Lawless 2026: ‘Rok The World’ Panel With Co-Creators John Wagner And Dan Cornwell

The genesis of Rok was to work with BHP Comics in Glasgow. John Wagner‘s first pitch was a porn story — Randy Truckers in Space — but no one was willing to draw it, including Ian Gibson! So, he went back to the drawing board and was inspired a strip in The Eagle, Doomlord, also written by Wagner. But with football. 

He found Dan Cornwell in the unofficial 2000 AD fanzine, Zarjaz. At the time, Dan was a bus driver in Brighton. And it was while driving the bus that he got a message from Wagner. Needless to say, he didn’t quite believe it. Luckily, they were both Manchester United fans, which helped somewhat. 

As an artist, and former bus driver, Cornwell had plenty to base his Rok of the Reds characters on. “You get a lot of characters on a bus,” quipped Cornwell. He did, however, find it hard to depict Rok because of Hellboy being stuck in his head after Wagner’s initial description of Rok as “Big, red alien with horns”.

Cornwell praised Wagner’s scripts as “So good to work from … he doesn’t say too much,” with Wagner replying, “I like to leave a lot for Dan,” which I imagine is any artist’s dream of a script. Cornwell remembers how excited he was to start the art, and how blown away Wagner was, especially when looking at a specific double-page spread. Something we don’t get as often in 2000 AD, it was noted. At one time, every Judge Dredd strip started as a double-page spread, with interesting and innovative layouts as a result. 

The reason Rok of the Reds was made initially, off the back of a Kickstarter, an old school friend of Wagner’s — who owned a very successful company —  threw in a £5,000 pledge, guaranteeing its publishing. And now we’re onto the third. Instalments and being published in the Judge Dredd Magazine. This is also the first volume that has seven episodes instead of the usual six. “Because there’s so much to fit in,” as Wagner added. 

As for how it ended up in the Meg, Wagner was reticent to do another volume because he’d lost money on the first two volumes. At the time Wagner approached Matt Smith (2000 AD editor), they were about to do Roy of the Rovers, but soon after Smith took a punt on it. Particularly as he was able to buy the reprint rights to the first two volumes for a very low price. “I would have done it for free, as long as I wasn’t losing money. It was nice to be paid, though”. 

Wagner wanted to go back to his original Doomlord idea, but The Eagle claimed to own it. But, they couldn’t prove they did, although Wagner couldn’t improve; they didn’t. So, he took the Doomlord idea back (“There’s no copyright on ideas”) and made it a bot more R-rated in its violence. “He takes no shit!” exclaimed Wagner. 

From Cornwell’s point of view, its still an hour to work with him, even after over a decade working together. If he had any regrets, it was that he hadn’t been born twenty years earlier and got to work with Wagner for a longer period of time. A reminder that Wagner is slowly winding down from his writing commitments, having recently penned his last Judge Dredd strip for 2000 AD. Or so he claims now. 

A big challenge of this strip is illustrating the players as fluid on the pitch. Plus, “I do like drawing the chavs,” Cornwell claimed half-jokingly. As a big football fan — sorry, soccer, for our US readers — this is a dream job. And as we wound the panel down ahead of questions from the floor, Cornwell did agree he’s taking on Randy Truckers in Space. But, Wagner wisely announced that this particular story should be left buried in the unwanted files.