Rob speaks to 2000 AD writer Kenneth Niemand about Kyle Asher's return in 'An Honest Man'...
Hi Kenneth, thank you for taking the time to speak to me about 'A Penitent man' and its follow-up story; 'An Honest Man'. How's it been developing an entirely new character for the well-established world of Judge Dredd?
KN - Well, Asher isn't an entirely new kind of character. We've seen ex-Judges returned from Titan before, like the first Rico and all the escaped Titan Judges from the Inferno story. They were all a horrible bunch though, out for revenge and nastiness. So what we hadn't seen, as far as I could tell, was a Judge returning from Titan who wasn't out for revenge, and who was genuinely regretful about what they had done and wanted to rejoin Mega-City society again. And that seemed to me like a much more interesting character than another corrupt or psychotic Judge, especially when you put them up against the hostility they'd face from other Judges.
'An Honest Man' sees the second chapter of Kyle Asher's return to Mega-City One. After the events of 'A Penitent Man', how has Asher changed and has he adjusted to life in the Meg?
KN - He's where we left him at the end of the previous story; working as a civilian Auxiliary for the Justice Department, doing the lowest-of-the-low job possible there, which is scraping up dead bodies at accident scenes and delivering them to Resyk. He said he just wanted a chance to serve his city again, and that's what he's doing, so he's pretty content with this lowest rung on the ladder position. Of course, that situation probably isn't going to last long.
The opening part to this new arc also sees Asher not only cross paths once again with Dredd, but during a routine Resyk clean-up he also stumbles across a pretty big situation brewing in the city's criminal underbelly. With Asher deciding to investigate, will this see him walk down a dark path?
KN - Well, it wouldn't be much of a story if it didn't. But, yeah, he gets grief from an arrogant young rookie Judge out to put him in his place, finds something at an accident scene and, rather than reporting it, decides to investigate it himself. Maybe to prove to himself that his old Judge skills are still worth something. And maybe for other reasons to be revealed later in the story. This may be the first of some bad but hopefully understandable decisions he's going to make throughout the story.
Naturally, with any Judge Dredd story, Dredd has to feature in some shape or form. With 'A Penitent Man' the tale was more a tale about Kyle Asher with Dredd taking more of a backseat. How does Dredd fit into 'An Honest Man'?
KN - Dredd's investigating a big organised crime case. He and Asher have a coincidental encounter at the beginning of the story, and we see Dredd is still keeping his eye on Asher, still unsure whether he's truly regretful, or whether he's playing some scheme of his own. Stuff happens and Asher gets involved with Dredd's case without Dredd knowing it. Is Asher An Honest Man? That's what Dredd's going to find out.
Without spoiling too much. Will we see Kyle Asher return?
KN - I'm afraid the answer there really would spoil the end of the story.
We also see your team up once again with Tom Foster and Chris Blyth who both created some impressive art and colour work for the previous story. In your script do you give Foster much direction as to how you want each scene to look?
KN - Tom's an amazing talent, and I tend to write quite light-on-detail scripts. That's easier when you trust the artist and know what they're capable of. Plus, with Dredd, you and the artist know what the city and everything in it are supposed to look like, so there's not a huge benefit going into extraneous detail in the script unless it's something you have a really strong vision of how something should look, or how a sequence of panels should flow. Writing Dredd, it's really all about the dialogue, action (and comedy) beats, and story flow.
Away from this story and the readers of 2000 AD know that you're no stranger to Judge Dredd and his dystopian world. What can we expect from you in the future? And when will we next see Noam Chimpsky?
KN - Noam's coming back later this year, in a story called 'A Terrifically Disturbing Adventure'. His first solo story had a kind of goofy Agatha Christie thing going on, but this one is definitely Evil Enid Blyton, and really gets quite nasty in the episodes I've written so far. 'Megatropolis 2' is happening, although unfortunately that one might be a while yet. I've written a really quite intensely violent story for Leonardo Manco, for everyone who says my Dredds are too woke and touchy-feely, and there's a quite lengthy and kind of different Megazine Dredd story called 'One-Eyed Jacks' in the works. There's also a thing happening later this year that was teased in the Xmas prog, which is half gruesome fun, and then half gruesome grimdark. I'm looking forward to more news of that breaking the surface, and details of all the droids involved.
Be sure to check out 'Judge Dredd: An Honest Man' within the current 2000 AD Progs.
Special thanks goes out to Kenneth Niemand for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer my questions.
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