Judge Dredd (Daily Star)

From August 1981 to 1998, Judge Dredd appeared on the comic strip page of the UK national newspaper The Daily Star.

Initially the strip appeared in stories of at most 11 panels, usually self-contained, in the Saturday edition of the newspaper. The first stories were written by John Wagner and Alan Grant with art provided by Ron Smith. The readership of the newspaper at the time was five million.

This later changed to a three or four panel strip telling a continuing serial every weekday while the self-contained 10 panel strip continued on Saturdays.

Eventually this changed again when the three or four panel serial strip was published in the weekday and Saturday editions of the newspaper.

Continuity

The stories followed regular 2000AD continuity, taking place 122 years into the future from date of publication and reflecting events in the weekly comic, including the Apocalypse War and the appointment of Chief Judge Silver. It also featured characters, locations and concepts from the 2000AD story, including Henry Ford, Judge Anderson, Judge Death, Walter the Wobot, Otto Sump, Judge Hershey, Block Wars, the Time Stretcher, the Lawmaster, Boing® and Spy in the Sky.

Behind the Scenes

The intial regular artist was Ron Smith though over the years Ian Gibson and Mike Collins also made major contributions, along with a number of other 2000AD artists.

Mike Collins was the regular artist for three years, until job offers from the USA beckoned.

By the mid-1990s Mark Millar and Alan McKenzie were writing the scripts while Ron Smith and Carlos Pino handled art. When David Bishop took over as editor of 2000AD, he used up the existing created stories then replaced Millar and Pino with other writers and artists, alternating art between Ron Smith and others. When the strip was cancelled stories by Dylan Teague  (Warriors, featuring Inaba) and Charlie Adlard (The Blackwood Incident]] had been drawn.

Other creators who worked on the newspaper strips included:

• Scripts
  • John Wagner
  • Alan Grant
  • Mark Millar
  • Alan McKenzie
  • Gordon Rennie
  • Robbie Morrison
  • Andy Diggle
• Art
  • Mike McMahon
  • Ron Smith
  • Ian Gibson
  • Steve Dillon
  • Barry Kitson
  • Brett Ewins
  • Carlos Pino
  • Mike Collins
  • Sean Phillips
  • Dylan Teague
  • David Bircham
  • Charlie Adlard
  • Andrew Currie
• Lettering
  • Tom Frame
  • Steve Potter
  • Tony Jacob
  • Peter Knight
  • Gordon Robson

Stories

See:

• List of Daily Star Judge Dredd weekly stories
• List of Daily Star Judge Dredd daily serials

Awards

• The Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain, Comics' Adventure Strip Cartoon of the Year, 1984

Reprints

Many of the Saturday strips were reprinted in five volumes. Other than these, a few stories have been reprinted in annuals, but most of the daily strips have never been reprinted, having only seen publication in the daily newspaper.

• The Judge Dredd Collection (1985)
• The Judge Dredd Collection 2 (1986)
• The Judge Dredd Collection 3 (1987)
• The Judge Dredd Collection 4 (1989, some repeats from earlier collections)
• The Judge Dredd Collection 5 (one continuous collection of a single daily story)
• The Judge Dredd Mega Collection (hardback, 1990, repeats from the first four collections)

As of 2014, Rebellion are reprinting all of the daily strips, including those that have never been reprinted before.

• Judge Dredd: The Daily Dredds Volume One
• Judge Dredd: The Daily Dredds Volume Two