The Art Of War
Brett ewins’ zarjaz legacy lives on
Initially a possible collaboration between Rufus Dayglo and Brett Ewins, new Bad Company series First Casualties has turned into a tribute to the latter after he passed away earlier this year. Starting in 2000 AD Prog 1950, it will see penciller Dayglo joined by returning writer Peter Milligan and inker Jim McCarthy.
“Brett and I had started work on a Bad Company prequel idea around 2004, but due to his ill- health, it was shelved,” Dayglo tells Red Alert. “Then two years ago, I talked to Peter about doing a Bad Company series where we could get it back to basics and do a war story. The idea was for Brett to act as art director as he couldn’t draw it all. We finally got it together and had it approved, and sadly we lost Brett on the first day I started the series.”
Set a decade after the conclusion of 2002’ s last Bad Company instalment, Danny Franks and some of the remaining members of Bad Company are now veterans, living out a medicated life in a vets’ compound.
First published in 1986, the early Bad Company tales were influenced by the two World Wars and the Vietnam War. With Milligan describing current conflicts such as in the Middle East as “wars of illusions and lies”, First Casualties takes its lead from the rapidly changing nature of warfare. “The wars the world finds itself in now are even more complex,” says Milligan. “The story involved our heroes trying to find the truth that lies behind their medicated fog of war. But in these post- modern times, the truth is a moveable feast.”
Bad Company begins in 2000 AD Prog 1950 on 30 September.