John Wagner

John Alexander Wagner (born 1949) is an American-born British comics writer. Alongside Pat Mills, he helped revitalise British comics in the 1970s, and continues to be active in the British comics industry, occasionally also working in American comics. He is the co-creator, with artist Carlos Ezquerra, of the character Judge Dredd. Wagner started his career in editorial with D. C. Thomson & Co. in the late 1960s before becoming a freelance writer and a staff editor at IPC in the 1970s. He has worked in children's humour and girls' adventure comics, but is most notable for his boys' adventure comics; he helped launch Battle Picture Weekly (1975), for which he wrote "Darkie's Mob", and 2000 AD (1977), for which he created numerous characters, including Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, Robo-Hunter and Button Man. In the 1980s, he and co-writer Alan Grant wrote prolifically for IPC's 2000 AD, Battle, Eagle, Scream! and Roy of the Rovers. They also wrote for DC Comics' Batman in the U.S., created a series of Batman and Judge Dredd team-up comics, and started the British independent comic The Bogie Man. Judge Dredd has twice been adapted for film, and David Cronenberg adapted Wagner's graphic novel A History of Violence into the 2005 film of the same name. Wagner continues to write for 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine. On 12 June 2026, the British government announced that Wagner will be awarded an MBE in the King's birthday honours "for services to British Comic Books and the Comic Book Industry".