Zarjaz Special focuses on Dredd's Dark Judges

Conor Boyle's cover art for
'Dark Judgement'

Comic writer Richard McAuliffe and artist Conor Boyle have put together an ace but very creepy Zarjaz Special focusing on Judge Dredd's 'Dark Judges', which will be on sale at the British International Comic Show next month.

Dark Judgment is a not-for-profit fan project published by FutureQuake Press and will cost a measly £1.50 of your Earth money. The project presents a series of admittedly gruesome but riveting shorts featuring the four Dark Judges that definitely takes them back to their roots as some of the nastiest creations ever to grace the pages of 2000AD.

Richard is the writer of Damaged Goods, one of the Insomnia books now looking for a new home. "I got speaking to Conor Bolye at Bristol Con about possibly doing something together," he told downthetubes, "and we both decided it might be fun to try and make the Dark Judges nasty again as they'd gone a bit comedic over the years.

"I wrote four stories, expecting Conor to pick one to draw and he decided to do the lot. We showed these to the guys at Zarjaz and off the back of that they decided to let us put out a one off special edition which is gonna be launched at Birmingham."

"The idea is that this will be a return for the four Dark Judges to the days of their first appearances in 2000AD, when they were just plain nasty," adds Conor, "as opposed to the slightly camp pantomime status they achieved in later years."

Having just been read a 'sneek peek', I can safely say they've achieved their goal.

While all four Judges appear, I think the tale featuring Judge Fire is possibly the creepiest and most effective of the stories, as Fire torments a young mother with an impossible choice as he terrorises her in her own home.

This is definitely a comic that will appeal to hardened horror and Dark Judge fans, but be warned, it's not for the faint-hearted, with all age groups, including children, coming under attack from the soulless Judges...

You have been warned...

• Check out sneek peeks of art for the comic at Conor's blog

• More about Zarjaz on their official blog

• More about the Dark Judges on 2000AD Online

The Judge Fire tale in the Dark Judgment special is, perhaps,
the most disturbing of all the stories in this special. Art by Conor Boyle.