John Wagner

John Wagner (born in the United States in 1949 but raised in Scotland from the age of 12 after his mother moved back there) is arguably one of the most significant British comics writers of his time, and was, along with Pat Mills, partly responsible for revitalizing the ailing British comics industry in the 1970s with his work on the then newly launched Battle Picture Weekly (for which he wrote Darkie's Mob) and 2000 AD (for which he has co-created numerous characters and strips including Robo-Hunter, Button Man and, most famously, Judge Dredd). He also co-created Strontium Dog for Starlord (the character later became a mainstay of 2000 AD) and wrote for Eagle (for which he created Doomlord, Dolebusters and Detective Zed), Scream!, Tammy and Roy of the Rovers (all for IPC), and edited both Tammy and Valiant (for which he created One-Eyed Jack). He also co-created the independent comics character The Bogie Man (co-created with frequent writing partner Alan Grant), as well as writing Batman for DC Comics in the USA, and The Last American (with Grant and Mike McMahon) for Epic Comics. He frequently used pseudonyms when writing for IPC, including T. B. Grover, A. O'Kay (on Detective Zed), Brian Skuter (Skuter later became an actual character's name, a journalist who interviews Judge Death), Keef Ripley (used when he wrote The Dead Man), Mike Stott, Rick Clark and John Howard. In 1979 he wrote the Doctor Who stories 'City of the Damned' and 'The Dogs of Doom' for Doctor Who Weekly (though he and Pat Mills were actually credited as co-writers on both these stories as well as The Iron Legion and The Star Beast since all four stories were originally developed by them both as proposed scripts for the TV series). He remains pretty much the definitive Judge Dredd writer, continuing to write for the series as well as for Strontium Dog.

John Wagner

Comics, characters and strips created by John Wagner[]

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