Next week’s Program 2450 will feature the first chapter of the new Judge Dredd Story Arc by author Rob Williams, artist Henry Flint and Letterer Annie Parkhouse.
Of course, this is the same team that last year, one of my personal favorite comics, Dreadjudge Dread: Create a Better World. However, this new arc promises that if the first chapter (I took a high-level view) is any indication, it will be very different.
Title & To the Sea Return is a horror story with a dark, mysterious atmosphere at its heart, sinking into Barge, a terrifying floating prison that moves around the world’s black Atlantic Ocean. In the first chapter, it’s only enough to simmer and chill the appetite. And recently I had the opportunity to ask Williams and ask a few questions about it.
Watch the conversation below ahead of the Prog2450 arriving next week… enjoy!
Interview: Williams and Flint discuss their new story at Program 2450
Beat: Was there anything specific that influenced this new horror story? If so, what was it?
Rob Williams: Henry Flint had finished our Judge Dredd story “The Better World,” so I asked him what he was doing next. “Horror?” That was really it.
Henry is one of the best storytellers we have in comics for my money, and he did an incredibly innovative job in “a better world.” I wanted him to keep rolling into what he invested in. “The Better World” was a political thriller.
You want to keep things fresh. One of the great things about Judge Dread during his 48 years of running is that the strip can include story genres such as comedy, action thriller, sci-fi, horror and more. This is definitely a horror story.
Henry Flint: From my point of view, I found it fun to go to a horror story as it’s on either side by the two political thrillers. Purely for my benefit, we thought it was a good break to draw something completely different. We both love the horrors of folklore.
I live in a small Devonshire seaside town, so Rob thought sea folk horror might suit me more. He gathered many sea people, mixed in at the northernmost point of the megacity, and broke down and fell into the sea. Rob has a great way to find out what I want to do before I know for myself. He is like that and always finds the strengths of the artist.
You can’t compete with horror masters like Dave Kendall and Nick Percival, but hopefully you can find a way. Hopefully it will be more lovecraft than Scooby Doo, we will see.
Beat: Are there any past dread stories that you would recommend reading or revisiting before diving into this?
RW: Not particularly so. You don’t need to read this to understand. You can easily enter the first floor here. However, if you want a cool dread horror story, try Death Judge Death, Dark Judges, the City of Damned, and ISO Block 9’s Unforgettable Death Judge Death.
I wrote a lot of different kinds of stories in Beat: Dread. Why is he so flexible and adaptable to various genres and types of comics?
RW: John Wagner, Carlos Ezkera, Alan Grant and CO created it in the world. It’s very rich and diverse, and when you were a child, you didn’t know what you were getting in the next week. I think my first weekly 2000 ad order dread story was “League of Fatties,” a satire about social obesity. Dread always had the eerie trick to predicting future trends.
HF: John Wagner was always able to twist all genres and adapt to fit the story of Judge Dredd. Doing so will change the character of Dreads somewhat. Dread can play both bad guys and good guys. In adventure stories, Dread usually plays a good guy, and Rob plays it too. I particularly liked drawing dreads as a hero because as a child it was a story that captured my imagination.
RW: “The Better World” addressed topics such as the rise of fascism and the impact of billionaires on society. I think it can be said that “And the Return of the Sea” has a climate urgent theme, but at the end of the day, it’s just a terrifying horror story.
The Beat: You and Henry Flint have worked together at this point in a considerable number of judge dread stories, including this new one (obviously). How did the collaboration change during your work together?
RW: All collaborations with artists are different. When I work with people like Lawrence Campbell, PJ Holden, Pie Paa they send me breakdowns and we talk a bit. Sometimes, before going to pencil or ink, I will provide suggestions for changes.
Henry sends the script to editor Matt Smith, who eventually passes through Henry’s completed coloured pages. And they are always spectacular. When it comes to comic storytelling, he’s like Savant. In “A Better World,” he asked if Arthur Wyatt and I were gradually breaking down the script. So, for example, it is possible that six panel pages in a script will be drawn as 12 panel pages. As stated, they are categorized into small storytelling increments with the exact same storytelling beats.
I’ve been working with Henry and I was confident he was telling the story, which made it beautiful. I think his work on GN is worthy of Eisner. He takes the same approach in “and return to the sea.” And his colour is also pretty impressive.
HF: Rob is always very encouraging in the way I do things. He can draw pictures of some of my strange behavior. As an example, I could spread his dialogue across multiple panels. Rob was extremely helpful in exploring these different kinds of storytelling. His work is full of intrigue and solid pacing, and only makes my work easier. Every time he comes up with something new, I’m really excited by the possibilities.
Beat: On the last two pages of this strip, it falls into the middle of something terrifying. How did you decide what to display to readers in that sequence and what to withhold?
HF: Haha, especially in horror stories, you can’t pass too much! A mystery is needed. Rob poses many unanswered questions very correctly, and I half-drawn some unfinished images. It will soon become even more clear.
RW: The first episode is the easiest. All the hard work is elsewhere. You need to know what’s coming, bully it, have a big cliffhanger. In this case, it’s scary and annoying. I think the difficult part of episode 1 of “And the Sea Return” was the setup scene at the expo between Judge Dread and Judge Logan.
Such a scene might have been easy to get boring, but the dialogue and interaction between the two really came out well. There are some really good lines out there from the dread.
Beat: Finally, what was your worst experience at the ocean?
RW: A couple in moments of she chicity. I rarely write about ocean lighting. A few weeks ago, my family and I were in Mallorca, Spain on a holiday. We took a catamaran at dawn and saw some dolphins. By the time we reached them, I would have been green and not been able to care much. Go back to the beach immediately.
In fact, there must be something about writing water for me. My Hellboy miniseries with Lawrence Campbell (scheduled to be released in November) also features Labrador ghost ships, nautical themes. Avast, etc.
HF: Too many to mention. I’ve talked a lot about it because I was raised in the ocean. I swam against the flow of the cleft, but it wasn’t fun. At age 5, I swayed up and down in the ocean after my father’s dinghy capsized. While I was swimming I kicked a rock just below the surface and broke my leg. One day I tried to see how far I could swim and burst my eardrum.
Or a childhood time when friends gather mussels in buckets. We were caught up in the tide and trapped in the sandbar. We swam back to the shore and had a bucket above our heads. The water was clear and I could see thousands of black crabs raw beneath me, moving in one direction with the incoming tides. I told my peers to look down. He did so, panicked and almost owned. A passerby pulled him out.
We then ate mussels and he suffered food poisoning. Interestingly, I didn’t see much of him after that.
The Prog 2450 will be released on Wednesdays from 2000
Catch the Beat program report featured every week in Wednesday’s comic review!
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