dredd'' story, "The Cursed Earth", with the slower, more meticulous Brian Bolland contributing occasional episodes.

In 1979 McMahon took some time off from Dredd to draw Pat Mills's robot disaster squad ''Ro-Busters'' and its spin-off ''ABC Warriors'', alternating with Kevin O'Neill and others, and under O'Neill's influence his work became tighter and his figures chunkier. He returned to Dredd the following year for the next long story, "The Judge Child", with a different, more considered style, and rotated with Bolland and Ron Smith. Writers John Wagner and Alan Grant gave McMahon the spookier, more atmospheric episodes to draw.

Following "The Judge Child" his art took a high contrast black and white direction, and in colour stories in annuals, explored patterns of flat colour. In 1981, when he began the ''Judge Dredd'' story "Block Mania", which he was slated to draw all nine episodes of, his drawings were tight and precise with well-defined areas of black and white. They were taking an increasingly long time to draw, especially with all the crowd scenes the scripts called for, and McMahon bowed out after only two episodes.

McMahon moved to Mills' new Celtic barbarian fantasy, ''Sláine'', another story with a fraught pre-publication history, and all but disappeared from publication for nearly two years (He did draw a couple of stories for ''Doctor Who Magazine'' during this time). When he did return in 1983, it was with a radically different style, all sinuous figures, tangled pen lines, and incompletely filled in areas of black. Freed from sterile science fiction environments, he went to town on texture and tone, lashed together technology and organic backgrounds.

After his last work on ''Sláine'' in 1984, McMahon re-emerged in 1991, after a long illness that prevented him from drawing, with ''The Last American'', written by Wagner and Grant, for Marvel Comics's Epic imprint, and another radical change in drawing style.

Since then he has worked in computer game design and his work in comics has been sporadic. A couple of ''Hellraiser'' stories, an ''Alien Legion'' one-off, the unfinished ''Mutomaniac'' in the short-lived weekly ''Toxic!'', a handful of ''Judge Dredd''-related stories, and a futuristic Batman story in ''Legends of the Dark Knight'', saw him progressively simplify and flatten his style, then find new ways of introducing depth in ''Sonic the Comic'', the miniseries ''Tattered Banners'' for DC Comics's Vertigo imprint, a return to ''ABC Warriors'' and a short ''Batman Black and White'' back-up story. During this time, he also produced two 6 page strips for the Marvel UK/Panini fully originated fortnightly comic ''Rugrats'' (he would have been commissioned to draw more, but the comic was canceled). His latest work, a Judge Dredd episode, appeared in ''2000 AD'' #1539.

In 2011-2012 McMahon drew ''Tank Girl - Carioca'', a six-part mini series with ''Tank Girl'' co-creator to Alan Martin for Titan Books.

Bibliography

Comics work includes:
*'' Jaws of Death'' (in '' Starblazer #71 1982)
*''Judge Dredd'' (in '' 2000 AD'' #2-4, 6-7, 12, 15, 18, 20, 23-24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 39, 43-44, 58-85, 89-91, 96-97 & 100, 1977–79)
*''Ro-Busters'' (with Pat Mills, in ''2000 AD'' #103-115, 1979)
*''ABC Warriors'' (with Pat Mills, in ''2000 AD'' #121-22, 125-26, 129, 132-33 & 137-39, 1979)
*'' The V.C.s'' (with Gerry Finley-Day, in ''2000 AD'' #140, 1979)
*''Judge Dredd'' (in ''2000 AD'' #144-45, 147, 160-61, 162, 166, 170-71, 176-78, 183-85 & 193-96, 1979–80)
*''Doctor Who (in '' Doctor Who Monthly'' #58-59, 1981)
*''Judge Dredd'' (in ''2000 AD'' # 236, 1981)
*'' Slaine'' (with Pat Mills, in ''2000 AD'' # 335-336 & 343-360, 1983–84)
*''Muto Maniac'' (in ''Toxic!'' # 1-7, 1991)
*''The Last American'' (with John Wagner/ Alan Grant, 4-issue mini-series, Epic, 1991)
* "Alien Legion: Jugger Grimrod" (with Chuck Dixon, prestige format one-shot, Epic, August 1992, collected in tpb, ''Alien Legion: Tenants of Hell'', Titan Books, April 2004, )
* ''Batman'':
** "Watchtower" (with Chuck Dixon, in '' Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight'' #55-57, DC Comics, December 1993 - February 1994)
** "Fat City" (writer and artist, with co-writer Dave Gibbons, in '' Batman: Gotham Knights'' #18, August 2001, collect in tpb, ''Batman Black and White, Volume 3'', hardcover, Titan Books, August 2007, , softcover, DC Comics, September 2003, )
*''Judge Dredd'' (in ''Judge Dredd Megazine'' (vol.2) #53-56, 1994)
*''Judge Dredd'' (in ''Judge Dredd Megazine'' (vol.3) #3, 1995)
*''Rugrats'' (#13, 1997)
*''ABC Warriors'' (with Pat Mills, in ''2000 AD'' #1240-42, 2001)
* ''Tank Girl: Carioca'' (with Alan Martin, 3-issue mini-series, Titan Magazines, November 2011 - January 2012, hardcover, Titan Books, October 2012, )

References

Sources

* Colin M Jarman & Peter Acton (1995), ''Judge Dredd: The Mega-History''
* David Bishop (1995), "Mike McMahon" (interview), ''The Complete Judge Dredd Special Edition'' No. 2
* Patrick Brown (1996), "Mike McMahon", ''The Panelhouse'' issue 4 pp. 19–22
* David Bishop (2002–2003), "Thrill Power Overload", ''Judge Dredd Megazine'' vol 4 issues 9-18, issues 201-209
*
*

Mike McMahon
at Lambiek's Comiclopedia

Mike McMahon
at 2000 AD online

External links

*

The Art of Mike McMahon


by Rufus Dayglo at Class of '79
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:McMahon, Mike
Living people
British comics artists
1954 births