The art of Judge Dredd: 20 killer 2000 AD covers

THE PAINTED YEARS (1987-1999)

To celebrate its tenth year, Prog 520 of 2000 AD was printed in full lithographic colour – providing higher quality images - and the comic's cover art bgan to be produced with paintbrushes and tubes of gouache! Not every Dredd fans favourite period, but there were some great covers during this period.

Prog 585 - Bat Mugger

• By Alan Davis

"The Bat Mugger story was the only time I drew Dredd. At the time
I was working exclusively for DC on one of the Bat-books, but had
been asked to draw the Dredd/Batman: Judgement in Gotham
book. As is common with this type of company crossover, it was
held up by contracts. John Wagner had the idea to do the Bat
Mugger story as a warm-up on Dredd, since we hadn’t worked
together previously and I had never drawn Dredd. The contract
wrangles dragged on long after completing the Bat Mugger story,
and it seemed unlikely there’d ever be be a favourable resolution
– so I decided to move onto the X-books at Marvel, satisfi ed that I
had at least one opportunity to draw the character." - Alan Davis, Artist

Prog 848 - Inferno (Part 7)

• By Brian Bolland

"My objective was to write Dredd as an action movie. All of the Dredd stories I did were attempts to develop a filmic approach to the character." - Grant Morrison, Writer

Prog 1157 - War Games (Part 5)

• By Gregg Staples

"The power of the law, full colour depiction and low pov lovely." - John Higgins, Artist

Next: The Digital Age (1999-present).