270806-Sample.Pdf

Sample file Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley Published by Rebellion, Riverside House, Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK 2000 AD Editor in Chief: Matt Smith Graphic Novels Editor: Keith Richardson www.rebellion.co.uk Digital Comics Editor: Oliver Ball Graphic Design: Sam Gretton & Oz Osborne ISBN: 978-1-78108-444-1 Reprographics: Kathryn Symes PR: Michael Molcher Printed in Malta by Gutenberg Press Manufactured in the EU by Stanton Book Services, Head of Books & Comics: Ben Smith Wellingborough NN8 3PJ, UK. Original Commissioning Editors: Kelvin Gosnell & Steve MacManus 1st Printing: July 2016 with special thanks to David McDonald & Mark Perry 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 OriginallySample serialised in 2000 AD Progs 61-85. Copyright © 1978, 2016 file For information on other 2000 AD graphic novels, or if you have any Rebellion A/S. All Rights Reserved. Judge Dredd and all related characters, their distinctive likenesses and related elements featured in this publication comments on this book, please email [email protected] are trademarks of Rebellion A/S. 2000 AD is a registered trademark. The stories, characters and incidents featured in this publication are entirely fictional. To find out more about 2000 AD, visit www.2000ADonline.com THE CURSED EARTH

WRITERS PAT MILLS // JOHN WAGNER // CHRIS LOWDER ARTISTS MICK McMAHON // BRIAN BOLLAND SampleCOVER ART file BRIAN BOLLAND JUDGE DREDD CREATED BY JOHN WAGNER & CARLOS EZQUERRA INTRODUCTIONS

Pat Mills was a bit snowed under, I was told, and needed an episode for bullet. If the thought that we would be infringing trademarks here and there on his epic Cursed Earth series just to take the and stepping on potentially litigious corporate toes occurred to me pressure off. It was Nick Landau, then a sub-editor on 2000 AD, who it couldn’t have carried much weight. Nor could it have impressed suggested a story about the big burger chains at war. At the time the comic’s staff either. We were all young and callow, we didn’t care they were just moving into the UK. McDonald’s had opened its first (though quite how the story slipped past the higher echelons at IPC branch on The Strand in London and I’d made a special trip there to without being quashed is still a bit of a mystery). see what the fuss was about. Today I wouldn’t come within a mile of the subject. I’m older, wiser Like their food or not - and I do - I’m never reluctant to have a go – no doubt a little bit duller – but the truth is this story and the Jolly at corporate power. In this case corporate power gone mad. The idea Green Giant episodes could have ended 2000 AD’s life right there. sounded like a lot of fun. And that would have been it. No nearly 40 years of the Galaxy’s Greatest and everything that means to so many. It was the early days of 2000 AD. It was wild, irreverent, a bit mad itself. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to conjure up two I figure we got away with one there. competing armies – more like renegade bands – led by the Burger John Wagner King and Ronald MacDonald himself, fighting it out toe to toe, bullet May 2016

You have to understand that during the dog-days of the 1970s, Whenever I needed a plot in a hurry, my first port of call – thanks we – writers, artists, editors – were all young, living in, or at any to Wells’s ‘Dr Moreau’ and Sarban’s ‘The Sound of His Horn’ – was rate within striking distance of, London (then the most exciting always the one marked ‘mad scientists doing terrible things’. John city in the known world), and having fun. Boy, were we having fun! was taking a pop at Ronald McDonald, which was fair enough. Consumerism! The image of the Jolly Green Giant rampaging On 2000 AD, Battle Picture Weekly and Action – and I wrote around the Cursed Earth seemed a not entirely bad one. Especially for all three – there were few, if any, rules. So long as the story if – as Kelvin and I bounced the idea around – instead of the usual was good and solid, you could chuck in whatever bizarre action mad scientist’s usual low-browed Golems I could throw in a whole or ludicrous violence your busy brain could imagine. In fact you load of recognisable consumer/advertising icons as some kind of were positively dared by the various Thargs in the Nerve Centre battle-fodder for Dredd and Spikes. Hence Michelin Man, the Alka- (Steve Macmanus, Kelvin Gosnell, Robin Smith and of course that Selzer Kid (I think this was one of Brian’s contributions: he always deranged genius Doug Church) to be as violent and controversial liked drawing American stuff), Mr Cube and so on. I wanted the as possible. British Gas Council’s Mr Therm, but we couldn’t find a ref. Brian rang me at one point and said, ‘You may not like this, but I’ve ‘Giants Aren’t Gentlemen’ and ‘Soul Food’ emerged out of crisis, turned Dr Gribbon into Colonel Sanders.’ panic, and looming disaster. Both writer (Pat Mills) and artists (the wonderful Brian Bolland, and that skinny little genius Mike Why KFC didn’t try to sue us is beyond me. Brian’s portrayal was, McMahon) were slowing down to the point where a 5-page ‘Dredd’ as ever, astonishingly good. And very funny. Best scene, however no-show was a distinct possibility. – Michelin Man whizzing round the room like a punctured balloon. That had me laughing out loud. Someone wrote somewhere that Kelvin rang me and said, ‘The Judge – we need a two-parter. I clearly didn’t know that Judges’ guns couldn’t be used by non- Preferably by last week.’ He’d already asked John Wagner to come Judges. Blockhead! Michelin Man was a vat-created non-hume. up with a couple of episodes, but he needed one more story to Rules don’t apply. get ‘Dredd’ back into the production safe-zone. This seemed surprising since Pat was notoriously touchy (in many ways, quite Reading it again after nearly 40 years and I’m not unhappy: rightly)Sample about his stuff being interfered with. good action, plenty bizarrerie, some snappyfile dialogue (‘Eat Judge boot!’ indeed), a touch of pathos, and I got paid for having fun. I said, ‘Pat won’t like it.’ What more could you want? Jack Adrian (aka Chris Lowder) Kelvin said, ‘He doesn’t – but we’ve got blank pages to fill.’ May 2016 THE CURSED EARTH UNCENSORED

SampleSCRIPT: PAT MILLS // JOHN WAGNER // JACKfile ADRIAN (AKA CHRIS LOWDER) ART: MICK McMAHON // BRIAN BOLLAND LETTERS: TOM FRAME // PETER KNIGHT // JOHN ALDRICH Originally published in 2000 AD Progs 61-85 Sample file Sample file Sample file Sample file Sample file Sample file Sample file Sample file