A dynamic, low-angle battle painting: Sláine charges forward gripping a golden axe, war paint streaked across his face, a wolf-like beast snarling beside him as a warband of fellow tribesmen surge behind, banners raised, weapons drawn, a horned totem visible atop one of the poles. Streaks of white light cut diagonally across the deep red background, giving the whole scene a sense of explosive forward momentum, like the warband is charging directly out of the frame toward the viewer. The composition is classic Bisley Sláine, a single heroic figure pushed to the front of a much larger armed force, muscular and sun-lit against a moody, atmospheric background, the exact visual formula that made his run on the strip for 2000 AD so influential on the character's look going forward. Sláine, created by writer Pat Mills, is steeped in Celtic mythology and tribal warfare, and Bisley's painted, almost sculptural rendering of the character and his warband gave that mythology real physical weight on the page, muscles straining, animal companions snarling alongside the warriors, banners and totems establishing tribal identity at a glance rather than through exposition. Bisley joined 2000 AD in 1987 and quickly became identified with exactly this kind of large-scale, painted battle imagery, a stark departure from the more traditional linear inking style most British weekly anthology strips used at the time, and pages like this one show precisely why that departure mattered: it made Sláine's world feel mythic and painterly rather than merely illustrated.
Slaine carries an ax
