A Treat For Mangamax...

More from Judge Dredd: Time's Squared; this time from a panel featuring the Robot Wars and the original small-chinned, skull-helmetted Judge Dredd.

I've always said that I love drawing Dredd so much because he's the only character I've worked on that I also read as a child; a double thrill then, to draw the exact Dredd I remember from that time (the first copy of 2000AD I ever read was number 11, containing the second episode of Robot Wars, albeit drawn by Ron Turner and not Mike McMahon, who I'm pastiching here).

This job has also been an excellent excuse to spend time reading old Dredd stories under the excuse of "reference." I was a tad hampered by the fact that I was in Edinburgh and my books were still in Nottingham, so many thanks to Graeme Neil Reid of this parish for helping me out with reference for the early Dredd stories.

I don't usually get advance notification of when a story will see print, but I'll keep an eye on my subscription copies and post as soon as it comes through.

Dredd Again, Again

Pencils from Judge Dredd: Time's Squared, the latest part of our Time Traveller sequence.
Judge Dredd © 1977, 2007 Rebellion/2000AD.
Herbert George Sewell created by Ian Edginton & me.

Some actual stuff about comics this time; much to my delight, I'm working on Judge Dredd once again. It's a one-off story written by Ian Edginton, another instalment in the occasional adventures of our unfortunate time traveller H.G. Sewell.

In 2004's Tempus Fugitive, Sewell arrives in Mega-City One from the nineteenth century and is busted by Dredd after testing positive for sugar, tobacco and caffeine. Things take a turn for the worse for him in Time Again (2005), when two of his future selves come back in time to bust him out of jail; Dredd not only defeats them but goes back in time to seize the original Sewell before he can build his time machine. The story ends up with four Sewells in the iso-cubes, one of them a hideous cyborg and one a brain in a tank!

In this story, the four escape from the cubes to seek revenge on Dredd. The story takes in various periods from Dredd's past (so I get to draw lots of cool stuff from my childhood) plus a there are nods to Doctor Who and even The Goodies :-)

Judge Lola from Tempus Fugitive (left) and with her new hairdo in the forthcoming Time's Squared (right).
Judge Dredd & Judge Lola © 2004, 2007 Rebellion/2000AD.

I also get to draw a favourite character of mine, the obscure but divine Judge Lola, who first appeared in Tempus Fugitive. I like Lola because she's un-typical for a strip like Dredd; she's a woman, she's black and, most importantly, she's quite stocky. There is, after all, no reason why all female judges should look like swimwear models...