Judge Dredd the Megazine #14

History

The issue was produced under the editorial oversight of Steve MacManus, with David Bishop serving as assistant editor and John Wagner and Alan Grant attached as consulting editors — a creative-contract arrangement MacManus had insisted upon from the launch to retain key talent who might otherwise migrate to American publishers. By issue #14, Bishop was assuming a larger operational role that would soon see him take full editorial control, and the issue marks the period he later described as a budgetary tightening that began to shift the Megazine toward cost-managing reprint content such as 'Heavy Metal Dredd,' originally commissioned for the short-lived pan-European music magazine Rock Power before being folded into the Meg.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published November 1991 by Fleetway Publications as part of Volume 1 of the Judge Dredd Megazine; the issue came polybagged with a bonus poster.
• Cover art by Simon Bisley, whose painted style on 'Heavy Metal Dredd' and 'Judgement on Gotham' defined the Megazine's early visual identity.
• Contains 'Judge Dredd: Raptaur!' Part 4 (script: Alan Grant; art: Dean Ormston) — the multi-part storyline that introduced Psi-Judge Karyn, a Psi-Division Judge whose stated ambition was to replace Anderson as the department's foremost psychic talent.
• Contains 'Armitage' Part 6 (script: Dave Stone; art: Sean Phillips) — the Brit-Cit detective series created by Stone and Phillips, which debuted in Megazine #9 (May 1991); Detective Judge Armitage and Rookie Detective Judge Treasure Steel are both featured, with Judge Nathan Hand listed as an antagonist in the Grand Comics Database index.
• Contains 'Red Razors' Part 7 (script: Mark Millar; art: Steve Yeowell), one of Mark Millar's earliest ongoing professional comics credits, a satirical strip set in East-Meg Two exploring post-Soviet cultural collapse.
• Contains 'Heavy Metal Dredd' (script: John Wagner and Alan Grant; art: Simon Bisley), stories originally produced for the pan-European rock magazine Rock Power in 1991 before being reprinted in the Megazine; their extreme violence generated a prolonged readers' debate that editor David Bishop would eventually shut down.
• Also contains 'Al's Baby' Part 11 (script: John Wagner; art: Carlos Ezquerra) and 'The Straitjacket Fits' Part 6 (script: David Bishop; art: Roger Langridge), a New Zealand creative team's comedy strip.
• Stories from this issue were later collected in the Hachette Partworks Judge Dredd: The Mega Collection series: 'Armitage' in volume #62 (December 2017) and 'Heavy Metal Dredd' in volume #73 (January 2017).

Cast · 8 characters

Full credits