Judge dredd face?

[Dandontdare]

yup he's Clint. Always has been, and due to the real-time aging, always will.

[Frank]

due to the real-time aging ...

Dandontread The Megazine*.


*  https://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=43593.msg926684#msg926684

[JOE SOAP]

Wasn't that who he was originally modelled on?

In terms of overall character concept there's a fraction of Dirty Harry but in the Carlos concepts and early Mick McMahon stories his facial features seem to be based on David Carradine (from the Death Race 2000 film that Carlos was instructed to reference at the time) -

[M.I.K.]

There's always been a slight Clintiness to Dredd, hence six bullets, Rowdy Yates Block, that time he was literally a man with no name, orangutans (?), and possibly even his first name.

[Dash Decent]

Since we can often see the bridge of Dredd's nose, and we've seen his eyes via The Dead Man, we've pretty much seen his face. He just has a normal shaped kind of stoic manly looking face. Though it would vary artist to artist even if we saw it, like Bruce Wayne, so there'd be no definitive look.

We've also seen his brother Rico's face clearly, apart from the Titan mod nose job.  Get a picture of Rico, add in the nose we can see in Dredd pictures and give him a short neat haircut.  Bish bosh, job done.

Unless there's a suggestion anywhere that Rico had his facial features altered before going to Titan?

[PsychoGoatee]

Very true. The way I look at it, it's not exactly that Dredd's face is a mystery. It's just that he should never be shown without the helmet, because it adds to his portrayal/characterization, it just works.

[TordelBack]

Yep, Dredd's face is genuinely irrelevant: he is the faceless embodiment of the Law. Under the helmet there's just some head that looks like a pink-cheeked wrinkle-free version of this one:



That's it. No mystery. Judge Dredd's face is a helmet and a badge.

[JOE SOAP]

There's always been a slight Clintiness to Dredd, hence six bullets

And possibly taken from Logan's Run - in the book the Sandmen carried a gun that had six chambers each holding a different type of charge.

[Dash Decent]

Very true. The way I look at it, it's not exactly that Dredd's face is a mystery. It's just that he should never be shown without the helmet, because it adds to his portrayal/characterization, it just works.

My thoughts exactly.  That's why I felt the story about the fellow who tries to take a photo of Dredd without his helmet was misplaced in its emphasis.

[Tony Angelino]

I'd go with Clint Eastwood as well. He would have been perfect from the Dirty Harry era. Although Karl Urban did a great job in the Dredd movie and the main reason it worked was because he didn't take off the helmet.

On a related note was I used to think that Robo-Hunter's appearance was based on Ted Danson but on checking Cheers didn't start until 1982 while the strip was around from 1978. I don't think Ted Danson had a very high profile before then.

[dweezil2]

There's always been a slight Clintiness to Dredd, hence six bullets

And possibly taken from Logan's Run - in the book the Sandmen carried a gun that had six chambers each holding a different type of charge.

We must have some kind of psychic link Joe or this discussion had tweaked my subconscious and desire for mid-seventies sci-fi, as I found an irresistible urge to downloaded the pilot episode from the short lived Logan's Run TV series!

That theme tune and the sight of Donald Moffat before his run in with The Thing From Another World sure brought back some happy childhood memories!

And that gas cooker lighter gun still looks cool!!!! 

[dweezil2]

Also, any excuse to post a shot of Jenny Agutter right?

[sheridan]

Yep, Dredd's face is genuinely irrelevant: he is the faceless embodiment of the Law. Under the helmet there's just some head that looks like a pink-cheeked wrinkle-free version of this one:



That's it. No mystery. Judge Dredd's face is a helmet and a badge.

Does anybody else think that looks a tiny bit like John Wagner?

[sheridan]

In terms of overall character concept there's a fraction of Dirty Harry but in the Carlos concepts and early Mick McMahon stories his facial features seem to be based on David Carradine (from the Death Race 2000 film that Carlos was instructed to reference at the time) -

I thought the initial concept was a progression from the black NYC cop (which is still visible the very early stories, though seems to have been ditched by the time Joe made it to a colour cover where you could see his face).

Carradine died to to asphyxiation, possibly auto-erotic asphyxiation.  Would have been an interesting influence on the Dredd Dead art thread...

[JOE SOAP]

I thought the initial concept was a progression from the black NYC cop (which is still visible the very early stories, though seems to have been ditched by the time Joe made it to a colour cover where you could see his face).

I think that may have been a personal interpretation on McMahon's part of Carlos' concepts and never strictly an editorial decision - "I felt that Judge Dredd would be a man of few words and Stallone's Rocky Balboa was a good contemporary model. I also decided to give him some large lips - to put a mystery to his racial background." - Carlos Ezquerra

However, in Dredd's first published episode in prog#2 he's coloured as a white man (possibly by Tom Frame).