It’s probably safe to say at this point that I’m something of a fan of Judge Dredd.

Sadly to lots of people that just brings back bad memories of the Sylvester Stallone movie. There’s a new Dredd project gearing up that will hopefully overwrite the last attempt, but you really need to go back to the source to appreciate the impact this guy had on a couple of generations.

So when I saw that @Termight was starting to fabricate actual helmets I was very interested. You may remember I already have some incredibly cool Termight merchandise so even though I’m not a big collector of this kind of thing (or fully understand the need to have a Harry Potter wand in a fucking display case) I knew the finished thing would have had a lot of work put into it. The attention to detail on the badge and buckle are exact so I new something on a larger scale was going to be special. Here’s what happened on Friday morning:

Showing the thing off on Twitter I was immediately christened ‘Old Man Mountain Dredd’ (cheers @stml), but the video and subsequent pics sent a little wave through the 2000AD demographic of my followers. Been a bit busy since then, but here are a few more photos for those of you that don’t think this kind of thing is nuts.

It’s a thing of beauty.

American comics circa 1979:

A generation using Robin as a role model. The horror.

2000AD the same year:

That’s how you grab a kid’s attention. I was seven years old when I started reading 2000AD.

And my favourite panels from The Judge Child Quest the following year:

The Joker was a fucking amateur.

I was in conversation the other day following completion of the Slingers sizzle shoot about why it was we care about the small details of geekery as much as we do. It seemed best summed up with this line:

“Some people visit, but we live in this world. You have Judge Dredd tattooed onto your arm for fuck’s sake…”

Which is a nice way of looking at it. I can’t oversell how big an influence 2000AD has been on me.

Talking to Sean Pertwee over lunch about our mutual love of the British sci fi comic back in the day was something to cherish. That he read the script and immediately recognised the character of GUN as a homage to Rogue Trooper is as key to me as his ‘getting’ the character of Colonel Hall. This stuff is important to me.

Subsequently I opened my iPhone in a bar the other night to find I’d been sent an exclusive peek at some new Judge Dredd and Rogue Trooper art work by current 2000AD artist Paul J Holden (thanks Paul!). This week I’ll be talking to Paul about having a bash at some Slingers artwork. It seems apt as back when the thing was called ‘Ratpackers’ it was very much a 2000AD inspired comic book project. And then on Saturday morning I heard this package crash into the hallway:

I’ve been aware of Termight Replicas for a couple of years at least (if memory serves I managed to talk about them on Londonist back in the day) so it was great to see @Termight in my twitter stream. Wakefield got in touch with me a little while ago and the conversation lead to Saturday’s package. The contents?

That’s a Judge Dredd replica belt buckle based I believe on the artwork of Cliff Robinson. Along side it was this:

Now I’ve had a Judge Dredd badge before. They gave one away with Prog 300 back in 1983 and I kept it in fairly good condition up until about five years ago. Not bad for a free gift made out of plastic and gold paint. But this… well this is a serious piece of comics merchandise.

Full disclaimer. I’m not a big collector of this stuff – half the time I’m just simply baffled by the array of comics related collectibles and the price tags attached to them. And nine times out of ten I’m amazed at how poor the attention to detail is. I’m happy for other people to be happy collecting that stuff, but I’m happier knowing that particular bug passed me by.

These two items though are in a different league. First thing you notice is the weight. These guys are not messing around. They even manage to kick the ass of non comic fans. The detail is brilliant and they’ve immediately both become prize possessions.

But if you have even a passing interest in 2000AD you are going to want something from Wakefield. Turns out he doesn’t do this for a living – he’s just a fan like you and me. I guess the easiest way to say it is that he lives in our world.

Go throw money at him – what you get in return is something you can’t buy anywhere else.