THE FUTURE IS FEMALE
The galaxy’s greatest comic gets extra X-chromosomes in 2000 AD Sci-Fi Special
As the first woman to ever write Judge Dredd, Emma Beeby is now part of the all-female line-up of writers, artists, colourists and letterers contributing to this year’s 2000 AD Sci-fi Special.
“While it’s great to smash some glass ceilings, you do wonder if you’ll be welcome,” she says. “It’s going to be such a great issue, but I also like that it says that the door is open, no one needs to smash anything else. Except the patriarchy, obviously!”
Paired with Babs Tarr, Beeby is once again taking on Old Stoney Face. “I most like writing stories where Dredd is forced into situations that make him uncomfortable, to bring out that character comedy,” she explains. “In this story it’s the over-emotional, and lots of people talking about their feelings and hugging. I figured someone somewhere would be worried a bunch of girlies would have Dredd hugging and crying, so it’s also about confronting that fear and punching it in the face!”
While its title suggests that Cassandra Anderson will be getting some pampering, she’ll be anything but relaxed in Maura McHugh and Emma Vieceli’s Spa Day. “It’s about a treatment that PSI Division insists Anderson take,” laughs McHugh. “Those familiar with her history will have plenty to enjoy, and first timers will get a sense of the weight of history and tragedy that she carries in her mind.”
Leah Moore will be harking to the past in a Xulia Vicenteillustrated Judge Death story. “It references classic ’90s 2000 AD,” she reveals. “A girl metal band find a bootleg of the legendary gig that appears in Wagner, Grant and Bisley’s classic Judgment On Gotham, and we follow their rise to its gory conclusion!”
Alex De Campi drew on the Hürtgen Forest battles of WWII and “the absurdity of the Michelin Plantation fights in Vietnam” for her Sam Beck-drawn Rogue Trooper tale. “A group of Souther soldiers in a petrified forest are promised a ridiculously extravagant award by Milli-Com, fresh food, if they can meet an impossible goal, a 500-metre advance,” she says. “Then a legend walks into their camp…” SJ