How did you discover Judge Dredd?

[Ghost MacRoth]

I know I had read the occasional issue before I started proper collecting at around prog 500, never really had either cash/time/inclination till that point, but my earliest memory of 'Judge Dredd' would have been in a Sinclair Spectrum game called 'Car Wars' that had one building that said 'Judge Dredd' on top... you just inherintly knew you had to blow that shit up before you done anything else!  I assume it was either a developers easter egg, or some kind of indicator that it was a law enforcement building.

[Darren Stephens]

My uncle got me this, for Christmas, 1980. I'd only ever really read or been interested in Marvel comics, so this seemed like an odd choice. Then I read it........McMahons artwork blew. Me. Away. It was another couple of years before I started getting the weekly Prog. I've been a reader ever since. (though I still read Marvel every now and then. Don't judge, if you'll pardon the pun.) 

[Modern Panther]

The Judge Dredd Mega Special 1991, bought from the newsagents on Linlithgow High Street.  It had a screaming judge death on the cover and was well worth £1.75.  The first story I read was "it pays to be mental", which had a character who breaks the fourth wall : it was unlike any comic I'd read before, funny, violent, self aware.   I started picking up the prog regularly soon after.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I can't remember.  I think I was only about 5 or 6, and my brother used to get it - he was only a year older than me, though.  For most of my childhood 2000ad was his gig, and I was only allowed to read it when he was finished - then when he was about 14 he stopped buying it but I couldn't let it go so it became my thing. 

I was only about 10 when Wulf died, and I felt like I'd known him all my life.  I don't remember life without 2000ad.

[James Dilworth]

'Nuff said.

[maryanddavid]

I don't remember life without 2000ad.

Pretty similar story, my older brother was getting it since Prog one, and I remember his room walls covered in star scans when I was 5 or 6.
I started picking it up for him with my Beano when he got 'to old' to buy it, he eventually stopped wanting it so I'm pretty sure after a break of a few months my first actual bought myself Prog was 378. Its been a weekly ritual since, three different newsagents, all within a few hundred yards. When I was in college the newsies used to keep a months worth when I was away and then when I had the cash to pick them up It was thrill power overload(kinda, Nineties progs!)

[Bat King]

Prog 2.

Flesh was my favourite but I enjoyed every Thrill.

[judda fett]

My dad used to get the 'Star' when I was little and I first saw it in the strip page there. I feel like I always was aware of Dredd.

[PsychoGoatee]

I discovered Dredd because of the 90s movie, which I really enjoyed at the time. (I still do actually  )

As for the comic, in the early-to-mid 2000s I really got into reading lots of comics, and was attracted to any run where a writer or artist stuck around on the book for years. That always impressed me and added credibility to something.

Needless to say, considering the magnanimous amount of John Wagner (and Carlos, Grant, and friends) on this book, I knew I had to read it. Plus just having stuff like crossovers with Alien, Predator, Lobo and Batman, it was in my area of interest.

I live over in "New England" by the way, in the Mega-City One geographic area, so Dredd was not something that I came across in particular in comics stores in the 90s. I read cheesy stuff like Venom: Lethal Protector etc instead. Anyways, glad I found Dredd, and 2000AD in general. 

[Timothy]

I remember reading a load of back issues when I went on a sleepover to a friend's house. I was reading Battle at the time and he introduced me to 2000ad, which felt like a more modern version of the stories I already loved. The first Prog I bought for myself was I think the one with The Perps on Runners Walk. Unless Sector House 9 came first in which case it was that.

[Mattofthespurs]

Same as many as I have been with 2000 AD from the start so the ad in Prog 1 and then the main event in Prog 2.

[AlexF]

My big brother and his best friend were in a gang (well, a small group of three boys hiding in a bedroom), and you were only allowed to join if you could name three Judges. Luckily he had a couple of Best of 2000AD monthlys lying around in another room, so I was able to scrounge up 'Judge Dredd, Judge Anderson and Judge Hershey'. I don't remember what happened then but I'm pretty sure they found some other pretext to let me join their gang anyway. Older brothers, man.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Older brothers, man.

Yep - my brother insisted on letting a day or two pass after finishing his prog before I was allowed to read it.  This was the rule, and I obeyed.  The prick, in hindsight.  Though obviously I'd find it and read it when he was off in another room. 

We get on very well, these days - I gave him the Cradlegrave GN for Christmas when it came out, to let him know what he was missing in the modern prog.

[norton canes]

This advert in prog 1.

Same for me, I think it was the TV ad that made me aware of prog 1, so I was straight off to the newsagents.

It's a weird picture of Dredd that, I've always thought. The head-on angle makes it difficult to recognise the Lawmaster as a motorbike, especially as no-one would have seen it in any other picture. In fact when it roared out of the page in prog 2 I'm sure I remember thinking "Oh, so that's what it's supposed to be". And the details of Dredd's helmet and face are almost impossible to pick out. To me it looked like the line of his visor was his mouth, set in a huge frown.

The overall impression I got was that this character must be a grumpy courtroom judge on some kind of bizarre mobile chair.

[Swerty]

Same here.I must of bought about 3-4 copies of issue 2 for the biotronic stickers for my friends.If only I'd kept them.