Massimo Belardinelli's artwork for the ridiculous Ace Trucking Co strip - published in 2000ad in the early 80s - was genuinely amazing. Belardinelli's humans were always stiff as hell - his people in profile were flat from neck to ankles - but when he was given the opportunity to create dozens and dozens of the most insane aliens ever drawn, he stepped the sneck up.
The comic's jokes and jargon from writers John Wagner and Alan Grant were always pleasantly ridiculous, but the art was sublime, and none more so than in the 1986 annual where you got to see it in glorious colour.
It's legitimately one of my favourite colouring jobs of all time. The 1986 book was one of the few annuals that actually showed up in my local bookstores when I was a kid, and I can still remember the rush of cracking open that hardback sucker and seeing the book open with Ace looking shinier than ever, with glowing golds and shimmering blue highlights on thicker, richer paper stock.
It did the impossible and made Beladinelli's work look even more other-worldly than it already did. Even the cold and dark space-ways could be full of colour sometimes. Along with some ridiculous call signs.
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