Hereās a FUN SURPRISE for you, which I kept VERY SECRET, unless you were one of the people I MIGHT HAVE ACCIDENTALLY TOLD: I drew a Dredd! This weekās issue of 2000AD - their latest REGENED all-ages special, sporting a fantastic Rob Davis cover - features my first work for 2000AD: a brand new CADET DREDD story; written by Liam Johnson, lettered by Annie Parkhouse, and illustrated by ME.
It was such fun to work on this, I canāt begin to tell you. Getting Paid To Draw Judge Dredd was literally, specifically the dream of Teenage Neill Cameron. Long before I had any ideas about āwritingā or ābeing a graphic novelistā or whatever my job actually is these days, it was very simple: when I grew up, I wanted to Draw Judge Dredd. And now I have! Iā¦ can retire now?
Wait, no, I still need to do the X-Men.
Iām just kidding! I am very excited to get back to my robots and my donuts and my magic demon tigers and, you know, all my regular nonsense. But I have to say, it was really refreshing to ājustā be a comics artist for once. Itās absolutely ages since I had a go at drawing something I didnāt write myself, and itās a whole different set of muscles to use and challenges which were really interesting to re-engage with. The fact it was such a fantastic script by Liam didnāt hurt, also. I worried I was a bit outside my comfort zone at first, but then it occurred to me that itās a story set in a big future city, with lines of flying traffic, and cool action, and it boils down to a relationship piece about two brothers winding each other upā¦
ā¦so, okay, not that far outside my comfort zone.
Anyway it was a joy to do and if nothing else, proves that all those hours I spent in my bedroom painstakingly practising drawing all the weird amazing details of Dreddās uniform were not in fact āa complete waste of timeā, MUM.
Anyway, check it out! Lots of other great stuff in the issue, your can find it right now in shops everywhere or direct from the 2000AD site!
Bought and read this with The Boy earlier this week, having seen your post. :) Really enjoyable - I know very little about Judge Dredd (outside of the very bad movie and the very good movie), but I presume Dredd's brother ends up being a Proper Baddie at some point?
The slightly harder edge to the stories was quite exciting for the 10 year old, compared to The Phoenix!
We looked out for a Freddie cameo in the background of the crowd scenes, but alas.