How did you discover Judge Dredd?

freedonadd · 27 July, 2016, 07:03:11 PM

I was curious how the rest of you people came in contact with the toughest lawman of them all and started reading his comics. For me...well...i casually watched 1995 Stallone's Dredd and, not being the super hammy original english dub (LAAAAAAAW!) and being i 13 I thought it was awesome. Than I found out a new Dredd movie had recently came out (2012 one) and found it even more awesome. So i was curious about the comics and started looking around till i found IDW judge dredd volumes, where my knowledge of the Dreddverse expanded. From there, i started looking for the original, british progs and here I am. What is your story?

COMMANDO FORCES · 27 July, 2016, 07:12:23 PM

As a paperboy I saw Programme 1 on the shelf and asked Mr Bennett to put it by for me, until pay day

It was Dan Dare that got me!

moly · 27 July, 2016, 07:16:24 PM

Popped into a newsagents by school and picked up 2000ad with terror tube on the cover prog 167 loved it so more years than I like to admit

dweezil2 · 27 July, 2016, 07:22:37 PM

Quote from: COMMANDO FORCES on 27 July, 2016, 07:12:23 PM
As a paperboy I saw Programme 1 on the shelf and asked Mr Bennett to put it by for me, until pay day

It was Dan Dare that got me!

Not the same Mr Bennett from Take Hart, surely?

I've got my mate Joe (coincidence that?) to thank.

He exposed me to this great new comic called 2000AD with it's free Thargian Space Spinner and it's been an on, off love affair since then- but on permanently since Prog 716!

Frank · 27 July, 2016, 07:39:30 PM

The first nerd I ever met got transferred to my primary school. He was the kind of kid who knew that Darth Vader looked like that under the helmet because he lost a fight with Obi Wan Kenobi on the edge of a volcano.

I was persuaded to drop the Beano for 2000ad by being given a loan of about a hundred back issues, which included The Midnight Surfer, Halo Jones Book Three and Strontium Dog: Rage.

The first prog that fell through my letterbox was 511, and I ended up taking a job as paper boy for my street so I could get 2000ad as soon as it came out - and without my address scrawled across Zenith's face.

The Adventurer · 27 July, 2016, 07:48:35 PM

It was hard times back in the dark days of 2005, Crossgen was dead and my hunger for sci-fi comics was not being slate. DC had just announced partnerships with both Humanoids and 2000 AD. I wasn't that interested in 2000 AD, but I was having a ball reading The Technopriests and The Incal. But then one thing led to another and I found myself reading Nikolai Dante and Sinister Dexter, then I graduated to the Prog. And that's when I became acquainted with Judge Dredd.

Spikes · 27 July, 2016, 07:55:30 PM

Inspecting the discarded backing sheets to the Biotronic stickers in the school playground, lead me to a kid sat nearby reading Prog 2, and asking him was it any good? His simple in the affirmative reply was 'Judge Dredd'.

So, free gift, and a half glimpse over the shoulder read of the new thrills on the block was my introduction.

Colin YNWA · 27 July, 2016, 08:12:17 PM

My brother got Prog 1, which led him him getting 2 (and the first 80 odd issues). I tagged along in his wake!

Batman's Superior Cousin · 27 July, 2016, 08:24:55 PM

Reading Beat the Devil, waaaay back in the 90's!!!

IndigoPrime · 27 July, 2016, 08:25:20 PM

A cousin gave me some old annuals, which included the first 2000 AD ones and a Dan Dare. It was actually Dare that I initially gravitated towards, getting some Quality Comics reprints before a holiday. But then I saw issue 46 of Best of 2000 AD monthly, with its superb Brendan McCarthy cover.

That selection of Dredd was fantastic, and I was hooked and started buying Bo2K every month (which soon introduced me to Nemesis, Strontium Dog and Sam Slade). By that November, I was buying 2000 AD and a bunch more of those fairly awful 'Quality' Comics offerings. I shudder to think how many versions of certain stories I've bought over the years.

Albion · 27 July, 2016, 08:54:36 PM

My older brother got the first few issues of 2000AD but dropped it and carried on with Battle and Tiger.
I was reading the Beano and Dandy at the time, I remember the free gifts that came with 2000AD at that time more than the stories.
Then a bit later I saw the first issue of Star Lord and decided it was time to upgrade to a more serious comic and I got that for the entire run and then when it merged with 2000AD I carried on and I've never missed a Prog since.

Dark Jimbo · 27 July, 2016, 09:06:04 PM

I think it was probably Lawman of the Future. I never saw the Stallone film (though I've seen bits and pieces since) so I didn't care much about the tie-in aspect - it was just a cool-looking comic with violence, humour, robots and undead super-fiends. It didn't really occur to me to try the prog until about six years later - LotF came just towards the end of my comics-buying phase, not long before I decided I was getting too old to keep reading them; six years later I was at college and a bit more comfortable in my own skin, and realising that I could keep reading comics if I damn well wanted to. LotF had given me a fairly good grounding in Mega-City One and the Dredd universe so I felt right at home.

Dandontdare · 27 July, 2016, 09:35:48 PM

Prog 2.

Apparently I had to read about this "Dredd" fella if I wanted to get my mitts on those wicked-cool biotronic stickers!

SuperSurfer · 27 July, 2016, 09:40:35 PM

This advert in prog 1.

Dan Dare got me interested. M.A.C.H. 1 got me hooked. After a few issues Dredd was my favourite thrill.

Before I had read prog 1 a relative asked me what the comic was about. Me: "it's about the future". "How can it be about the future if it's got dinosaurs in it?" That was me stumped. I hadn't read Flesh yet.

radiator · 27 July, 2016, 10:04:57 PM

We were moving house, way back in the summer of 1995 and, packing my stuff in boxes down in the cellar and deeply bored I found an old copy of Best of 2000ad that had been given to me, along with a random assortment of Marvel comics (X Factor, IIRC), by a family friend.

I started reading - it was The Midnight Surfer - not even knowing that it was a Judge Dredd story (the cover, pictured below, did not make it clear), and it just instantly clicked with me in a way that those other comics in the box just didn't (I honestly found superhero comics impenetrable because of all the continuity, on some level I still do...). Even at that young age, the quality of the writing in this 'Judge Dredd' story was immediately apparent to me - so different to everything else I'd read to that point. I just instantly got it. And it hit me at just the right age.

I bought my first prog - 949 - a few days later, and by the end of that Summer I'd amassed a huge collection of 2000ads, Megazines, reprint titles and graphic novels (including The Judge Child, Judge Death Lives and Mechanismo), devouring each and every one, and, thanks to the Hamlyn A-Z of Judge Dredd book, I'd become an expert in all things Dredd in the space of those 6-8 weeks. The Complete Judge Dredd, then retitled 'Classic Judge Dredd' was my favourite - wall to wall vintage Dredd that I just binged on every month.

I remember desperately wanting to see the movie which was released that same summer, but couldn't as it was a 15 certificate.

It all made such a huge impact on me, and me discovering 2000ad and Dredd - as well as other reasons - means that the summer of '95 always stands out really powerfully in my memory while other years dim over time. Ah, nostalgia. Can't believe that was over twenty years ago now.