Death Lives!

Blog posted by Ste Pickford on Thu, 26 Apr 2012
Subject: Pickford Bros.

A journalist asked me last week if I had any photographs lying around of either me or John working on a ZX Spectrum for an article he was writing about the early British computer scene.

I don't have any photos from when I was a kid so I give my Mum a ring to see if she had any, as I thought it would also be fun for the website to find some early photos of John and I beavering away as junior game developers in our school uniforms.

All she had was a couple of very dark photos of us using the ZX81 that John got for Christmas in 1981, and nothing with a ZX Spectrum in it, which was a shame (it's amazing how few photos we took back then compared to the rate I take photos of my family now - about one a day on average these days, thanks to a camera in my phone, and no developing fees).

My disappointment was short lived. Flicking through the pile of old photos I found these two pictures of the Judge Death mural I painted on our bedroom wall, based on Brian Bolland's brilliant cover to 2000ad Prog 225 from 15th August 1981, when I was about 11 years old.

Unfortunately there was no picture of the finished mural, which was terrifying! It used to scare the life out of visiting Aunties and Grandparents, who'd have to walk past it as they made their way to the toilet in our house, and it did freak me out quite regularly when I went up to bed in the dark.

I can't believe my mum let me paint this on her walls!

It's gone now, of course. I don't know if it was painted over, or if the paper was stripped off the wall. I'd like to think it's still there, underneath a layer of wallpaper, ready to terrify a future owner of the house when they come to stripping the walls.

Death Lives!

Tags: mural, painting, 2000ad, bedroom, childhood, comics

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