A composite, promotional-style piece stitching together several elements of the Sláine world into a single frame: a tribal warrior in fur and armor stands to the left, axe in hand, while the right side of the image dissolves into a montage, a pale, flower-crowned female face, a red-haired woman gasping in pain or ecstasy, and a grotesque, fanged demon head grinning from the shadows, all layered together against a hazy green-and-orange background. It's signed simply Bisley and functions almost like a poster or a series-retrospective image, gathering multiple faces and moments from the Sláine mythos into one composition rather than depicting a single scene. Sláine, created by writer Pat Mills for 2000 AD, became inseparable from Bisley's painted visual style during his run on the strip beginning in the late 1980s, muscular, mythic, steeped in Celtic and pseudo-historical imagery, and this piece works almost as a summary of that whole aesthetic: the warrior, the goddess-adjacent female figures, the demonic threat, all rendered in Bisley's characteristic painted, slightly hallucinatory style. Bisley's stated influences, Frank Frazetta for the muscular fantasy figures, Gustav Klimt and Salvador Dalí for the more dreamlike, symbolic elements bleeding into the background, are both visible at once here in a way they rarely are within a single conventional comic panel. Pieces like this were often produced for posters, trade paperback covers or promotional material rather than as part of the strip's ongoing weekly continuity, giving Bisley license to combine iconic elements from across the series into one condensed, career-defining image.
Simon Bisley’’s Slaine
