BARNEY

NIKOLAI DANTE 

BY FRAZER IRVING

Danteâ??s kinda ugly in this one. Basically the brief called for dante giving the finger to the world, with the hand up front and big. I toyed with the angle to present it from, and this was a bit lagered-up in itâ??s tone I felt...
This was more sedate, TOO sedate in fact. I dug the placement of the head and stuff, but it didnâ??t look like Dante was pissed off enough, so it was rejected.
This one hit the spot. The placement of the head and hand worked, and the angle was enough to suggest that Dante was actually facing a foe. The final version altered that angle a tad, getting Dante to sneer at us, but this was the composition that won everyone over.
I felt this was closest to the actual story, but the composition was all wrong. Danteâ??s head had to be higher than his hand in the frame. Bah.
This is the red version I tried. I felt it had shades of Gansta rap about it, and I liked it. So much, in fact, that it now adorns my business card.
Thargâ??s brief for this cover was simple: Dante giving us the finger. The idea was to produce a simple and bold image without a background as Robo-Cook was gonna do something with it. The deadline was tight (overnight) so I had ta think quick....this is the final coloured version that I devised first. The brief from Tharg was to make it look like old russian propoganda posters, and I know they used a lot of contrasting colours to create a sense of shock. I thought it worked well with the bold lines that Iâ??d inked in (which was da plan, man...) but the standard artists worry kicked in and I thought â??o no, maybe itâ??s TOO much....â? so I did a red version instead. Neednâ??t have bothered, as this went down well with tharg. Presented here as supplied with full bleed and no background.