2000 AD #1389
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeProg 1389 (12 May 2004) is the debut issue of the Low Life strip, which introduced two of the most original characters to emerge from the Judge Dredd universe in the Rebellion era: undercover Wally Squad judge Aimee Nixon, who served as the strip's original lead, and the deeply unhinged Dirty Frank, who would eventually take centre stage and become one of 2000 AD's most beloved creations of the 2000s. The strip, written by Rob Williams and initially drawn by Simon Coleby, brought a distinctly noir, street-level lens to Mega-City One's criminal underworld that complemented — rather than duplicated — the main Dredd strip, expanding the universe in a genuinely fresh direction. As a single prog it also continued John Wagner's Chopper saga 'The Big Meg,' making it a dense anthology snapshot of Rebellion-era 2000 AD firing on multiple cylinders simultaneously.
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Low Life was created by writer Rob Williams and artist Henry Flint, though the debut instalment in prog 1389 was drawn by Simon Coleby, who fleshed out the visual identity of the strip's characters before Henry Flint took over and became the series' defining artist. The strip launched under editor Matt Smith, who had helmed 2000 AD since 2002 during a period when Rebellion was actively expanding the Dredd universe with new undercover and street-level concepts. Dirty Frank's distinctive caveman-like appearance — now confirmed across multiple sources — was deliberately modelled on comics writer Alan Moore, a playful in-joke embedded in the character's visual design from his very first panel.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated 12 May 2004; published by Rebellion Developments under editor Matt Smith.
- First appearance of Dirty Frank (Judge Frank), the deranged Wally Squad undercover judge created by Rob Williams and Henry Flint; his debut story 'Rock and a Hard Place' was drawn by Simon Coleby.
- First appearance of Judge Aimee Nixon, the original lead character of the Low Life strip — a Wally Squad judge who voluntarily replaced her left arm with a robotic prosthetic and whose appearance was designed to evoke 'Courtney Love with a broken nose.'
- Dirty Frank's physical appearance was intentionally modelled on legendary comics writer Alan Moore, according to the introduction in the collected Low Life graphic novel.
- The Low Life series (progs 1387–1399 and beyond) was later collected in the trade paperback Mega-City Undercover (Rebellion).
- This prog also carried an instalment of 'The Big Meg' (progs 1387–1394), a John Wagner-written Chopper story later collected in Chopper: Surf's Up (Rebellion), featuring sky-surfing rival Jug McKenzie.
- The A.H.A.B. and Bill Savage strips also ran in this period of the comic's output, with Bill Savage appearing in 'Savage, Book 10: The Märze Murderer' around this time.
- Aimee Nixon was subsequently displaced as Low Life's lead by Dirty Frank after her character was convicted and transported to the prison colony on Titan, where she later led a prison mutiny — a long-game narrative payoff that demonstrated the strip's willingness to permanently alter its own cast.
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