Restore original Dredd logo to the strip

[ZenArcade]

At least for a one off, it'd be a nice memorial. Z

[dweezil2]

A tribute logo cover or strip would be a great idea to honour Jan's memory.

[Andrew_J]

Great idea and a nice tribute even if only for one issue.

[Frank]

The edges get knocked off anything with extreme personality these days. The fear that 'someone' out there won't like a hand drawn logo, or think you unsophisticated or ignorant because of its energy and personality, leads to this suffocating blandness of approach

Right on, brother! To be fair to everyone in the art and editorial departments of 2000ad since the mid-nineties, I think it's also a result of the many, many changes to the format of the comic in the last 25 years. As the page dimensions have gradually become more like those of the niggardly US format, the logo's had to shrink too. When Jan Shepheard's original logo is reduced, everything distinctive and quirky about it - the jagged edges that always remind me of the lines around the outlines of Ezquerra characters, and that wee Dredd profile in the J - are lost, and the result just looks a bit wonky.

That page, from Smith and Doherty's Roadkill (858), is the last time Jan Shepheard's original logo - or a version of it, at least - was used as the regular Dredd banner. The next issue's Dredd - Morrison/Millar and Power's Book of the Dead (859) - featured a tiny variation on the more regular and rectilinear Megazine logo, and some form of that design would grace the prog until a bastardised version of Jan's logo which had been altered for legibility made a slight return. All of those fit unobtrusively into a corner of the artwork in a way which the massive old logo doesn't, but they're timid and hatefully weak designs.

The problem probably has something to do with the growing importance of reprinting in other formats and in trade collections. Those old centrespread splashes were bold and brash announcements of the strip's arrival, and the large, distinctive logo was a part of the visual impact the strip and the comic were designed to make. Once multi-part stories which are intended to read smoothly when presented in trades become the norm, the logo's only a temporary afterthought. The ultimate expression of that was when logos were removed from the page entirely, and only featured on David Bishop's trademark title pages.

[Bat King]

I'm sold on the idea of at least a tribute.

I recall folk being impressed by the Department of Monsterology Logo and that was done by a Mr P J Holden. So there are connoisseurs still out there!

[Frank]

I'm sold on the idea of at least a tribute

Aye - that seems to be the consensus. For the reasons outlined in far too much detail above, the old logo would be tricky to fit into the current format. I'm intrigued by Cosh's mention of Jock having incorporated a hand drawn version of Jan Shepheard's design into one of his strip's. I don't remember it, so it must have happened after 2003 - give us a clue where to find it, lads.

[radiator]

It was in that Scottish-themed strip he did with Rennie - some time around 2007 IIRC.

Go to Barney's cover database and locate the cover by Jock - it has a big Scottish flag.

[JOE SOAP]

I'm intrigued by Cosh's mention of Jock having incorporated a hand drawn version of Jan Shepheard's design into one of his strip's. I don't remember it, so it must have happened after 2003 - give us a clue where to find it, lads.

Prog#1540 (6 June 2007)

[Skullmo]

We need Dredd back in the centre pages!

[Frank]

Oh, you're good SOAP; but you already know that. Cheers muchly.


I've just noticed my use of the greengrocer's apostrophe above - sorry. Actually, should that be greengrocers' apostrophe?

[Frank]

It was in that Scottish-themed strip he did with Rennie - some time around 2007 IIRC. Go to Barney's cover database and locate the cover by Jock - it has a big Scottish flag

Sorry, radiator; I didn't notice you had beat the furiously scanning SOAP to the punch. YOU'RE ALL AMAZING ... this is beginning to feel like I'm on my kness in a nightclub in Magaluf, surrounded by 24 guys - >p-too<

One of the things I love about Jan's logo is how adaptable it proved to be. Once litho printing became standard, there was a great period where the artists seemed to be allowed to customise the logo themselves, so it became an integral part of the artwork - with sometimes surprisingly funky results (547):

[Jim_Campbell]

Tribute to Jan Shepheard on Down The Tubes here.

Cheers

Jim

[Frank]

Tribute to Jan Shepheard on Down The Tubes here.

Cheers, Jim. I think that's the first photograph I've seen of Jan Shepheard (and what appears to be the original art of her Dredd logo).

[ZenArcade]

I really like that tribute, many thanks Jim. Z

[Fungus]

Tribute to Jan Shepheard on Down The Tubes here.

Just great. Thanks Jim.