DREDDwatch #5 – We’re back!

Hello again Dredd fans, it’s been a while since my last round up of all things 2000AD and I can only apologise for the absence (tl;dr – my house got flooded by the River Thames and I had to move out, yadda, yadda, yadda). So where shall we begin? How about the excellent news that the Make a Dredd Sequel campaign hit the 100,000 signatures mark this week and to celebrate they (along with 2000AD) have released a little video featuring a big thank you from Karl Urban himself!

Speaking of Karl Urban, he’s still actively campaigning for the sequel to happen, and has recently been quoted as saying that “conversations” are happening between himself, writer Alex Garland and the studio, Lionsgate. And more recently at the Emerald City Comic Con he said that “God willing, we’ll do another one” during a Q&A panel the day before a special screening of the film, and that was reiterated at the screening itself.

Over on Amazon’s Movies and TV Facebook page they ran a “March Madness” bracket thingy which pitted 16 of the best movies against each other (from a list that their “Facebook fans have engaged with most”) and can you guess who won? Yup Dredd beat out some real heavy hitters including Pulp Fiction, The Godfather trilogy, Indiana Jones and finally The Lord of the Rings series to take the crown. Proof indeed that the fans are there for it — even Hitler has joined in (in a very NSFW way).

The recent comic-book only sequel, Underbelly, was a great success, selling out almost straight away and has just been reprinted with a new cover by artist Jock. It was so successful in fact that there are plans for another one in the summer, again starting in the pages of the Judge Dredd Megazine and no doubt following in a US style “one-shot” format later. Jock was also responsible for the concept visuals for the film, and as part of that process he produced all the storyboards and a full graphic novel version of the script to help sell the movie to investors. Now that version is being published, along with Alex Garland’s screenplay in a special 240 page volume to be released in July, as both a paperback and as a limited-edition hardback.

So what else have the fans been up to since our last round-up? Well, in addition to the fan series Cursed Edge which released its first episode a while back (and here’s a teaser for number two), there is now another fan film in production. It’s called Dredd: 99 Code Red and they’re filming now with a view to a release in the summer.

Also, I’ve been lucky enough to get involved with a great team of people who started producing their own comic series based in the world of Judge Dredd. For obvious copyright reasons, they don’t feature the chinned wonder himself, but rather are set in Mega-City Two (basically California to Washington). They follow the Judges and residents of that great city (across a couple of separate strips) as they deal with the aftermath of Judgement Day in the year 2135. The first two issues are already available to download for free, with issue three very close now, and they’ve even had a limited print run made so you can hold it in your hands and read it like a real comic! My contribution is the lettering to a lot of the strips, but I also got to colour the main story of the second issue — which I enjoyed immensely, but was incredibly time-consuming!
Get your copies now from 2135.co.uk and thanks for reading, see ya next time, creeps!

Bonus Links:

• Last week’s 2000AD (Prog 1874, pictured at the top) was a “jump on” point for new readers with five new stories including Judge Dredd, Sláine and Sinister Dexter, together with brand new strips Outlier and Jaegir. You can still grab it direct from the 2000AD shop or in the iPad app.
• There’s a Judge Dredd convention called “Lawgiver” happening on May 5th in Birmingham, UK, featuring guests John Wagner, Alan Grant, Peter Doherty and screening of both Dredd and Judge Minty.
• A fan has set up a Twitter account for renowned 2000AD artist Simon Bisley and is currently posting loads of his amazing (and sometimes NSFW) artwork.

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