Cubist Dredd — McMahon/Wagner’s Howler
Written in May-June 2017 as an exercise in extreme vanity. Later abandoned. Finished in April 2026.
Judge Dredd is a kind of character who needs no detailed introduction. He’s a law enforcer with a square jaw from a piss-poor post-nuclear future with a tongue oddly placed in a cheek. In other words, he’s a tough guy who had been through basically everything.
- There were stories with him just being badass, getting into the trouble, being cool, snapping scum…
- stories that criticized needless militarization of police…
- stories that contemplated on the toll that takes the work on judges…
- stories about inadequacy of law enforcement system, about miserable inability to fix the society the hard way…
- comments on then-actual events…
Judge Dredd is incredibly flexible character that can bend in any shape the writer needs in any given situation. Consider this to be his superpower. He’s like Chuck Norris Facts, but for “real”. That presents infinite narrative potential.
For years Dredd and his magnificent setting of Cursed Earth and Mega City One had served as a playground for a variety of artists and writers to test their might and sharpen their skills and also perform some elaborate cunning stunts from time to time.
Here’s a story of one of the stranger and more glorious of the Judge Dredd stories.
Meet Mike McMahon
Mike McMahon is one of the best known Judge Dredd artists.
He was the man who drew the very first Judge Dredd Story in 2000AD prog #2 and thus set the fundamental elements of the aesthetics.
Mike McMahon is the man most responsible for molding the iconic looks of the Judge — the bucket-like helmet, signature jawline, ridiculous shoulder pads, big boots, overabundance of details on uniform, etc.
He also created blocky ABC warriors and Dredd’s one time nemesis clone-brother Rico (which was basically a one-off character until Armand Assante brought his to scenery-chewing glory in a vastly expanded capacity in the infamous 1995 Judge Dredd adaptation).
For a while he was the standard bearer for the Dredd’s aesthetic — dirty, dissonant, discordant… His kinetic, visually intense style with intuitive layouts could make any story look good no matter what. And since he worked with a top-tier 2000AD talent, such as John Wagner and Pat Mills — it was magick all along.
His focus on clear-cut action and downplaying of the expository filler was crucial factor in making the character distinct. Needless to say, it contributed to the character growing popularity in the 80’s.
McMahon’s art illustrated some of the best Judge Dredd’s stories including “Monkey Business at the Charles Darwin Block”, “The Fink”, “The Day the Law Died”, “Umpty Candy”, “The Judge Child”, “Block Mania” and legendary “The Cursed Earth” saga (with another Dredd legend Brian Bolland). Over time his style morphed from realistic, albeit stylized, into much more free-form, hard-edged.
In 1982 he quit Judge Dredd for quite a while to focus on other ventures (including lovecraftian conanesque fantasy “Slaine” and post-apocalyptic winding extravaganza “The Last American”). Then he had an extended break due to health problems that put a pause on his career from mid 1980s up until early 1990s when he came back with The Last American.
When he returned to Judge Dredd in 1994 it was apparent that he was not going to rethread his greatest hits. He was going to do something singular, something completely different. So he linked up with another Judge Dredd stalwart John Wagner and asked him for one of his signature “villain of the week” stories. Thus came “Howler”.
Howler
“Howler” was originally serialized in Judge Dredd Megazine 2.53–2.56 (1994).
Essentially, “Howler” is a throwaway story. It is a day in the life of Judge Dredd packaged as a monster-of-the-week story. Also — it is a little exploration of Dredd’s never say die attitude and his tough work ethic.
The story is simple and straightforward. An extraterrestial being known as Howler comes into an expensive hotel in Mega City One.
- As the man of will and taste, he demands the best possible service. If not — he will be very upset and utterly disappointed. He is that kind of person.
Howler’s demands are predictably declined and so he becomes very upset and utterly disappointed.
- As a manifestation of his severe annoyance he starts to wreak havoc by his powerful scream which makes wall crumble and people explode.
The beauty of Howler as the villain is that he is literally a loudmouth.
- Judge Dredd stories are full of loudmouth characters who talk big game and then crumble with a whimper the moment their authority is compromised.
- So to have a character who is both a loudmouth type but also literally a loudmouth who talks so loud it causes death and destruction around him. It is a very clever spin on the trope.
Judge Dredd is called upon the scene. After a short exchange - Howler declines to surrender. So Dredd attempts to arrest him only to be momentarily turned into a tomato can and kicked around like a rag-doll.
More Judges come around while Dredd is pulled away on a stretcher. But it doesn’t help as Howler simply annihilates any attempts at offense.
This forces Dredd to get up in whatever broken state he is and once again stand against Howler. Because Dredd is that kind of a person. He just can’t back down.
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But things are different this time.
- Dredd knows what Howler is capable of and so he decided to work smarter not harder.
- He taunts Howler and urges him to holler loudest, most destructive scream at him.
- Dredd wants Howler to finish him off with the biggest bang.
- Howler is flattered by such attitude and delivers the goods — he produces The Scream that will settle the score once and for all.
What Howler can’t stand is that he just executed his own Death Sentence.
In the end Dredd figures out a way to defeat Howler. It’s a classic “villain gets defeated by their own power” trope but it is applied gracefully.
Dredd directs a resonator onto Howler who does his rolling thunder yawp and that yawp redirects straight back into his mouth causing him to explode into a bloody mess. Howler absorbs his own scream and the internal shockwave tears him apart.
Dredd — all roughened up stands tall. It was probably Tuesday or something. The end.
What makes Howler so great and unlike other Judge Dredd stories (especially of that era) is art.
Mike McMahon applies this minimalist color-intense cubist aesthetics that renders everything blocky and bulky.
Aside from aesthetic qualities the shift in style is also due to change of artist toolkit. Howler is an early example of hybrid digital and hand drawn comics.
- Jagged, polygonal outlines of the figures. They break into sharp, angular segments. The lines outlining details of figures are consistent in thickness, sharp, geometric right angles mostly with no hand drawn line wobble. Background areas are often pattern fills. The colors abut each other with no shades — bucket fill style.
- Bulky lettering as a visual sound effect, making the reader feel the scream through page composition.
- McMahon probably used a computer to block out the basic shapes to build the perspective and go hand drawn afterwards.
- At the same time there are numerous elements that remain hand drawn. Howler is one of them. His teeth have slight irregularities in shape and spacing. The mouth outline got the hand drawn wobbles. The lines around the eyes and face show pressure variation.
Dredd is imposing in his judge garb but Howler is absolutely immense and overwhelming — he is barely contained by the individual frames and pages and the further it goes the more layout shifts toward full-page splashes.
The other important element is lettering that is equally bulky and blocky and cover much of the page when Howler does his thing. It emphases his power.
It’s a sharp contrast from McMahon’s classic Judge Dredd style that was reasonably cartoony but rooted in figurative realism (aside from fantastic elements).
Howler demonstrates a shift towards more vintage Metal Hurlant aesthetic — especially Moebius. Aesthetically it is closer to Moebius work with Alejandro Jodorowsky on Incal.
- Similarly to Incal — the costumes of civilians are lush and baroque, the color scheme is very warm but no earth tones. The technology is either fragile and delicate or bulky. There’s an emphasis on action over exposition — you get everything you need as you go.
At the same time — there is no depths to the image — it is very flat and constantly cluttered with crude but pronounced details — figures, objects, onomatopoeia — it is barely contained in the frame. It is very reminiscent of ancient frescoes — same flatness, figures pressed against the surface with nowhere to recede into.
However, it creates this oddly kinetic picture — like it is always at close-up range amidst the events.
- At times the frame is so close you can’t even tell parts of composition apart — like in the episode in which Howler holds Dredd upside down trying to drown him.
Dredd in this cubist aesthetic is still recognizable even with crude detail — his primary signifiers are intact — the bucket helmet, the immense chin, the badge, eagle shoulderpads plus green boots and gloves over blue bodysuit.
Except unlike other takes — this Dredd is crudely drawn but also incredibly kinetic — his posture doesn’t feel static, his expressions feel momentary and not carved in stone as some drawings are, there’s this fleetingness.
The story is all action so the kineticism works for it. The further story goes the more Dredd is stripped from his iconic look and literally broken down.
The entire middle section of the story features Dredd getting severely beaten up by Howler — he effortlessly overwhelms Dredd and ragdolls him around like crash dummy. Dredd throws everything at him and it means nothing to Howler who just brushes it off and continues the offense.
Eventually Judge Dredd is physically broken — his legs are mangled, hands are injured, the visor on his helmet is cracked, he has internal bleeding. The doctor is about to put him out on anesthesia to treat him but he refuses because he “has a job to do” so he comes back for Howler — all banged up and bandaged and finally tricks him into defeat.
However, this beatdown does not diminish Dredd’s aura and his comeback feels even more epic because of how beaten up he is but still standing tall nevertheless.
Howler design is bombastic yet simplistic — he’s a giant yawpper who is seemingly mostly mouth with relatively small hands and legs. The mouth is his defining feature and any time he opens his mouth it is as if a bottomless gorge cracked open with a rolling thunder.
McMahon’s choice to make Howler never fully fit into frames even on splash pages plays up with intimidating stature — this is a big guy and he will break things with ease.
***
Howler is more of a hidden gem in McMahon’s career. His early work is fondly remembered by 2000AD fans and regularly present in the retrospectives.
Howler is more of a deep cut — real fans are aware of it but it usually stays on the weirder sides of both McMahon and Wagner canon due to its simplistic storytelling and oddball visual style. But it’s a treat of economic storytelling that illustrates all the key features of Judge Dredd character in a specific extreme scenario.
“Villain of the week” was Wagner’s signature kind of story and Howler represents it at its most ridiculous and bombastic. He did a lot of these over the years in many variations.
But for McMahon — it’s what could have been.
Around the same time McMahon started to move away from comics into computer game design and he only sporadically came back to draw some stories. He returned to the world of Judge Dredd only a couple of times during 2000s with his style closer to the classic 1980s aesthetic. Because of that, Howler remains this fondly remembered oddity in his illustrious body of work.
