http://www.multiversitycomics.com/news/ron-smith-rip/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Smith_(comics)
I only found out just now, 2 weeks after the fact, as I had been idly thinking of perusing my tabloid-sized B&W collections of The Judge Child Saga later today.
I have been a fan of Ron Smith's since the early-mid 1990s, when I first started sampling various 2000 AD features via back issues of those 80s standard-sized colour reprints for the American market that shrunk down the original pages to absurd dimensions. But that was, in hindsight, a blessing in disguise, because it separated the truly great UK artists, whose styles still shone despite the reduced size, from the mediocre ones.
I'll be blunt: I actually prefer Ron Smith's Dredd to Brain Bolland's Dredd. The latter may have had a cleaner line and more precise composition, but I believe Smith was better at combining micro-macro dynamics (in plainer terms: *HI-OCTANE ENERGY*) with a keen understanding of perspective and deep space, with the abundant detail being merely the icing on the cake.
To be even blunter: Smith is best remembered for his phantasmagoria of grotesque characters, but that does him a disservice, in my opinion. I sincerely believe that Smith's women were more attractive than Bolland's -- less saucy and less statuesque, but more believable and relatable. To me, Smith's Judge Hershey is the definitive rendition.
I included his Wikipedia entry because it is an exceptional one, giving him due credit for the embrace of the superhero by future generations of UK comics fandom.
Rest in peace, good sir, you have earned it a trillion times over.
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