![\"The](\"https:\/\/scottsnowden.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/2000AD-logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/a>The iconic logo that was used on the front cover throughout the 70s<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cUp until then, comics had been written by people who really didn\u2019t want to be writing comics, they wanted to be writing proper novels or articles for proper magazines. The artists really wanted to be proper magazine illustrators instead of largely slumming it in comics and the editors were all waiting until they could get onto a proper job like being editor of Practical Gardening,\u201d says artist Dave Gibbons, whose impressive portfolio includes Rogue Trooper and the Watchmen.<\/p>\n
Mills took the helm and knew immediately the direction he wanted to go in. \u201cThe people that were chosen to work on the comic had to have a certain counter-culture attitude,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Fellow writer John Wagner was brought on board and they all began to develop characters. A number of different ideas were considered for the title, but the futuristic-sounding 2000AD was chosen, which in 1975 was 25 years into the future, far enough into the future for IPC to be confident that the comic wouldn\u2019t last that long.<\/p>\n
For his model, Mills wasn\u2019t looking to America. He didn\u2019t look at superhero material, because he doesn\u2019t like superheroes. He was looking at France, where you had magazines like Metal Hurlant, which had launched only a year previously and contained visionary science fiction and fantasy stories and artwork by the likes of Jean Giraud and Jean-Michel Charlier, that had never been seen before anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n
Tapping heavily into cinematic culture from the period, including Rollerball, Jaws and The Wild Bunch \u2013 all movies that kids weren\u2019t allowed to see, Mills did not hold back with amount of violence in his stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the 70s, that\u2019s what culture was like, you just have to look at the sheer level of nihilism and brutality in cinema at the time,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the big appeals for me for 2000AD as a child was the fact that it was insanely violent,\u201d laughs Andy Diggle, former 2000AD Editor in Chief.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Block war! The iconic cover of prog 182 by Brian Bolland was emulated in the movie Judge Dredd (1995)<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t call it violence in comics, we call it action,\u201d says Strontium Dog writer Alan Grant.<\/p>\n
Such an example was Flesh, one of the first strips developed for the comic, set in an age where cowboys time travel to harvest the meat from dinosaurs. And then there was Judge Dredd.<\/p>\n
Wagner had written various Dirty Harry-inspired \u2018no-nonsense cop\u2019 stories for other comics and suggested a character that might take that idea to its logical extreme. The name Judge Dredd came from a combination of concepts and the task of visualizing this new character was given to Carlos Ezquerra, a Spanish artist who had previously worked for Mills on Battle Picture Weekly.<\/p>\n
Ezquerra was given a poster for the film Death Race 2000, showing the character Frankenstein clad in black leather on a motorbike, as a starting point. Ezquerra made some adjustments and created the world of Mega-City One. Artist Mike McMahon drew the first strip for Judge Dredd for issue two of 2000AD that went on sale on 5th March, 1977. Before long, he became the most popular character in the comic and has appeared in almost every issue since.<\/p>\n
Set after the Atomic Wars of 2070, the entire population of the USA is contained within three enormous mega cities, each home to about a billion citizens. The only thing that prevents civilization from descending into chaos in this dystopian future and destroying itself is the savage arm of the law. Called the Judges, they are the police and they are the military. Judge Dredd is a law enforcement officer in Mega-City One, which covers the entire eastern seaboard, from the Canadian border to the southern tip of Florida and stretching as far inland as Atlanta. He is a \u2018street judge\u2019, empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence and execute criminals.<\/p>\n
<\/a>2000AD is home to a universe full of action, adventure, aliens and anti-heroes >>> click for full-size image<\/p><\/div>\n
Judge Dredd was based in part on Margaret Thatcher and was ultimately a fascist. The more authoritarian Mills or Wagner made him, the more the readers loved him. He might work for a totalitarian state, but he was the good guy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good thing about Dredd is that he does have a strong moral code. Albeit not one that we would necessarily agree with,\u201d says Wagner.<\/p>\n
Two attempts have been made to bring this iconic character to the big screen, firstly in Judge Dredd (1995) starring Sylvester Stallone and later Dredd (2012) starring Karl Urban. The former is mostly disregarded by fans and is generally considered a farce, but the latter is highly regarded as being faithful to the character.<\/p>\n
In addition to its unique portrayal of extreme right wing life under the Judges, 2000AD tackled other important issues of the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust like many other kids my age, I read Dickens, and he is talking about the social evils of his day. So why shouldn\u2019t we talk about the social evils of our day?\u201d says Mills.<\/p>\n