Art Auction: Judge Dredd Year One #1

Judge Dredd Year One #1 (IDW, 2013)
Art by Dave Sim
Auction: Sold for $520 (plus 19.5% BP), May 2013

HERITAGE AUCTIONS:

Explosive variant cover for the new JD: Year One series, featuring Sim's distinctive ink work. Image area measures 11' x 17.25" and the art is in Excellent condition. Also includes five signed / numbered copies of the comic. 

DAVE SIM:

(from a fax, December 2011)

The biggest thing in my mind was, "Don't make it look American." There is a definite "look" to British adventure comics that's different from American comics. My thought was that the book will sell what it sells in North America -- you probably can't affect the sales. BUT! If you don't respect the history of the character you CAN kill sales in the UK. So, I started with Neal Adams as my model for design -- all those great Superman family covers he did back in the 60s and 70s. What would make someone pick up the comic and buy it? What's a great visual teaser? But I jumped from that to: does this look like a cover that Fleetway would publish? pretty much right away. Where's the meeting place between Neal Adams design and Fleetway execution? Fortunately I had Brian Bolland's model sheet for the character, so that kept Fleetway front of mind as I was tight pencilling. I had the big blocky lettering of the JUDGE DREDD YEAR ONE logo and I thought, well, start with that. That's really the point: how are you going to top JUDGE DREDD YEAR ONE? You can't so don't even try. The idea was that this school for delinquent boys is the source of these catastrophic events and its Dredd's first case. That's another problem. Because of Diamond's lead time, you really only have an outline for a story that hasn't been written or drawn yet. So all you can do is get the idea across in an iconic way, so it doesn't VIOLATE what ultimately gets written and drawn. I had the name of the school, so I decided to put it on a sign. Then came the concept of Dredd basically trapped inside his first case -- literally inside the lettering -- with the threat roaming free outside the lettering. Read the full article here.