Judge Dredd is one of the world’s best known comic book characters and appears in a film, Dredd 3D, released this week. As Jack McKeown finds out, the men who created him worked for DC Thomson and wrote their first stories in unusual surroundings.
”Pat was developing a new sci-fi comic, 2000AD, and asked if I’d help out. The one thing I noticed he didn’t have was a tough cop story, which from my experience editing Valiant I knew went down very well with the readers. Pat had another story about an occult detective that wasn’t working out, but the title, borrowed from the Reggae artist of similar name Judge Dread was a good one. It fitted a future cop, though he’d be more than a cop. He’d be judge, jury and executioner.”
Judge Dredd was given the big screen treatment in 1995, with Sylvester Stallone in the titular role. The film was poorly received, however, and this week a new movie, Dredd 3D, is released in cinemas.
”I hated the Stallone film,” Wagner continued. ”It had nothing to do with the character Carlos Ezquerra and I created. The new film is the complete opposite. I have no hesitation in giving it my recommendation. It IS Judge Dredd.”
Outside of Judge Dredd, Wagner has been a busy man. One of the stories he remains proudest of is The Bogie Man, co-written with fellow Scot Alan Grant, a homage to Scotland created for Glasgow’s year as City of Culture.
”We were delighted when BBC2 Scotland decided to film it in a one-hour special, though not so delighted when we saw what a mess they’d made of it. It remains Scotland’s biggest-selling independent comic.”
Another story penned by Wagner was turned into a far more acclaimed movie.
”David Cronenberg made a much better job of A History of Violence. It helped wipe away the bad taste in the mouth left by The Bogie Man and the first Judge Dredd film. They flew my partner and me over to LA for the premiere, drove us round in embarrassingly excessive stretch limos, first class flights there and back a stark contrast to the treatment meted out with the Stallone movie when Carlos and I had to wait until the very end of the credits to see our contribution acknowledged in miniscule type.
”And I mustn’t forget the current film, Dredd. It’s been a real pleasure working with screenwriter Alex Garland and Andrew MacDonald and the people at DNA. They’ve approached the project with great integrity and a determination to do right by the character. I’m happy to say they’ve succeeded.”
Although it’s 40 years since he left DC Thomson, Wagner still credits the company with much of his subsequent success.
”I in part owe my whole career to DC Thomson. They gave me a start, they taught me the basic rules and an attitude to the creative process that I still adhere to today.”
In a shed in Wormit in the early 1970s, John Wagner and Pat Mills began the revival of Britain’s comic industry.
Both have gone on to become titans of the comic world. Wagner created Judge Dredd, the most famous fictional cop after Dirty Harry, listed seventh greatest comic book character of all time by entertainment magazine Empire.
Pat Mills wrote many of Dredd’s most famous storylines and founded 2000AD, which became one of the biggest selling and most influential comics in the world.
In the chaotic, future-set MegaCity One, Dredd is a fascist cop who acts as policeman, judge and executioner.
Like The Dandy’s Desperate Dan but in a much more violent and adult way Dredd was in part a satirical British viewpoint on the excesses of American law enforcement and military might.
Dredd’s creator John Wagner (63) was born in Pennsylvania in 1949, into a war marriage that went sour. When he was 12 his mother took her children and moved back to Greenock. The change of location possibly saved Wagner from a life of delinquency.
”America was a lot wilder than Scotland, where I was anyway,” he said. “Come May it was warm enough to go swimming in the muddy water of the local river. It was still pretty segregated then there was a swimming spot for the white kids and a separate one for the black kids.
“I was a pretty badly adjusted youth, fighting all the time, in occasional trouble with the police. By the time we moved I was pretty happy to go. I benefited a lot from the added discipline of life in Scotland.”
Wagner got his first writing job at DC Thomson, parent company of The Courier.
”I started off in the fiction department, which is where they put new recruits that no editor liked the look of. I suppose I just about passed muster because I was eventually promoted to chief sub, though most of the time I still didn’t know what I was doing (a condition that persists to this day). One of the fresh subs to come under my rough and ready tutelage was a young ginger-haired Englishman, Pat Mills.”
After around two years, Wagner followed Mills out the door to try his luck as a freelance writer and the pair teamed up on a range of stories.
”We worked mainly from a little shed in his back garden at Wormit. When I was in Dundee last year (Courier sub-editor and comic fanatic) Mike Donachie kindly drove me round all my old haunts, including a trip to Wormit. The village had changed so much I barely managed to pick the house out. You can imagine the puzzlement of the new owner finding two men at her door asking if they could photograph her shed, but she was very good about it. Some 2000AD readers have dubbed it ‘The Thrill Shed’ I love that.”
Although Judge Dredd didn’t make his first appearance until 1977, the roots of his character were developed during the collaboration that began in the Wormit Thrill Shed.
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