Titan rising: Judge Dredd by Bill Sienkiewicz

Sienkiewicz's art is always an absolute visual overload, and while it's a tragedy we never get him doing any sequential work on a 2000ad character, he did produce some of the very finest covers for Titan. Dredd stories didn't look like this at the time - after Bisley came along, any jobbing British artist with a paintbrush and a total willingness to jump on a bandwagon was laying on the pigment as heavily as possible - and Sienkiewicz really captured something new with his hazy and exaggerated Mega-City One. The City of the Damned cover was a particular stunner, conveying the real horror of that tale that was sorely lacking in the story itself, and is arguably the single best cover of the entire Titan line.

Titan rising: The VCs by Garry Leach

Not enough Leach.

Titan rising: Slaine by Glenn Fabry

Glenn Fabry always brought a detailed meatiness to his Slaine, giving the barbarian hunk some real weight, as well as real charm, as he slaughtered multitudes with a wink and a snarl. The posed, painted covers to the Slaine books showed where his talents would be utilized for the next decade or two, and his art would grace the covers of many, many comics, but they were never quite as powerful as his sequential work, and all that meaty detail.

Titan rising: Rogue Trooper by Cam Kennedy

While Gibbons gave him life, and Wilson and Ewins gave him a detailed slickness, Cam Kennedy was always the top Rogue Trooper artist. The naturally garish colours of Nu Earth give Book Two a shine the regular Rogue strip never touched, but the posing of the title character on the cover of Book Three is a real standout - those poor blood Norts don't even know how dead they are.

Titan rising: Judge Dredd by Steve Dillon

Top tip for any aspiring artist - if all else fails, be like Steve Dillon, and just set Dredd on fucking fire.

Titan rising: Judge Anderson by Garry Leach

Despite a long and distinguished career as an artist, there is just not enough Garry Leach comic art in the world.

Titan rising: Nemesis The Warlock by Bryan Talbot

Bryan Talbot made Kevin O'Neill's deeply weird-looking Nemesis look like a superhero, especially when he went insanely complicated with the torn leather and rock and roll badges, but his take on the version that came from the gloriously demented pen of John  Hicklenton is an absolute trip.

Titan rising: Judge Dredd by Brendan McCarthy

Brendan McCarthy's art evolved wildly from his earliest days on Judge Dredd, and reached some kind of peak on these covers. He still does the odd Dredd now, here and there, and they're typically gorgeous, with an outrageous palette that nobody else matches. But his late 80s Dredd has that groovy detailing and one of the most definitive jaws in the character's history.

Titan rising: ABC Warriors by Mick McMahon

I'm not going to lie - life is still a hectic mess this month and another few weeks of low-content mode is the only option. 

At least the Tearoom of Despair is going to look pretty, because the next month will be a showcase of some gorgeous 2000ad art by some undisputed talents. The covers to the reprint albums that Titan put out in the 1980s are arguably the very best pieces of artwork produced during the golden age of 2000ad, with almost all of the big veteran artists of the comic - including Bolland, McMahon, Ezquerra, O'Neill and Kennedy - given new palettes and opportunistic to capture moments of brilliance in the galaxy's geratest comic, while brilliantly mad outsiders like Bill Sienkiewicz and Dave McKean get their brief shots at 2000ad glory.

The books with these art on the front were also absolutely unobtainable to a frothing 2000ad fanboy like I was at the time (and still am, to be perfectly honest) and all I could do is stare at the tiny black and white ads that would run in the regular progs at the time. It was out of my hands, but how could I call really myself a Squaxx dek Thargo if I didn't have these beautiful, beautiful books?

I saw a few in book stores in my corner of the world, including this ABC Warriors stunner by the mighty Mick MacMahon, but they were almost always prohibitively expensive. All I could do is stare at them on the shelves, and at those tiny ads, and I still just want to keep staring.