2000AD / Judge Dredd / British Comics

When I was a young teenager I loved 2000AD, the long-running British sci-fi comic... and especially its most famous character, Judge Dredd.

Having recently turned 26, I've been feeling nostalgic and getting back in touch with some of the geeky hobbies I used to have as a kid. I'm talking about airfix models, video games - and reading 2000AD.

Except wait, hang on a second...

This isn't geeky. It's fucking awesome.

There's something wild about the 2000AD comics that I never got from reading US superhero fare, which has always left me cold. A really dark, satirical, brutal edge, with a very British sense of humour for something ostensibly set in a post-apocalyptic US.

So for the past 6 weeks or so, I've been picking up 2000AD and getting re-immersed in the violent world of Judge Dredd. And I'm wondering why I ever stopped reading. It's prompted my housemate and I to pick up a ton of old 2000AD trade paperbacks and I'm becoming totally obsessed.

I love how the character has aged with the strip - Dredd must be approaching his 80s now, and the artwork isn't afraid to show it.

Anyone else a current or past reader of this stuff?

(and the less said about the Sylvester Stallone movie, the better)

I've never read them, but I can see the appeal. Dredd is an iconic character; and they're making a new 'more brutal' film but it'll probably suck too.

When I was younger I thought 2000AD was some kind of Warhammer backstory or something and I made an instant decision (when I was 9) to never get into painting little orcs and comparing ranges on playing cards.

Of course, it's not. Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison cut their teeth on AD.

I used to dip into 2000AD back when I was a kid, used to fucking love it. I always thought Strontium Dog was cool, replete with Johnny Alpha's penis-shaped helmet. Also reread Alan Moore's Future Shocks stories recently which I loved all over again.

Drokk should be made an official UK swearword.

Yeah, we just got the first volume of Strontium Dog in paperback. Took a leaf through it last night - exciting stuff!

I'm enjoying some of the strips I haven't seen before. Indigo Prime has been resurrected (it last appeared long before I started reading the comic) and it's great, really mind-bending hallucinogenic stuff. Beautiful splash pages with lysergic/cthulhoid creatures tumbling through multiple realities... and William S. Burroughs is in it for some reason. Awesome.

I read progs 800 ish - 1000 ish, then suddenly one day stopped. Used to get the megazine and the specials they did too. Great stuff, and lovely artwork. Some of the story lines were very absorbing and very graphic, and I used to prefer the one-off non-dredd world stories.

Bradley was a wicked character if you remember him....

Simon Bisley lives around the corner from me - well he used to, he might have moved now. He seems to do a lot of artwork for DC / Marvel now looking at a google images search (hulk, punisher, other mutant stuff).

PS I am impressed it is still going strong after all this time - must have had its 40th birthday by now?!

I read what random and few progs were released in Norway/Norwegian when I was a kid back in the 80s. Mostly Bolland era, Cursed Earth, etc.

Recently I faced some health problems and had to take it easy for some weeks, which gave me the opportunity to revisit the old Dredd series. I bought the first two anthology books (roughly progs 1-120 or so) and read them in my rocking chair. Great fun, a bit haphazard and tons of nostalgia. Cool to read the series chronologically from the start and see the development of the Dredd character and the Mega City universe.

At 10eur each or something, these books are good value, I'll probably order a few more eventually.

I never really stopped reading it, and I still hold a special place in my heart for that awful awful movie.

A'mthelughrrrrr!!

  On 11/10/2011 at 4:17 PM, Iain C said:

A'mthelughrrrrr!!

Exactly.

While I haven't read any of the comics mentioned in this thread, has anybody ever read Strange Days? I found two issues by chance, and really dug Johnny Nemo.

I have fond memories of 2000AD, Sinister and Dexter were ridiculously cool and the strip that parodied Mr Benn was amazing.

Miracleman is one of my favorites