Art For Art’s Sake #250: Brian Bolland’s Beautiful Dredd Covers

by Richard Bruton

Wow, 250 of these already? Why, it seems like only yesterday etc etc. So, let’s take another little trip through something very special in comics art – it’s Art For Art’s Sake, and it’s a Brian Bolland doing Judge Dredd special.

Let’s end with something I’ve always loved… all those fabulous Judge Dredd covers Brian Bolland did for the Eagle Comics reprints back in the early ’80s.

From 1983-1986, Eagle Comics republished 2000 AD tales of Judge Dredd and others in US comic format, an attempt by Nick Landau of Titan Books to break the characters into the US. Of course, Landau and Titan were already responsible for the excellent reprint series of 2000 AD albums of the time.

One thing that was immediately obvious with the Dredd comics – certainly to a young, young me on seeing them on the shelves at Nostalgia & Comics, my comics home for many decades in the UK – was just how incredible Bolland’s cover work was. For many, these are some of the finest covers Bolland’s ever done. With the benefit of time between the published stories and Bolland having to cover them, it really does seem like a master artist drilling down into the tales to give you the perfect cover distillation.

Anyway… Eagle Comics Presents Judge Dredd #1-10 by Brian Bolland…