About
Judge Dredd is a character from the British comic book publisher 2000AD which is owned by Rebellion Development and was created by John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra and Pat Mills. Dredd is one of the many judges, a law enforcement officer with the power to act as judge, jury and executioner, in Mega City One, one of the last cities in the dystopian North American wasteland in which the series is set. Dredd is known for his strict adhesion to the law and how by the books and serious he is, especially compared to other judges. Judge Dredd is also known for being ultra-violent to lawbreakers who resist arrest.
History
Comics
In 1976 the editor of 2000AD, Pat Mills went to one of his close friends and writers, John Wagner, to come up with a new character for the magazine. Wagner took inspiration from tough cops and wanted to take the concept to its logical extreme. Wagner had already been working on an idea for 2000AD, a horror comic called Judge Dread but felt it was not suitable for the magazine and instead he took the name and adjusted to Judge Dredd at the suggestion of another editor. Wagner went the artist Carlos Ezquerra to come up with ideas for the look of the character and modelled after the films set in a dystopia, like Death Race 2000, after some co-operation the design for Dredd was created.
Eventually in 1977 the magazine 2000AD published Judge Dredd and by the end of his first storyline “Robot Wars” Dredd quickly became the most popular character created by the company. In 1983 he was published under Eagle Comics in America, and later in Britain 1990 he got his own magazine called “Judge Dredd Megazine”. Dredd has also been published by DC comics as well as IDW.
Films
The character has had 2 films, Judge Dredd released in 1995 and Dredd released in 2012. The former is generally considered to be a bad film, due to it’s corniness and lack of faith to its source material, while the latter is praised highly and received mostly positive critical acclaim despite not doing very successfully at the box office.
Fandom
Judge Dredd has a relatively small fandom. There are a few Tumblr blocks dedicated to Judge Dredd and the Mega City One Mythos. There is over 6,800 results for Judge Dredd fanart on DeviantArt and 36 fanfiction on fanfiction.net. (August 2015).
Related memes
I Am The Law!
“I am the law.” Is a iconic quote from the character. It was popularized by the films, but has also appeared in songs influenced by Judge Dredd and is associated with the character .
Gaze into the fist of Dredd!
Gaze into the fist of Dredd is meme based on an image from the Dark Judges storyline from 2000AD. The image is of Judge Dredd punching Judge Fear in the face, going right through to the back of his helmet shouting “Gaze into the fist of Dredd!”
