DREDDISMS

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

JUDGE DREDD is my second-favourite ever UK comics character. If I SPY grabbed my full attention at the impressionable age of 7, when 2000 AD came along in 1977 when I was 15, it was time to embrace a new direction in comics-reading, and the fully-rounded world of Dredd's MEGA-CITY ONE and far beyond is, to me, the most impressively thought-out comics fantasy world that I am aware of in a UK comic, even if ironically the saga is set in a far-future USA.


For sheer imaginitive scope, the pressure-cooker world of DREDD -----and the skewed tangents his tales veered off into------the back-catalogue of this work takes some beating, and for the most part, it has stood up to the test of time very well.


One very simple idea [rare in UK comics] is that it is set in 'real time' ; ie: in 1977, when it all began, it was set in 2099, and DREDD was aged in his early 30s: today's strips feature him aged around 70 [!] though obviously he has likely benefitted from 22nd-Century medical advances........the strips of today are set around 2130-odd. This fairly novel approach just never applied to OOR WULLIE and FAT BOB, who are still stuck in 1936!



I have been catching up with may DREDD tales via the great-value REBELLION DREDD reprint books....these are like telephone directories. I have most of these, and fully intend plugging any gaps in my collection. I will be going through the basic saga on here, though clearly I will not detail every single storyline/strip: I hope to point out significant developments within the series, however.


I will start with the very early incarnation on here shortly.

[felneymike]

Criminal: That walkway's a goldmine! You could do anything in there and nobody gives a damn, so long as you don't do it to them!
Dredd (riding through the window): I give a damn!

[Muffy]

I vaguely remember reading a reprint of an earlier Dredd, where he quits as a judge and gets a job as a street-sweep.

The robo-gaffer refers of him as something like: "Joe you're one fine judge, but you make a lousy street-sweep."

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

yes, I just re-read that one last week, Muffy! Very unusual!


BASIC BACKSTORY: in 2050, last American President 'BAD BOB' Booth initiates World War 3, leaving most of the planet uninhabitable. Admist the post-war chaos, the Judges emerge to tackle the anarchy that reigns, swiftly establishing an extreme right-wing law enforcement system. A vast, sprawling city of the future : MECA-CITY ONE is established, built over the decaying ruins of New York, but spreading out much further, eventually stertching to a mind-boggling 400 million citizens.


The capacity for crime in this pressurized world-----coupled with bizarre futuristic trends and advanced technology------makes for endless combinations of absurdist crime. JUDGE DREDD [born 2066] achieves notoriety/respect from the citizens, due to his ruthless approach to justice, which is not unlike that of a Nazi Stormtrooper.





above: an early strip, drawn by Mike McMahon.


Famously, JUDGE DREDD never appeared in Prog one of 2000 AD back in spring 1977, although an embroyonic story was prepared . This was deemed unsuitable [it is crude in several respects]: artwork on this debut story turned up years later, and it's by original DREDD imagineer CARLOS EZQUERRA, who would only contribute much extended storylines a lot later on.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

here's Carlos:



Apparantly, Ezquerra was selected for the visualisation of Dredd due to his effective depiction of a character called MAJOR EASY in BATTLE of the mid-70s.

This was a laid-back, almost Clint Eastwood 'man with no name' -type character, pretty much an anti-hero, and totally at odds---thankfully---with the typical gung-ho fare put out by many UK war comics before this period.



above: a real curio: I have no idea where this originates from, but it certainly gives a very good flavour of very early DREDD circa 1977.

I have located a very early EZQUERRA set, which contains a typically wry in-joke [the villain's character is called Kevin O'Neill, art director of 2000 AD in the early days, and a highly skilled comics artist in his own right].

[chrissmillie]

I know this is an anathema to all 2000AD fans but I've never really thought Dredd was a great character. He's had some tremendous stories - some of the best in UK comics. But a character? I don't even mean in the sense of him being particularly right-wing. Instead, he just has very little of interest about him. There's very little off-screen action. Not much emotion. No drives. Few flaws. He's really just a human machine. I much prefer Strontium Dog, Slaine or Rogue Trooper as characters.

[colcool007]

Chris, you HERETIC! I must admit that it was Dredd that kept me buying 2000AD in the late 90's long after I had gone off many of the stories/characters.

To me in the 70's, it was a breath of fresh air to read such a strong story. But, in many ways, Dredd is two-dimensional as he puts the law above almost everything else. But to give you a taster of how the character would develop, you need to read The Return Of Rico published circa issue 32 as for me it was a complete explosion to have pop culture mentioned in one of my comics.

The 'real' Dredd came into its own after the epic The Cursed Earth and it was one of the first times that I could remember the exploration of a comic character as being more than a hero and having a different motivation to them rather than beating the enemy.

[AndyB]

I think that Dredd has never been better. John has taken him a different direction from the one Dredd took when he and Alan were writing it together, and it suits him better (just as Strontium Dog has!). Dredd will be excellent on the Council of Five - he has seen so much, and his understanding of justice has developed through his experiences since Oz, The Dead Man and Necropolis, culminating in the Origins/Dan Francisco storyline.

It's difficult to explain what's different.