One can never have too many post - apocalyptic visions of Los Angeles , right ? This next L.A. is considerably recognise as Mega - City Two , a late twenty-first - one C megalopolis that comes to us thanks to a raw Judge Dredd comic , Mega - City Two : City of Courts , which hits shelf in January 2014 .
Like Chris Burden’sMetropolis II sculpturecrossed with the Futurama opening citation , Mega - City Two is a deliciously detailed blaring of vehicles , debauched food , and sprawling . Because it ’s , you know , L.A. , there will unavoidably be comparisons to Blade Runner . But the Los Angeles in Mega - City Two is an altogether dissimilar animal , based on the ideas of another fictional urban center first created in the Judge Dredd universe 36 old age ago : The New York - esque Mega - City One .
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Those who are n’t amusing fan are probably familiar with one of two Judge Dredd picture , says Mega - City Two ’s Portland - based writerDouglas Wolk . “ A pretty terrible one with Sylvester Stallone in the mid-’90s , and a grand one with Karl Urban , Lena Headey , and Olivia Thirlby last year . ”
Wolk was 12 when he first discovered Dredd , which has been appearing weekly since 1977 in a British comic book of account shout out 2000 A.D. He recently start a blog to write about some of the former sequence and was contacted by San Diego comics publisherIDW , who was launch a new American Judge Dredd series . Soon Wolk was team up up with illustratorUlises Farinasand colorist Ryan Hill to make a miniseries within the Dredd franchise , the first to take spot in Mega - City Two .
An other Mega - City One drawn by Judge Dredd ’s co - creator Carlos Ezquerra
Most of the Judge Dredd stories take place in Mega - City One , a 22nd - century megalopolis that has consumed most of the Eastern Seaboard — a kind of post - apocalyptic Gotham Gone Wild . Mega - City Two was first refer in a 1978 account as Mega - City One ’s West Coast babe megalopolis , a “ 5,000 straightforward - mile ” California metropolis , that , in 2114 , is microwave to a cinder . “ It was being invade by zombi ; they had to destroy it in order of magnitude to preserve it , ” aver Wolk . Luckily Wolk ’s Mega - City Two is set in 2094 , twenty years before annihilation .
What attracted Wolk to the project was the incredible collaborative globe - building that had taken place thanks to the many artist and writers over the years . In Matt Brooker’sbrief historyof the Judge Dredd franchise , Brooker reason that Mega - City One became much more of a character than anyone had carry : “ Really , the city is the actual star of Judge Dredd . ”
Mick McMahon ’s “ pepperpot ” cityblocks from The Judge Dredd Annual 1982
To construct Mega - City Two , Wolk started by examining the urban preparation of Mega - City One . “ It ’s basically wall - to - bulwark skyscraper all along the Boston - to - Washington corridors , ” he say , “ ‘ cityblocks ’ with ten of thousands of people experience in each one where you’re able to spend your whole life without leaving . ”
He then apply those same rule to Mega - City Two , fundamentally interpolate the current expression of L.A. “ Massive mammoth metastasizing cloverleaves of highway everywhere . Gorgeous Googier - than - Googie architecture , and a radically dissimilar face for every neighbourhood , ” he explain .
A resume by Farinas;more about the process on Farinas ’ web log
In true L.A. fashion , each of the different neighborhood in Mega - City Two is discover after a twentieth - hundred moving-picture show . So there ’s Double Indemnity , Barton Fink — that by nature include the moving-picture show studio where a chunk of the first issue takes place — Melody Time , Point Break , Barefoot Adventure , and Double Nickels . ( I express joy when Wolk told me about this , but after thinking about it , I decided would be totally plausible in the near future . )
Wolk and Farinas also cooperate on the cultural point of reference , which are perfectly priceless . There ’s the Stallone Megway 3 , state highway named for the virtuoso of the Dredd movie , of course . A hoarding for the “ Scientipicopalians . ” A Carl ’s Sagan , Jr. burger stick . I particularly like the “ O’Shea Jackson Hyper Cube Zone , ” named for O’Shea Jackson , the person you ’ll know better as Ice Cube , whostudied architectural drafting in college .
The border between warring neighborhoods Tintorera and Iron Eagle
Of naturally , one of the most important issues to figure out for Wolk and Farinas was how the L.A traffic of the future would be represented . mollycoddler alarm : It ’s uncollectible . The landscape painting is reign by “ traffic slub ” and “ dealings spheres , ” which have multiple tier of express lanes to which entree is useable for increasingly astronomical fee . ( Again , not that far from today ’s reality . ) Notably , “ Road Drones”—massive fly construction vehicles — are utilize to construct or rearrange road as needed . dealings management on the fly !
To construct Mega - City Two ’s refinement , Wolk await to the literary world for stirring , reading ( or re - reading ) books by Joan Didion , Hunter S. Thompson , and Bruce Wagner . The series itself is subtitled “ City of Courts , ” a riff on the 1990 Mike Davis bookCity of Quartzthat examine the fate of Los Angeles through the lens of law enforcement . Wolk used Davis ’ melodic theme to create Mega - City Two ’s political structure . “ One of the things that Davis suggests is that L.A. is a whole clustering of economically stratify residential district smushed up against each other , ” say Wolk . “ So I figured : what if they were in fact so deep culturally stratified that every one had its own solidifying of natural law — but the same police had to enforce them everywhere ? ”
Any depiction of L.A. ’s succeeding law enforcement will , of course , be compared to the L.A. of Blade Runner , which is set in a basically present - twenty-four hours 2019 . But Wolk says that he specifically resist its dystopian nature — and its darkness . “ In Blade Runner , L.A. is a night city , ” he says . “ We ’ll see a little of the nighttime side of thing afterward on but , correctly off , I wanted to establish it as a really bright , sunny topographic point — somewhere hoi polloi might require to live . ”
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