2000 AD’s monthly sister publication Judge Dredd Megazine will celebrate its 35th anniversary running with all new stories and serials. The issue will be available in print and digital from October 15 in the UK, with the US print release (orderable via Diamond and Lunar Distribution) expected November 19.
The Judge Dredd Megazine debuted October 1990 as a monthly extension of 2000 AD’s signature character, and serving as a bonus anthology with stories receiving greater page counts than in the weekly magazine.
The Megazine has been a vehicle to explore other (often distant) facets of the wider Judge Dredd universe and been the home of classic series and storylines – most notably Judge Dredd: America. Popular series have included Insurrection, Lawless, The Simping Detective, Devlin Waugh, Tempest, and Judge Anderson; plus non-Dreddworld material such as Spector, and Al’s Baby.
Alongside the inclusion of bonus reprints, the Megazine has also complemented the comics content with features, interviews, and the occasional column.
“Thirty-five is an extraordinary birthday for any comic to have reached, let alone one that was tasked with expanding the universe of its older sibling’s lead character and has been running neck and neck with it ever since,” Ben Smith, Head of Film, TV and Publishing for Rebellion said in a statement. “Such longevity would have been impossible without our editor Matt Smith guiding the Judge Dredd Megazine for more than half its lifetime, nor without the incredible artists and writers who have sustained it with classics, bold experiments, unexpected adventures, new characters, alongside the journalists giving us one-to-one interviews that cover the history and present of the comics medium in the UK. Most important of all, we are enormously grateful to the Megazine‘s readers; subscribers and newsstand regulars, both physical and digital customers who have ensured its ongoing success.”
“The Meg reaching its 35th anniversary is a fantastic achievement, and testament to the wonderful work being published in its pages that readers are still flocking to,” 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine editor Matt Smith added. “It’s fair to say that before the turn of the millennium the Meg’s future was not guaranteed – but it’s flourished over the past quarter of a century, building on some of the stunning stories of the nineties to become the unmissable companion to 2000 AD…[T]he Meg may be approaching middle age but it’s stronger and more vital than ever.”
The 35th anniversary issue (#485) will see the latest instalment in the ongoing Judge Dredd: America saga, focusing on Judge America Beeny, the daughter of the classic storyline’s protagonists. Judge Beeny has become a sometime protege and ally of Dredd, while steadily rising through the ranks of Justice Department, in more recent years joining the ruling Council of Five.
The America saga was co-authored by John Wagner and artist Colin MacNeil, with the pair providing intermittent check-ins on Beeny’s plot thread over the course of the Megazine’s life. MacNeil will return for standalone story Judge Dredd: Letter from America, this time joined by Rob Williams – hot off scripting multiple acclaimed Dredd arcs in 2000 AD (A Better World, Tunnels). It will feature Judges Beeny and Dredd venturing into the Cursed Earth to discover a message from the past.
Other stories featured in this issue will all open brand new arcs, making it an easy jumping-on point for the curious. It will see the return of Mike Carroll and John Higgins’ acclaimed Dreddworld prequel Dreadnoughts, the long-awaited second series of elseworld Megatropolis by Kenneth Niemand and the late Dave Taylor (with Chris Weston joining to complete the story), a new case for Brit-Cit detective Armitage by Liam Johnson, Staz Johnson and Quintin Winter, and the return of Judge Anderson with Hell Night at the Cine-Pit by Alec Worley and Ben Willsher.
