I was curious how the rest of you people came in contact with the toughest lawman of them all and started reading his comics. For me...well...i casually watched 1995 Stallone's Dredd and, not being the super hammy original english dub (LAAAAAAAW!) and being i 13 I thought it was awesome. Than I found out a new Dredd movie had recently came out (2012 one) and found it even more awesome. So i was curious about the comics and started looking around till i found IDW judge dredd volumes, where my knowledge of the Dreddverse expanded. From there, i started looking for the original, british progs and here I am. What is your story?
As a paperboy I saw Programme 1 on the shelf and asked Mr Bennett to put it by for me, until pay day :thumbsup:
It was Dan Dare that got me!
Popped into a newsagents by school and picked up 2000ad with terror tube on the cover prog 167 loved it so more years than I like to admit
Quote from: COMMANDO FORCES on 27 July, 2016, 07:12:23 PM
As a paperboy I saw Programme 1 on the shelf and asked Mr Bennett to put it by for me, until pay day :thumbsup:
It was Dan Dare that got me!
Not the same Mr Bennett from Take Hart, surely?
I've got my mate Joe (coincidence that?) to thank.
He exposed me to this great new comic called 2000AD with it's free Thargian Space Spinner and it's been an on, off love affair since then- but on permanently since Prog 716!
The first nerd I ever met got transferred to my primary school. He was the kind of kid who knew that Darth Vader looked like that under the helmet because he lost a fight with Obi Wan Kenobi on the edge of a volcano.
I was persuaded to drop the Beano for 2000ad by being given a loan of about a hundred back issues, which included The Midnight Surfer, Halo Jones Book Three and Strontium Dog: Rage.
The first prog that fell through my letterbox was 511 (http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=profiles&choice=511), and I ended up taking a job as paper boy for my street so I could get 2000ad as soon as it came out - and without my address scrawled across Zenith's face.
(http://i.imgur.com/PqG7a2k.jpg?1)
It was hard times back in the dark days of 2005, Crossgen was dead and my hunger for sci-fi comics was not being slate. DC had just announced partnerships with both Humanoids and 2000 AD. I wasn't that interested in 2000 AD, but I was having a ball reading The Technopriests and The Incal. But then one thing led to another and I found myself reading Nikolai Dante and Sinister Dexter, then I graduated to the Prog. And that's when I became acquainted with Judge Dredd.
Inspecting the discarded backing sheets to the Biotronic stickers in the school playground, lead me to a kid sat nearby reading Prog 2, and asking him was it any good? His simple in the affirmative reply was 'Judge Dredd'.
So, free gift, and a half glimpse over the shoulder read of the new thrills on the block was my introduction.
My brother got Prog 1, which led him him getting 2 (and the first 80 odd issues). I tagged along in his wake!
Reading Beat the Devil, waaaay back in the 90's!!! :D
A cousin gave me some old annuals, which included the first 2000 AD ones and a Dan Dare. It was actually Dare that I initially gravitated towards, getting some Quality Comics reprints before a holiday. But then I saw issue 46 of Best of 2000 AD monthly, with its superb Brendan McCarthy cover.
(http://www.2000ad.org/covers/reprints/mediumres/BO2K46.jpg)
That selection of Dredd was fantastic, and I was hooked and started buying Bo2K every month (which soon introduced me to Nemesis, Strontium Dog and Sam Slade). By that November, I was buying 2000 AD and a bunch more of those fairly awful 'Quality' Comics offerings. I shudder to think how many versions of certain stories I've bought over the years.
My older brother got the first few issues of 2000AD but dropped it and carried on with Battle and Tiger.
I was reading the Beano and Dandy at the time, I remember the free gifts that came with 2000AD at that time more than the stories.
Then a bit later I saw the first issue of Star Lord and decided it was time to upgrade to a more serious comic and I got that for the entire run and then when it merged with 2000AD I carried on and I've never missed a Prog since.
I think it was probably Lawman of the Future. I never saw the Stallone film (though I've seen bits and pieces since) so I didn't care much about the tie-in aspect - it was just a cool-looking comic with violence, humour, robots and undead super-fiends. It didn't really occur to me to try the prog until about six years later - LotF came just towards the end of my comics-buying phase, not long before I decided I was getting too old to keep reading them; six years later I was at college and a bit more comfortable in my own skin, and realising that I could keep reading comics if I damn well wanted to. LotF had given me a fairly good grounding in Mega-City One and the Dredd universe so I felt right at home.
Prog 2.
Apparently I had to read about this "Dredd" fella if I wanted to get my mitts on those wicked-cool biotronic stickers!
This advert in prog 1.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XlBEOVjXMHE/Tz_oKUAoE2I/AAAAAAAAJpY/6jzWpwD5rqI/s400/dredd.jpg)
Dan Dare got me interested. M.A.C.H. 1 got me hooked. After a few issues Dredd was my favourite thrill.
Before I had read prog 1 a relative asked me what the comic was about. Me: "it's about the future". "How can it be about the future if it's got dinosaurs in it?" That was me stumped. I hadn't read Flesh yet.
We were moving house, way back in the summer of 1995 and, packing my stuff in boxes down in the cellar and deeply bored I found an old copy of Best of 2000ad that had been given to me, along with a random assortment of Marvel comics (X Factor, IIRC), by a family friend.
I started reading - it was The Midnight Surfer - not even knowing that it was a Judge Dredd story (the cover, pictured below, did not make it clear), and it just instantly clicked with me in a way that those other comics in the box just didn't (I honestly found superhero comics impenetrable because of all the continuity, on some level I still do...). Even at that young age, the quality of the writing in this 'Judge Dredd' story was immediately apparent to me - so different to everything else I'd read to that point. I just instantly got it. And it hit me at just the right age.
I bought my first prog - 949 - a few days later, and by the end of that Summer I'd amassed a huge collection of 2000ads, Megazines, reprint titles and graphic novels (including The Judge Child, Judge Death Lives and Mechanismo), devouring each and every one, and, thanks to the Hamlyn A-Z of Judge Dredd book, I'd become an expert in all things Dredd in the space of those 6-8 weeks. The Complete Judge Dredd, then retitled 'Classic Judge Dredd' was my favourite - wall to wall vintage Dredd that I just binged on every month.
I remember desperately wanting to see the movie which was released that same summer, but couldn't as it was a 15 certificate.
It all made such a huge impact on me, and me discovering 2000ad and Dredd - as well as other reasons - means that the summer of '95 always stands out really powerfully in my memory while other years dim over time. Ah, nostalgia. Can't believe that was over twenty years ago now. :'(
(http://static5.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/0/9116/1822392-72.jpg)
I know I had read the occasional issue before I started proper collecting at around prog 500, never really had either cash/time/inclination till that point, but my earliest memory of 'Judge Dredd' would have been in a Sinclair Spectrum game called 'Car Wars' that had one building that said 'Judge Dredd' on top... you just inherintly knew you had to blow that shit up before you done anything else! I assume it was either a developers easter egg, or some kind of indicator that it was a law enforcement building.
My uncle got me this, for Christmas, 1980. I'd only ever really read or been interested in Marvel comics, so this seemed like an odd choice. Then I read it........McMahons artwork blew. Me. Away. It was another couple of years before I started getting the weekly Prog. I've been a reader ever since. (though I still read Marvel every now and then. Don't judge, if you'll pardon the pun.) :D
(http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j312/dikiminster/23000591-0bbb-407d-af41-408cbe28e791_zpseesyhwmq.jpg)
The Judge Dredd Mega Special 1991, bought from the newsagents on Linlithgow High Street. It had a screaming judge death on the cover and was well worth £1.75. The first story I read was "it pays to be mental", which had a character who breaks the fourth wall : it was unlike any comic I'd read before, funny, violent, self aware. I started picking up the prog regularly soon after.
I can't remember. I think I was only about 5 or 6, and my brother used to get it - he was only a year older than me, though. For most of my childhood 2000ad was his gig, and I was only allowed to read it when he was finished - then when he was about 14 he stopped buying it but I couldn't let it go so it became my thing.
I was only about 10 when Wulf died, and I felt like I'd known him all my life. I don't remember life without 2000ad.
(http://static4.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/0/9116/359446-19752-127778-1-2000-a-d.jpg)
'Nuff said.
QuoteI don't remember life without 2000ad.
Pretty similar story, my older brother was getting it since Prog one, and I remember his room walls covered in star scans when I was 5 or 6.
I started picking it up for him with my Beano when he got 'to old' to buy it, he eventually stopped wanting it so I'm pretty sure after a break of a few months my first actual bought myself Prog was 378. Its been a weekly ritual since, three different newsagents, all within a few hundred yards. When I was in college the newsies used to keep a months worth when I was away and then when I had the cash to pick them up It was thrill power overload(kinda, Nineties progs!)
Prog 2.
Flesh was my favourite but I enjoyed every Thrill.
My dad used to get the 'Star' when I was little and I first saw it in the strip page there. I feel like I always was aware of Dredd.
I discovered Dredd because of the 90s movie, which I really enjoyed at the time. (I still do actually :) )
As for the comic, in the early-to-mid 2000s I really got into reading lots of comics, and was attracted to any run where a writer or artist stuck around on the book for years. That always impressed me and added credibility to something.
Needless to say, considering the magnanimous amount of John Wagner (and Carlos, Grant, and friends) on this book, I knew I had to read it. Plus just having stuff like crossovers with Alien, Predator, Lobo and Batman, it was in my area of interest.
I live over in "New England" by the way, in the Mega-City One geographic area, so Dredd was not something that I came across in particular in comics stores in the 90s. I read cheesy stuff like Venom: Lethal Protector etc instead. Anyways, glad I found Dredd, and 2000AD in general. :D
I remember reading a load of back issues when I went on a sleepover to a friend's house. I was reading Battle at the time and he introduced me to 2000ad, which felt like a more modern version of the stories I already loved. The first Prog I bought for myself was I think the one with The Perps on Runners Walk. Unless Sector House 9 came first in which case it was that.
Same as many as I have been with 2000 AD from the start so the ad in Prog 1 and then the main event in Prog 2.
My big brother and his best friend were in a gang (well, a small group of three boys hiding in a bedroom), and you were only allowed to join if you could name three Judges. Luckily he had a couple of Best of 2000AD monthlys lying around in another room, so I was able to scrounge up 'Judge Dredd, Judge Anderson and Judge Hershey'. I don't remember what happened then but I'm pretty sure they found some other pretext to let me join their gang anyway. Older brothers, man.
Quote from: AlexF on 28 July, 2016, 08:33:54 AM
Older brothers, man.
Yep - my brother insisted on letting a day or two pass after finishing his prog before I was allowed to read it. This was the rule, and I obeyed. The prick, in hindsight. Though obviously I'd find it and read it when he was off in another room.
We get on very well, these days - I gave him the
Cradlegrave GN for Christmas when it came out, to let him know what he was missing in the modern prog.
Quote from: SuperSurfer on 27 July, 2016, 09:40:35 PM
This advert in prog 1.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XlBEOVjXMHE/Tz_oKUAoE2I/AAAAAAAAJpY/6jzWpwD5rqI/s400/dredd.jpg)
Same for me, I think it was the TV ad that made me aware of prog 1, so I was straight off to the newsagents.
It's a weird picture of Dredd that, I've always thought. The head-on angle makes it difficult to recognise the Lawmaster as a motorbike, especially as no-one would have seen it in any other picture. In fact when it roared out of the page in prog 2 I'm sure I remember thinking "Oh, so
that's what it's supposed to be". And the details of Dredd's helmet and face are almost impossible to pick out. To me it looked like the line of his visor was his mouth, set in a huge frown.
The overall impression I got was that this character must be a grumpy courtroom judge on some kind of bizarre mobile chair.
Same here.I must of bought about 3-4 copies of issue 2 for the biotronic stickers for my friends.If only I'd kept them.
I discovered Dredd after searching for Cyberpunk cities through t'internet in 2009. Came across a poll (on Empire website i think) for best fictional cities (or comic cities) and in number 1 spot was Mega City One. Did some research, found The Complete Case Files and started collecting them and was hooked from there.
In 2010 I subscribed to the Meg. #300 was the first issue i got, then it took me till Nov 2015 to subscribe to the Prog. #1958 was my first Prog.
My brother and I used to spend most of our pocket money on comics. One day he came home with prog 164. We always read each others comics and he kept getting it for ages through primary school and high school, probably up until he went to university. I'd already left home for uni so got out of the habit of reading it but we'd been through the good years and Crisis, Revolver, Diceman, etc.
The first 2000AD I read was a summer special (possibly 1977) someone gave me.
To be honest I wasn't impressed. I read it and threw it away. The only story I remember was Judge Dredd.
I got into 2000AD indirectly through Starlord. My mum bought issue 4 on holidays one summer and I got it every week after that.
I was really miffed when it merged into 2000AD. So the first weekly Dredd I read was the "Crime and Punishment" in Prog 86 (the first part of the Day The Law Died really) with art by Bolland. Sounds unbelievable now, but I didn't get into it. Then my newsagent missed the odd Prog and I gave up after Prog 92.
I tried a couple more a few months later but still didn't get into it (even with McMahon on ABC Warriors!!!!).
Bought Prog 127 based on the tag line "At last! Britain's top two papers join forces!!!" thinking it was referring to Starlord and 2000AD, not realising it was referencing Tornado, which I had never heard of.
Amazingly Wolfie Smith, Blackhawk and Captain Klepp did what Judge Dredd and Flesh couldn't and hooked me for life.
Summer 1979. Prog 120. That robot on the cover caught my attention but Dredd kept me on board. My favourite comic. Still enjoying it on a daily basis thanks to the paperbacks and all that stuff they are putting out :thumbsup:
My Dad bought me my first prog when I was 6 years old, and I now know it was prog 1 because I clearly remember the first page of 'Flesh'.
My memory grows dim after that, but I must have had more progs bought for me as I remember the Mess in a hat and coat from 'ABC Warriors' and giant alien worms in 'Dan Dare'. I would get the annuals for Christmas, but it looks like I started my love for Judge Dredd in 1981 with 'Judge Death Lives' and 'Alien Zoo' in the 1982 annual - two stories that I clearly remember devouring at the time.
I was thrill-sucked around 1986, didn't touch another prog throughout the 90s, bought the occasion prog in the 00s, but started reading regularly again at the start of last year.
I wanted a Buck Rodgers sticker album. I got a free one with a Prog. A few months later I recognised Judge Death on the cover of Prog 224.
I remember being bought occasional 2000ADs to keep me quiet on long car journeys to stay with Scottish relatives in lieu of actual holidays through '77 and '78 (I think I still have a copy of Prog 14 somewhere), but don't recall Dredd being the particular standout in those random issues. Pestered my parents for a regular sub from Prog 104 in '79, but don't recall being especially grabbed by Dredd, who was in the closing stages of The Day The Law Died at that point.
I had eyes mainly for Gibbons' careful draftsmanship on Dan Dare, largely due to my Dad's enthusiasm for the original Eagle incarnation, plus Strontium Dog kicked off Journey Into Hell, and Gibson was filling the pages of Robo-Hunter's Verdus with so very many delightfully eccentric robots...!
Although Dredd's adventures climbed in my estimation over time, I don't think it was until Prog 140's Black Plague that I really came round to viewing Dredd as the highlight of the Prog...
Mine was a little more recent. I think it was in 2007 I used to walk past Forbidden Planet in Leeds and I always loved their model displays. I particularly loved the Hell Boy model. One day I had had a particularly bad day at work so I wandered in to have a look around. I took a look round the graphic novel section and saw the Satans Island collection, picked it up and was mesmerised- wow this was like watching an amazingly stylised film in full technicolor madness. I had remembered seeing a few progs when I was a kid and the Judge Dredd image had stuck in my mind, so when I saw Satans Island I had to get it. I picked up PJ Maybe, Kenny Who? and Case Files 1 - amazing, vibrant, crazy, awesome! Gotalovabitadredd. I never did buy the the Hellboy model. Work isn't,any better either sometimes but at least now I can take regular holidays with some of favourite characters in the craziest place imaginable... Mega city 1. And having been picking up the progs and Megs as well for a few years now I couldn't imagine life without my little holidays into the wonderful world of 2000ad creative imagination
Great thread!
I saw the Stallone movie and thought it was okay.
I was always aware of Dredd, people made the occasional reference, but it never was something I was interested in.
The newer movie got a lot of good buzz and it was available on demand, so I took a look.
That hooked me.
Now I am enjoying collecting the graphic novels.
As a small addendum to my discovering 2000AD/Dredd post, it was my interest in Gibbons' Dan Dare that led, fairly directly, to me (eventually) becoming a letterer. Dave lettered his own work on Dare, meaning that he got his name on the credits twice.
To my ten-year-old brain, this was the coolest thing ever, and meant that I paid attention to who got the lettering credits on all the strips, developing a keen sense of which letterers I liked, which I didn't, and why. Attempts to hand-letter my youthful attempts at my own strips were... not great but when, many years later, I became a graphic designer, one of my first thoughts was "I bet with the right fonts, you could do this on a computer".
All my digital lettering efforts since then have been entirely about thinking how Frame or Potter or Gibbons (and, later, on discovering US comics, how Orz, or Klein, or Novak, or Workman) would have tackled a strip by hand and trying to bring some of that to the page.
I remember that when Justice League of America 200 came out I was captivated by Bolland's artwork, particularly Black Canary's breasts.
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/09/da/db/09dadbb71a8d6f2e0f84234117bcbdcd.jpg)
That led me to Camelot 3000 and anything else I could find by Bolland. One day I saw an ad for Judge Dredd by Eagle Comics showing the first 3 covers. There was my favorite artist drawing a brand new comic. I added the title to my subscription at my local comic shop & fell in love. To this day I don't know why Anderson is blonde & not a redhead like in the Eagle comics Dredd.
Soon my LCS started getting 2000AD, my first prog was 389 (I think) & I bought it up through the end of City of the Damned. Returned for Necropolis - Judgement Day. One day around 2010/11, I found the first Call of Duty trade at my LCS, picked it up even though it was $32!! I thought it was neat , but only read the PJ Maybe story before setting it down. I picked it back up when I read on Wikipedia that Dredd ages in real time & that he was almost 70. That really intrigued me. I soon started picking up the trades, the Meg & the prog.
I do kind of wonder how many people decided to try Dredd/2000ad since 1995 but then chucked it when it wasn't like the Stallone movie.
I actually bought 2000AD for the Flesh cover. Because a Tyrannosaurs Rex munching on a cowboy is one hell of an eye catch. Dredd quickly became my staying point for that first year of the prog, namely because of how enthralling Day of Chaos was weekly...still the best reading experience of my life.
Dilworth. Prog 736's Dredd is an out and out classic. Sublime art and the story is Dredd honed down and encapsulated in 6 stunning pages. Z
My mate had it !980s and he would read it then keep the cover and the middle spread and bin the rest and wouldn't let me read it. We are obviously no longer friends.
My mate had a copy of 181 and once seen, I bought my own. That was that.
It also meant my first Dredd was the final part of the Judge Child ("Part 26" ?!), and a Ron Smith centre-spread that blew my mind. Brian Bolland's centre-spread the following week continued the damage. McMahon's Aggro Dome punched me in the face the next week. Happy days.
Only about 8 months ago I discovered 2000AD. I watched the movie Dredd (2012) which led me to read a new Dredd comic (Judge Dredd: Mega City Zero #1 by IDW - I live in Canada). I enjoyed the character so I did some research and purchased Dredd Case Files #2 - the 2000AD Dredd was so good I was hooked (Cursed Earth and The Day the Law Died are my favorites). Ive been on a 2000AD binge ever since - been spending way too much money but its worth it!
Knew about the character since the Stallone's Judge Dredd film and him appearing in several comic magazines, but things picked up when I -a bit ironically- bought a friend (who kind of liked the character) an issue of Day the law died for his birthday. Book was too much great fun to not look up.
The Case files where up to 8 or so back then, and since I had a job and nothing better to spend my money on --Dredd it was.
A bit later I also realized that the comic was still ongoing. A bit like when I started to listen to The Stooges in 2001-2002 and then in 2004 realize that not only was Iggy Pop not dead (much thanks to Trainspotting I suppose) but The Stooges had also reformed, and was better than before. Much like I found Judge Dredd to be around the time of Tour of duty and Day of Chaos.
Quote from: Fungus on 09 August, 2016, 06:39:19 PM
My mate had a copy of 181 and once seen, I bought my own. That was that.
It also meant my first Dredd was the final part of the Judge Child ("Part 26" ?!), and a Ron Smith centre-spread that blew my mind. Brian Bolland's centre-spread the following week continued the damage. McMahon's Aggro Dome punched me in the face the next week. Happy days.
This was almost exactly the first actual prog I bought: mines was one issue earlier, the second-last episode of Judge Child, [the 25th] with the volcano erupting on Grunwald/ Xanadu, as the Grunwalder surveys his kingdom in the centrespread, around early Autumn, 1980.
I first saw Dredd about halfway through the Cursed Earth saga in summer 1978, in my mates' house and I just
knew this was superior, hyper-quirky stuff. I never knew the artists' names then, but I remember thinking that Mc Mahons' scratchy style looked like a souped -up, sci-fi version of David Laws' style [!] 'Dennis the Menace' out of Beano original artist, early 50s-1970---I kid ye not!
I still regard the era around Starlord merger period to be amongst the most memorable in the canon---'twas still good in the very early 80s, too.
Somewhat aptly, the large , decaying, detached house I saw my first 2000 AD comics in later on erupted then imploded after being engulfed in a raging fire which destroyed the building altogether: a somewhat fitting scenario, taking into account the apocalyptic nature of many of Thargs' stories.
Getting the free RotJ sticker album in prog 333. Never looked back.
V
pretty sure it was prog with jigsaw man , don't remember being aware of him or 2000ad before that.
1993 with polish edition of Judgement of Gotham then I have to wait something like 5 years for another Dredd story to be published here (if I remember corectly this was reprint of "He came from outer space" in obscure Egmont monthly anthology magazine).