10TH BIRTHDAY: JAESON FINN

Publisher Ed Murphy on the key artists who worked with Rough Cut Comics over the last decade.
JAESON Finn was the first artist who joined the fledging Rough Cut Comics team at the beginning of the new millenium.
He was assigned to perform the art duties on the adaptation of THE SURGEON film script ... originally an attempt to gather another £150,000 to complete the budget for production.
I had known Jaeson as an avid horror-film buff who attended the Black Sunday Film Festivals in Manchester and Edinburgh. I became involved with an event in Glasgow; and eventually mini-bused the small batch of ticket-buyers to the massive Manchester event.
Years later, we met to discuss THE SURGEON and re-ignited our passion for horror. Jaeson was instrumental in visualising many of designs for Neil Marshall's apocalypse thriller Doomsday ... and it is here that Jaeson's innovatively gruesome ideas come into their own. He's great at bringing to life an Adam Hughes-style 'babe' ... as he did for ROSE BLACK. When he starts, he's a fast worker; able to devise accurate figure work in dynamics postures on 'first-take'.
His pencils on THE SURGEON were inked by Colin Barr and he provided the art for one later story in the series.
But it was his ROSE BLACK series and GN which his style was truly developed; and consolidated that great 2000AD style. Again, his work was inked by Colin Barr, but his comic-book set-pieces (like the helicopter battle and the final denounment) were brilliantly executed.
Jaeson also worked on a number of caricatures and designs for our comic-book music publication GREEN PAGES; and produced some early art and designs for the ROSE BLACK: DEMON SEED (originally subtitled ELOISE).
But Jaeson's passion was always in film and TV. He worked closely on a number of short-films projects (including innovative Scottish team Once Were Farmers; and their crawling horror The Midge) before creating a working relationship with Newcastle film-maker Neil Marshall; and moving on to collaborate on many international film productions (Your Highness, Unknown). But check out Doomsday and Centurion to see some of his classic design work.
Or if you haven't yet, pick up ROSE BLACK GN available to purchase again this winter from all good comic and bookshops in the UK or direct from the publishers at http://www.roughcut-comics.com/

10TH BIRTHDAY: NEILL CAMERON

FORMER Rough Cut Comics Marketing Manager Johnny McKie recalls his favourite artist from the company’s 10 year history.

ROUGH CUT COMICS acquired the comic-book rights to Brian Yuzna’s cult horror satire Society in 2002 and produced stories which combined to be an official sequel to the 1989 film.

British artist NEILL CAMERON produced the artwork for the second issue of SOCIETY: PARTY ANIMAL in 2003.

Neill had developed a substantial reputation in the small press of the day. Publisher Ed Murphy was a huge fan of his Dumbass comic label and his work in British Bulldog. The Oxford-born artist, who studied at university in Glasgow, had a style which the team at Rough Cut Comics reckoned was truly dynamic … with potent strains of early Frank Quitely in design and presentation.

For the SOCIETY series, the artist had captured the Dali-esque caricatures of the story’s main protagonists: a race of upper-class deviants who ritualistically devour the poor.  His visualisation of the “Mega-Shunt”  –  the monumental melding of a hundred naked deviants engaged in a sexual orgy while oozing after hero Billy Whitney  – was fantastically grotesque. Thanks Neill.

Neill has since provided the art for the Classic Comics’ award-winning adaptation of Henry V, for which he won a Silver Medal Independent Publisher Book Award in 2008. His webcomic Thumpculture was also shortlisted for an IMAF (International Manga and Anime Festival) award.

He has also provided artwork for such licensed series as Transformers, Doctor Who and Marvel Heroes.

His latest work is Mo-Bot High, a brand new graphic novel series from David Fickling Books in the DFC Library. We are led to believe Neil is currently working on new projects which “combine dinosaurs, pirates and monkeys” for the new children’s comic The Phoenix, launching January 2012.

For more information on Neill, check out www.neillcameron.com. Check out some of Neill’s art from SOCIETY: PARTY ANIMAL on www.roughcut-comics.com  … or on the Facebook page link: www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Rough-Cut-Comics/142598199129432. We'll be reproducing more artwork over the next few weeks.