A-Z of Judge Dredd - 26 Important Things You Must Know
E is for Carlos Ezquerra
Carlos Sanchez Ezquerra is the Spanish born comic book artist best known as the co-creator of Judge Dredd. Ezquerra began his work in the 1970's, illustrating such titles as Major Easy before moving on to work alongside John Wagner on 2000 AD. It was Ezquerra's brilliant, visionary mind that created the aesthetic of everything we see in a Dredd comic strip, from the stark cityscapes to the grizzled chin of Dredd himself. More recently Carlos' son has taken to illustrating some of 2000AD's greatest characters but has yet to be let loose on our favourite lawman ... yet.
F is for Chief Judge Fargo
Chief Judge Eustace Fargo is as important a character to the Judge Dredd story as you'll ever come across. You see, without Fargo there would be no Dredd. Known as the 'Father of Justice', Fargo was the Dredd of his day, but after he was caught with a prostitute Fargo would attempt suicide, unable to live with his own transgression. With little hope he would recover (at first) the Justice Department began a cloning process to recreate the greatest law man of all time. Those clones included both Joe Dredd and his 'brother' Rico. In the none canon DC version of Judge Dredd, Fargo was an evil dictator - quite different from how he is portrayed in the original source material.
G is for Gotham City
What do Judge Dredd and Batman have in common - apart from their massive, chiselled chins we mean? Well, neither shows his face and both have an unwavering ideal of how society should be. OK, so perhaps Dredd goes about his business in a far more blood thirsty manner but they're essentially the same creature. Imagine then how completely amazing it was as a comic fan to see the dream come true in Judgement on Gotham, where the maniacal Judge Death somehow managed to end up in Gotham City with Joseph Dredd in hot pursuit. Written by John Wagner and Alan Grant and featuring art work by the legendary Simon Bisley, this was one of four Batman/Dredd crossovers in the 1990's.
H is for Hocus Ritter
Hocus Ritter will forever be remembered as the simple farmer that faced Judge Death in the afterlife and threw him into the pits of Hell. In life he was a good man, making a life upon the Cursed Earth. But when his family were killed by the darkest of the Dark Judges he was pushed over the edge, eventually finding himself executed for murder when he killed a vendor dressed in Death's outfit.