Comics

Interview: Heading North to CalHab with David Baillie’s “Harrower Squad”

27th June 2024

Time to head north of the border now to the wilds of what’s left of Scotland, an irradiated wilderness of extreme violence, pagan worship, and corruption at the highest levels – yes, we’re off to CalHab to see what David Baillie and Steve Yeowell have done with the place in the Judge Dredd Megazine strip Harrower Squad.

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North of Brit-Cit, the Caledonian Habitation Zone, CalHab for short, hasn’t exactly had the best reputation in the world of Dredd, mostly being the dumping ground for radioactive waste that makes everywhere bar the few cities like Glascal a radland inhabited by mutant tribes. But writer David Baillie and artist Steve Yeowell are setting about changing all that in their new Dreddworld strip, Harrower Squad.

The first four-parter, CalHab Country, ran in Judge Dredd Megazine (issues 464-467), where we followed one of CalHab’s heavy weapons Judges teams into the radlands for a bit of ‘clearance’ work that didn’t exactly go to plan. That was all radland muties, ancient pagan rituals, Glascal mobsters, secret plans, officially sanctioned psychopath Judges, all leading to a thriller with a hell of a lot of casualties.

That was followed by second series, Urban Rotation (beginning in Megazine 468 and continuing this month) with Judge Brontide and her new squad heading into Glascal for some crowd control as the cits are getting restless amidst the festering political corruption at the heart of CalHab’s Justice Department.

So, time to put on our finest tartan and head into CalHab to chat to both David and Steve about their new series. Today it’s David talking all things Harrower Squad, with Steve joining in next week.

Hi David,how are you? Doing well in this ridiculous, crazy world?

DAVID BAILLIE: Doing well, thanks! And all the better for chatting to you guys.

We’re now into series 2 of Harrower Squad in the Megazine, although it’s been one of those that’s run straight from series 1, CalHab Country, to series 2, Urban Rotation, in the last six months. Can you catch people up with what’s the deal with Harrower Squad and what they can expect from Urban Rotation?

DB: Yeah, I thought we might have a bit of a gap between the seasons, so I took care to remind the reader of everything that they needed to know from series one… Not realising that they wouldn’t have the opportunity to forget anything! 

Calhab Country is a soft reboot of the Calhab/Cal Hab territories for the modern-day Dreddverse – although I’m taking care not to contradict anything that went before.

Calhab, The Caledonian Habitation Zone, is what Scotland is called in the year of our Dredd 2146. We’re seeing this world through the eyes of Harrower Squad, a team of heavy weapons Judges who take orders from Calhab Judge Control, working between the twin metropolises of Glascal and Megaburgh (known colloquially by citizens as M’burgh, because sometimes nothing changes!)

These Heavy Weapons teams are highly trained specialists, who operate both in the Radlands (the desolate wasteland between Glascal and M’burgh) and ‘urban rotation’ in the cities themselves. Each judge within the unit has their own hi-tech, hi-calibre offensive weapon with a nifty holo-sight, and sometimes (often) one member of the squad is completely insane. In the first story, we discovered that this is actually by design, as they’re often required to do things which are incredibly unsavoury. One such onerous task is to clear the Radlands of the mutants who live there (because otherwise how can the Corps develop and exploit that land?!)

DB: Don’t worry if you missed the first season – everyone died, except Judge Brontide, who now leads an entirely new team, which we just met in Megazine 468 as they start Urban Rotation!

And it’s been great seeing Steve and Chris shift gears into this new setting – instantly giving both stories a very different feel!

How did Harrower Squad come about? What was the genesis of the strip?

DB: Back in February 2023, about seven Prime Ministers ago, I asked Tharg if there was anything in particular he was looking for and he suggested working up an idea for a Calhab story, with fewer kilts and claymores and something a bit more like the old TV show Taggart.

As luck would have it, I’d already worked up a Taggart-like Calhab idea a few years ago that I’d never figured out an ending for, so I dusted off the idea and updated it – gruff older Judge, young apprentice and all. Tharg said he liked it, but that it was basically an Armitage story! (Armitage, of course, is currently being aced by my good friends Liam Johnson, Warren Pleece and Jim Campbell!)

Anyway, in the background of that discarded Future Taggart tale were some Heavy Weapons Judges, guarding a crime scene. ‘How about a story with those guys?’ asked Tharg, and my cerebral cortex lit up!

Was it something you collaborated on from the start or was it a case of David pitching and Tharg bringing in Steve?

DB: I was on the train back from Portsmouth Comic Con last year, just hours after raving about Steve’s work on strips like Zenith and Maniac 5 to Anna Morozova, when I got the call from Tharg to say that Steve was taking on the mantle of Calhab. To say I was overjoyed might go some way to explaining my yelps of delight to my unnerved fellow passengers.

I can’t remember how far through the scripts I was, but when I got home I sat down with a hundred pages of Steve’s most recent work to study, and see what I could lean into to make the work even more Yeowelly.

And how’s the collaboration working between the pair of you?

DB: I’m in awe of Steve and his work. We met for the first time at last year’s Thought Bubble, and I just hope I didn’t fanboy too much at him. Every page of this series has been scorching, and I couldn’t be happier!

If I know who’s drawing a script I try to lean into their strengths, but Steve is honestly good at everything. I can’t imagine him being stumped by any panel description or storytelling ask. He also draws robot hands better than anyone else in the business. Go check out those robot hands!

CalHab is one of those Dreddworld places that doesn’t get all that much love. Why set it there? Did you just fancy doing something from the homeland David?

DB: I always did, but there were a few things about previous Calhab stories that I didn’t click with. When Tharg suggested a soft reboot I was over the moon. Apart from a couple of one-offs in the main Dredd slot, we haven’t spent any time there in 30 years, so if something from the old stories isn’t mentioned, it hasn’t necessarily been retconned – it’s just been a while! 

We’ve been given carte blanche to give the territory a bit more gravitas… by which I mean massive guns.

Massive Guns have been part of Dreddworld since the beginning – and Steve does draw a damn fine massive gun!

We’ve seen the Harrower Squad in action and plenty of it in CalHab Country and now in Urban Rotation but there’s definitely two very distinct tones to the two series. So if CalHab Country was Scottish folk horror through a Dreddverse filter, how would you describe Urban Rotation? And what, if anything apart from just being a writer, made you want to switch settings?

DB: I really wanted to start outside of the city to instantly give this Calhab series a different feel from other Dreddverse stories. I even set the first couple of episodes in the ruined remnants of my hometown back in Whitburn, West Lothian, including my favourite sweet shop and cinema! Narratively, some important stuff happens there that couldn’t happen elsewhere – and we get to see firsthand how corrupt Judge Control is. 

I knew that after that I wanted to show the cities, and really look at how different they both are to Mega-City One. I also liked the idea of an abrupt transition from the Avenging Angel Brontide at the end of book one to Commander Brontide leading a new squad in a gleaming Glascal!

Like I said – Steve and Chris have done a really, really incredible job giving the two locales a totally different aesthetic.

Urban Rotation starts off as Maniac 5 in future Scotland, and boils up into a political thriller with missile launchers, a mysterious artefact, and a battle at a hilltop laboratory.

Quite unusual to have the two series run back to back in the Meg – did you plot and pitch both together or was it simply one of those coincidences of producing so far in advance that Tharg got CalHab Country and liked it so much he immediately commissioned Urban Rotation?

DB: I’d written the first series in such a way that if we didn’t get a sequel it would still, hopefully, stand on its own – but Tharg asked for a follow up as soon as I’d handed in the final page. I think that was completely down to having a legend like Steve drawing the pages!

One thing that’s coming to the fore in Urban Rotation is the political motivation behind the heavy-weapons Judge squads – although it was briefly mentioned in the first story, you really introduce it at the start of part 2, the notion that there’s a hidden agenda behind the various squads and it’s all tied into the politics of getting the international corporations interested in coming into Calhab and that’s a lot easier to do when they know that the country’s clear of the undesirable sorts.

Then you’ve got the involvement of the mob boss, not to mention Chief Judge Haggan looking pretty damn shifty right now. Is there a chance that you’re really setting up some very high-stakes political intrigue serial that’s a hell of a long way from how Harrower Squad began?

DB: Yeah, I alluded to a conspiracy in the first story and I really wanted to explore it more as soon as we got to the cities and met other figures from Judge Control. Writing this in a country that’s been swimming in corruption for the last few years, it didn’t take much imagination to conjure up a government happy to commit genocide and asset strip its own country for personal gain!

When I was figuring out the hidden nature of Judge Control, the BBC was repeating the classic 80s serial Edge of Darkness, which I’d never seen before. I loved it, and even though it was about fictional political machinations, it fed my fury when creating Judge Control and Chief Haggan.

As for Capaldi, the Glascal Mob boss, he was a joy to write! I grew up around the corner from one famous Capaldi (Lewis) and met another (Peter) at New York Comic Con a few years ago, so the name’s a little nod to both of them. I don’t want to give away too much, but yeah he’s tied into everything that’s going on.

By chapter four of Urban Rotation, a lot will have changed, but we’ll still have some unanswered questions – including one from book one that at least one eagle-eyed reader has contacted me about. Hopefully we’ll have set the stakes teeteringly-high for our third story.

What are your plans for more CalHab? I always presume with something new there’s a lot of world-building to do and the natural outcome of this for a writer is that it triggers a lot of thinking about possible future stories?

DB: I have a notebook full of ideas sitting on my desk, and a list of all the threads that need to be tied up, in case my ageing brain can’t remember where we left everything when Tharg calls and asks for Season Three.

Unfortunately even hinting at any of these ideas would spoil the end of Urban Rotation – as it changes the power balance in Calhab quite dramatically, and sets us up for the next explosive conflict.

Well, we won’t push too much then!

David, we’re going to talk to Steve about the art for Harrower Squad a bit later, but do feel free to tell us what you think he’s brought to the strip.

DB: As I think I said already – Steve’s an actual living legend! Getting to work with a maestro is something special, and one of the best things about working for The House of Tharg. I was re-reading the start of The Invisibles the other day – and I almost forgot it’s Steve, weaving Vertigo’s first creator-owned series!

Oh yes, loved that first Invisibles arc, Steve’s art really brought it to life.

DB: I was walking through MCM a couple of weeks ago and picked up Book Four of Zenith (which started in one of my first ever progs!) and I was starstruck all over again.

(Right next to that stall, actually, was a bunch of old arcade machines, one of which was Xybots – an old coin-op game that inspired the holographic sights on the heavy weapons in the story. It was like the universe was talking to me!)

Yes, of course the universe was talking to you David. It’s when the more mundane stuff, the chair, the pens, start chatting with you that you need to worry!

DB: Every page Steve does is a work of art, He just knows how to draw – and draw anything. He’s injected life into a world that was just my annoying words and I couldn’t be more grateful. 

There’s a panel near the end of Urban Rotation‘s first episode that’s perfect. At the start of the page, Brontide orders Harrower Squad to fire at will, and they take down a couple of the mechs – and the final panel is Brontide and two other Harrower Squad members looking on – she’s shouting, one of them is almost smiling. It’s such a perfect moment. Everything about it sings – the composition, the facial expressions, the line weight on the armour… Absolute comicbook perfection!

Ladies and gentlemen… he’s not wrong…

Colours on both Harrower Squad stories have come from Chris Blythe and I think he’s brought a real richness and depth to Steve’s art that elevates the whole thing. What do you think of his work here?

DB: I don’t think I saw Chris’ work on Harrower until it saw print, and I remember being completely overjoyed. Chris and Steve work so well together! 

Chris is using a really soft gradient on the uniforms that almost gives them an inner glow. There are a hundred small touches in every episode that make me pause – there was a particularly good shadow/highlight combination on Brontide’s face in the last episode that led into the next panel (a big Demon Forvus reveal) perfectly. Maestros – both of them!

Ah yes, Forvus, the original Harrower Squad psychopath who’s not let a little thing like death in CalHab Country stop him from cropping up in Urban Rotation!

DB: Some of what’s going on with The Demon Forvus will be explained in episode 2, and some I’ve left for Season Three. I will say that there’s a nice revisitation of the folk horror sensibility coming up that Steve and Chris absolutely nailed – and Forvus is at the centre of that scene.

And speaking of Forvus and his new role here… a little sneak peek into what’s happening in Harrower Squad: Urban Rotation Part 2…

Just for fun, you’ve written several iconic 2000 AD characters and strips over the years, but what’s the one strip/character you’ve always had a hankering to write/draw?

Go wild, anyone, anything, feel free to think of this as a begging letter to Tharg, our lord and master who art in charge of commissioning things.

DB: Maniac 5. Come on, Tharg – you know it makes sense!

Finally, what can we look forward to from you both? Either for Tharg or elsewhere?

DB: I bumped into an old agent friend of mine at a party last week, and she told me werewolf erotica is where it’s at these days. She said that no one can believe how well it sells and the publishing world is trying to analyse the trend and figure out what they can learn from it. So… Werewolf erotica, I guess?

And that’s where we left it, with David going scuttling off to make his werewolf erotica. Although whether that’s erotica about werewolves or erotica for werewolves we didn’t ask. But we did discover that there’s a disturbing number of websites devoted to it and there’s certain things you really can’t unsee.

Thanks so much to David for chatting to us about Harrower Squad – you can read more about it from Steve Yeowell (and see much more of that zarzaz artwork) later this week. And Harrower Squad: Urban Rotation continues this very week with the release of Judge Dredd: Megazine issue 469.