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How many pages of Judge Dredd has John Wagner done?

Started by PsychoGoatee, 16 May, 2018, 02:29:20 AM

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PsychoGoatee

Ok, I know this kind of question requiring a lot of math and research is a bit much, but I'm curious. And somebody might already know, at least roughly. Even just in 2000AD/Judge Dredd Megazine, not having to count annuals and specials. And I'd count the ones from the Alan Grant co-piloted run as well, even though he may have not written a couple of those, since sounds like they were loose like that.

Pretty much just because I've always been impressed by his terrific writing on Judge Dredd over the decades, and I'm curious how it stacks up against some of the other long running comics runs when added up.

For example, sometimes when reading a lot of Case Files, I think oh every 20 or 22 pages is equivalent to a standard comic, and add it up like that. And even just knowing how many Case Files there are, which are mostly Wagner, and the many years after those, I know his run here is much longer than say any of Robert Kirkman's comic runs at the moment. And I'd assume it adds up to much longer than any comic thats under 300 issues.

Anyways, anybody know? I know 2000AD.org has all his thrills up to a point, of varying episode size. If we knew exactly how many episodes he's done total, we could just say well roughly 6 pages each, for some rough math there.

And numbers aside, kudos to John Wagner! The best in the biz!

PsychoGoatee

#1
For the record, I got up to 2000AD PROG 706 on 2000ad.org, trying to count how many episodes on John Wagner's page, lot of fast sloppy math with a few errors I'm sure. Plus it was yesterday and I didn't write it down. But it was something like 658 episodes, times 6 pages each for 3950 pages or so, in that period up to prog 706 in late 1990.

What I found interesting is that adds up to around 180 issues of 22 page comics. Which is close to what Chris Claremont did in a similar timeframe on Uncanny X-Men, though that was a shorter number of pages per issue until late 1980. And of course John Wagner wrote way more comics than just Judge Dredd.

I figure even with hiatuses in later years from Dredd, with the Megazine included Wagner must have double or triple that number of pages on Dredd by now.

I guess another thing would be adding up the Case Files, which are usually 336 pages each or somewhere around there. Guinness book of records should pay us for this, this will have to be in there some day!

CalHab

Dave Sim on Cerebus is the only comparison I can think of, in terms of pages completed. Albeit Sim's run was as artist/writer.

sheridan

Not quite what you're after, but Heroes of 2000AD put him in at over two and a half thousand appearances - not pages, and not all Dredd.

sheridan

Quote from: CalHab on 17 May, 2018, 09:30:19 AM
Dave Sim on Cerebus is the only comparison I can think of, in terms of pages completed. Albeit Sim's run was as artist/writer.

Well, write and co-artist - can't leave out Gerhard!

If we're talking about how many pages of comics has John Wagner ever written, I think he could be a contender for most prolific (at least in the English language) - in addition to Dredd, he's also written for Cor!, Whizzer and Chips, Valiant, Tammy, One-Eyed Jack, Doctor Who, Anderson, Psi-Division, Battle, Eagle, Scream!, Roy of the Rovers, The Bogie Man, Boyhood of a Superfiend, The Dead Man, Detective Comics, Aliens, Star Wars, Xena: Warrior Princess, A History of Violence.

A quick google reveals the following names and numbers, so if anybody does want to count up all the pages of Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Ace Trucking Co (everything from here is cut-n-pasted from various sources).

Manga can be a bit of a different format to your average western comic - I'm not familiar with Osamu's work, but I'd expect it to be dialogue-light with scenes which would take one pages in 2000AD stretched over 20 or more pages...

==
Paul Sylvan Newman (April 29, 1924 – May 30, 1999)[1] was an American writer of comic books, comic strips, and books, whose career spanned the 1940s to the 1990s. Credited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific comic-book writer, with more than 4,100 published stories totaling approximately 36,000 pages, he is otherwise best known for scripting the comic-book series Turok for 26 years.
==
Marvel Comics legends Roy Thomas (36,486) and Stan Lee (34,039) and the above-mentioned authors for the crown of Comic Book Writing King.
==
Dixon said in an exclusive interview with PhillyVoice that his ability to write quickly the meat and potatoes action stories that are his trademark has a lot to do with his output.
"The fact that I wrote over 40,000 pages of comics comes as a surprise to me because it never felt like work. I just love what I do,"
==
According to Wikipedia, Osamu Tezuka is credited with over 150,000 pages of work.
==


AlexF

I wish I could answer this question but I don't have the figures!
Thanks Sheridan for the link to my Blog, I've been updating my running counts for each creator since I started, but all I can tell you is that Wagner has now written at least 2680 episodes of comics for 2000AD / the Megazine / associated comics - but I don't know how that breaks down in terms of Dredd. I suspect it'll account for nearly 2/3 of his total output, though, and if we use 6 pages per episode as an average, you're approaching 11,000 pages of Judge Dredd comics scripted by John Wagner!

The comparison to Claremont's X-Men is a fun one, too. I'd say Wagner easily has the edge, if you consider that he has written Judge Dredd episodes virtually every single week from May 1977 - May 2008 (even considering his pause on 2000AD Dredd in the early 90s, he did do a Dredd for practically every Megazine for the first 230 issues or so.)

Claremont only managed from 1977-1991, with a couple of years here and there in the decades since then.

PsychoGoatee

#6
Thanks for the info! Very cool stuff to think about just how much these legends have created.

And for sure manga is a big one too, writing and illustrating much of so many pages is wild, the One Piece guy (Eiichiro Oda) does not sound like he sleeps all that much. 904 chapters since 1997, usually 17 pages, so over 15,000 pages so far.

Erik Larsen of Savage Dragon is another writer/artist I'm rooting for, with 226+ issues under his belt so far, including the initial mini-series.

And of course, if John somehow ended up hearing about such a discussion, we appreciate the unparalleled quality of your writing too! Not just talking quantity here.  :D

ZenArcade

Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

Rately

Great stuff.

It's incredible to think of the amount of work produced, the sustained quality and how he has evolved the character and world over all those pages!