Unofficial Judge Dredd Polo Tops

Seeing as Tharg hasn't started making T-shirts and Polo-Tops with personalised Judge badges on them, I thought I would give it a try. I can't design stuff and I definately can't make stuff, so I just became the facilitator in the whole process.

Many moons ago the extremely talented  Mike Carroll came up with a badge design thing on his website,  you typed your name in and a badge appeared with it on! Here's a quick link to the website and it's not just Dredd's badge that you can have, as you'll see when you have a look!

After chatting to Mike about trying to sort out a badge to embroider onto a top, he made a design that would be easier to use. The problem with the one on his site was that it was too realistic!

Here is the design he sent me and this was just perfect for what I needed.

The next stage took bloody ages, mainly because the firm I used for the Hell Trekker tops wanted some sort of computer file thingy, so they could change bits to make the stitching do something or other! Because of that I put the whole thing on the back-burner and left it in my jobs to do. That was until a few months ago, when I decided to do a search on the computer for embroidery places in the town. Luckily for me there was a place, which I had never noticed before and I walk past it each week.

I took the file of the design in and they said that it would be no problem what so ever. I ordered 3 Polo Tops straight away, 2 for me and 1 for my son Sam. Now I had to wait until they came back with a computer version of how the badge would look. It wasn't long before this turned up and I was amazed.

The colour around the name, stars and eagle are all gold as well but just a slightly different shade, so as to make it stand out more. Now all I had to do was wait until the finished tops were made, as this was the final confirmation stage.

Here's a close up of the final finished badge.

And just to show you how good they look on, here's Sam and me wearing our new tops. Sam wanted to hold his hand up and as you can see, due to his tears, we had a small arguement but he still won!

I will be having a couple of T-Shirts and probably a singlet vest made with this badge on now! So there is proof, if it was needed, you can make your own personalised embroidered Judge badges. By the way they came out for under £20, which was not bad at all.

Judge Dredd Sunglasses

Come the summer months who wouldn't want to wear a pair of Judge Dredd sunglasses (produced by Dorda). Well as you can see from the pictures, both the pairs I have are unopened, as I would never wear them (well they are crap)!

Yet again these items came out with a whisper in 1995 and it would been by pure accident if you found even just one of them (along with the rest of the Dorda range) in the shops. Both glasses come on a carboard packet, sealed under a plastic cover. Each comes with a different angled Dredd head above the nose, along with a microphone and an official badge!
On the rear is a colour picture of Dredd superimposed over a page from 2000AD's past that shows Dredd fighting Orlok. All you fans will know the story so I'm not going to tell you what it was from!

Not one of the best items I'll agree and that's why I think these didn't get much of a promotion, saying that some of the Dorda wasn't too bad, as you will see in future posts!

Strontium Dog Novels (Black Flame)

Continuing the line of novels from Black Flame, here we have the Strontium Dog series, which is basically all Johnny and Wulf.

Story by
Rebecca Levene

Cover by
Greg Staples

'Warped by the twisted effects of Strontium 90 fallout, mutants are a victimised underclass on Earth. Denied normal work, many have taken the job too dirty for norms: bounty-hunting. Across the expanding frontier of space, they hunt the criminals too dangerous for the Galactic Crime Commission.
Johnny Alpha is one such Strontium Dog and his latest assignment takes him to Epsilon 5 - a quarantined planet where time has sped up to four-hundred times its normal rate. Johnny is in a literal race against time to avoid all manner of dangers and to find his prey before he ages to death!'

Story by
Simon Spurrier

Cover by
Dylan Teague

'Johnny Alpha is hot on the trail of crime lord Mister Grinn after a chance encounter with a small-time crook reveals a tantalising lead. Accompanied by a mismatched group of mutants, Johnny must contend with an all too real doomsday prophecy as well as Grinn.s many henchmen, if he is to bring in his man - dead or alive.' 

Story by
Jonathan Clements

Cover by
Dylan Teague

'When Johnny's sister goes missing, accused of a crime she didn't commit, he is determined to discover the truth. The rules no longer apply when it comes to a Dog's family and anyone who gets in his way better watch out!'

Story by
Andrew Cartmel

Cover by
Karl Richardson

'Asdoel Zo hires Johnny Alpha and his Strontium Dogs to collect the bounty on Preacher Tarkettle, the man who killed his family. However, after landing on the desert world of Santo segrelle, Johnny's team is attacked and their weapons destroyed. Now armed with ancient six-shooters and rifles, Johnny and his fellow mutants soon realise they have been tricked: Zo is a twisted big game hunter and he has his sights set on hunting the deadliest prey in the galaxy - the Strontium Dogs!'

Story by
Jaspre Bark & Steve Lyons

Cover by
Philip Sibbering

'In the worst end of the galaxy, bounty hunter Johnny Alpha and his companions chase an escaped felon across Miltonia: the only planet where mutants are the majority and normal humans are the mistrusted minority. But when their quarry has the power to steal other mutants' identities, nothing is as it appears. Hard action and dark satire collide at the end of the galaxy.'

Again some excellent stories from a variety of writers that all know their SD stuff.