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1. Landraiders were pretty much stolen from Judge Dredd in the Cursed Earth saga. In the Cursed Earth saga, Judge Dredd makes his way across the cursed earth in...you guessed it...a landraider. Armed with a lascannon, no less (at least, something very much like that). Built to withstand everything up to and including nuclear blasts.

2. Sternguard ammunion? Obviously a throwback to the lawgiver.

3. "Psyker" as a term originated in a pair of Judge Dredd stories just before the Apocalypse War. Crime bosses hire psykers (essentially telepaths) to make people have hallucinations, read peoples' minds, etc. Fortunately, the Justice Department has its own psykers...e.g., Cassandra Anderson.

Thoughts?

The Adeptus Arbites, in some of their artwork, looks like a bunch of grimdark Judge Dredds.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:


The Adeptus Arbites, in some of their artwork, looks like a bunch of grimdark Judge Dredds.

That too! Not to mention that the so called "Book of Law" used by the Adeptus Arbites comes straight from the Judge Dredd universe.

I think that GW had rights to make JD games at one point, which makes me wonder...

...why not just make it part of the game?

Because you don't build short-term licences from other IPs into your core products. That's just stupid, it lets some other company invalidate your entire product by pulling your licence.

Because 40k started out when a couple of comic book nerds decided that it would be really cool to glue guns to their fantasy wargaming miniatures.

Because when the Arbites and the Hives were first conceptualised, they were an overt and acknowledged homage to Judge Dredd.

Because the creators of 40k were proud and wanted to make the setting truly theirs. They wanted all their favourite ideas and images in it but wanted to be able to say "this is mine, I made this."

Because the creators of 40k were young, and wanted to take their fanfiction and make it original so they could publish it legitimately.

The early GW staff was heavily influenced by the 2000AD comic magazine. They took ideas from several comics, not just Judge Dredd. For example there's Nemesis the Warlock, in which an alien sorcerer fights a the leader of the "Terran empire" and its army of "terminators". Also, GW and 2000AD share a lot of authors and artists like Pat Mills, Dan Abnett, Simon Spurrier, Gordon Rennie or Clint Langley. There's a lot of creative overlap, especially in the earlier stuff.

Its pretty well established that much of the formation of 40k was drawn from other things happening at the time.

To be honest I am more surprised that people bring it up, I thought it was pretty common knowledge and clearly acknowledged by GW over the years

I'm so confused. Is this thread about Arbitrator Foreboding?

Traditio wrote:
1. Landraiders were pretty much stolen from Judge Dredd in the Cursed Earth saga. In the Cursed Earth saga, Judge Dredd makes his way across the cursed earth in...you guessed it...a landraider. Armed with a lascannon, no less (at least, something very much like that). Built to withstand everything up to and including nuclear blasts.

2. Sternguard ammunion? Obviously a throwback to the lawgiver.

3. "Psyker" as a term originated in a pair of Judge Dredd stories just before the Apocalypse War. Crime bosses hire psykers (essentially telepaths) to make people have hallucinations, read peoples' minds, etc. Fortunately, the Justice Department has its own psykers...e.g., Cassandra Anderson.

Thoughts?

Priestly and Co. often said that they were heavily influenced by 2000AD (the comic where Judge Dredd first appeared) and it is quite obvious that is where the Adeptus Arbites get their inspiration. There's not many thoughts to be had on the topic, it's an obvious source for the characters and vehicles in 40K.

I might be mistaken, but I seem recall that the Genos troops from the Unification Wars/Great Crusade were partially inspired by Rogue Trooper, another 2000 AD classic character.

Traditio wrote:
1. Landraiders were pretty much stolen from Judge Dredd in the Cursed Earth saga. In the Cursed Earth saga, Judge Dredd makes his way across the cursed earth in...you guessed it...a landraider. Armed with a lascannon, no less (at least, something very much like that). Built to withstand everything up to and including nuclear blasts.

2. Sternguard ammunion? Obviously a throwback to the lawgiver.

3. "Psyker" as a term originated in a pair of Judge Dredd stories just before the Apocalypse War. Crime bosses hire psykers (essentially telepaths) to make people have hallucinations, read peoples' minds, etc. Fortunately, the Justice Department has its own psykers...e.g., Cassandra Anderson.

Thoughts?

Yeah, 2000AD were one of the many sources of inspiration for 40k, along with Dune, Starship Troopers, Lovecraft, and countless other sources

That's...about it. Not much to it.

Actually didn't some of the 2000AD crew do some work for the Black Library/GW back in the day?

Aben Zin wrote:I'm so confused. Is this thread about Arbitrator Foreboding?

I had completely forgotten about that guy.

Wyzilla wrote:Actually didn't some of the 2000AD crew do some work for the Black Library/GW back in the day?

What, you mean like Dan Abnett? :p

 Wyzilla wrote:
Actually didn't some of the 2000AD crew do some work for the Black Library/GW back in the day?

Yep. And GeeDubs also produced games based in 2000 AD settings.

Shared creative pool, since there were writers and artists who worked for both sides companies, and that combined with a good relationship, what with GW doing a Judge Dredd games.

It's somewhat common knowledge.. but I reckon it's pretty exciting to discover all this stuff for the first time!

What I find deeply amusing about all of this is that GW is EXTREMELY protective of their own intellectual property...

...but they will freely rip other people off left and right.

Hypocrites.

Traditio wrote:
What I find deeply amusing about all of this is that GW is EXTREMELY protective of their own intellectual property...

...but they will freely rip other people off left and right.

Hypocrites.

Except that taking inspiration from others is not the same thing as ripping off. If you "rip something off", you just take something made by someone else, make only minor changes and then pretend it is something completely new you came up with. On the other hand, if you use a certain element of something else in the creation of something that apart from the borrowed element does not resemble the original at all, then it is not ripping off.
Otherwise you have to argue that every writer ever has ripped off all writers that came before him. After all, the creators of Judge Dredd also did not create something out of thin air. Nor did the the writers from which the creators of Judge Dredd took their inspiration.
The difference between ripping something off and taking inspiration from something is in how much you borrow and in whether you acknowledge it or not. GW has never been shy about acknowledging its inspirations, and the elements 40k has borrowed from other IPs are sufficiently changed in order to be quite different from their inspirations. To say that GW is ripping off others is quite ridiculous.

Traditio wrote:
1. Landraiders were pretty much stolen from Judge Dredd in the Cursed Earth saga. In the Cursed Earth saga, Judge Dredd makes his way across the cursed earth in...you guessed it...a landraider. Armed with a lascannon, no less (at least, something very much like that). Built to withstand everything up to and including nuclear blasts.

I'd say that's a pun/homage to the -quintessentially british- Land Rover. Damn, that car was tough.

As for all this "ripping off" stuff, part or 40k's charm is recognizing the many nods to other works -some of them mainstream, others really obscure-.

The Adeptus Arbites would like a word with you.

A very long word.

 Agent_Tremolo wrote:

Traditio wrote:
1. Landraiders were pretty much stolen from Judge Dredd in the Cursed Earth saga. In the Cursed Earth saga, Judge Dredd makes his way across the cursed earth in...you guessed it...a landraider. Armed with a lascannon, no less (at least, something very much like that). Built to withstand everything up to and including nuclear blasts.

I'd say that's a pun/homage to the -quintessentially british- Land Rover. Damn, that car was tough.

Nope, not a homage to a car. Even something as quintessentially brickish as the land rover.

Land raiders weren't actually that heavily armed. It was the kill dozers that they could mate up to that gave them the firepower.
Also, matchbox had models of what looked a lot like the Dredd landcruiser/killdozer in their "adventure 2000" line back in the 70s? It was a 1/43 die cast line.

The techno archaeologist Arkhan land was probably a tip of the hat to Edwin Land, though (who did tend to name stuff after himself, like "the land camera" which your parents might know as "polaroid"

coincidence, I think not

Traditio wrote:
What I find deeply amusing about all of this is that GW is EXTREMELY protective of their own intellectual property...

...but they will freely rip other people off left and right.

Hypocrites.

Well, the company has changed a lot and a lot of the people who originally started it aren't a part of it anymore. So it's not quite like the exact same person who put Judge Dredd IN SPACE! is the one suing over copyright violation for a miniature company making an elf alien riding a jetbike.

Let him have his GW hate even if it's somewhat misplaced... this time. They've earned it, just as they've earned the love of their fans, over and over.

My two cents.