The timeless draw of Judge Dredd

Drokk! The current crop of Judge Dredd artists tell Ian Dean why Mega City One’s famed lawman has stayed the course…

- Ian Dean

Few characters in comic’s history have remained as consistently inconsistent as Judge Dredd. The late Steve Dillon’s Dredd offers a realism different from Ian Gibson’s, but they’re both beloved. Mega-City One’s hero has always been open to change. How is it to draw Dredd?

Dredd regular PJ Holden tells us, “I think it comes down to both the iconic unchanging elements and just how amazingly flexible the design has proven, which means that you pick and choose how you want to draw him.” PJ continues: “Hopefully over time you end with a look that’s unique to you and strong enough it might eventually become one of those iconic portrayals.”

TRICKS OF THE TRAD

PJ has come up with his own way to draw Dredd. He imagines there’s an armour plate under the iconic eagle, enabling him to reposition the pad to create a more dynamic character.

“I also tend to push the cartoonier aspects of Dredd’s world while leaving him like a big lump of realistic granite in it,” he says. “Reflecting, I think, how Dredd’s world is (Mega-City One, home to 400 million lunatics, and Dredd the incorruptible face of justice) and how I like to draw.”

PJ adds that Dredd, as a strip, is unique in its pacing. With six to seven panels per page, the pacing is faster than a usual comic. “Carlos would frequently do a great Dredd shooting and person being shot right beside each other – close-ups on both – solving the perennial problem of ‘Dredd shoots perp’.”