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2216740-otto sump

Otto Stump is a hideously unattractive citizen turned entrepreneur. He was known for being extremely friendly and wanting to help people - this familiar nature grated on Judge Dredd.

Biography[]

Sump was left at the steps of a Face Change clinic when he was a baby. His mother served time for abandonment and then had to take him back. (His father had taken one look at him at birth and run away) Due to his ugliness, none of the other juves wanted to play with him and his mother grew to resent him.[1]

As an adult, he got a job as a rat scarer at the sewage treatment plant until animal rights groups complained. He was such a sad sack that Dredd used him as part of a sting: he competed on a game show called Sob Story, where the public sent in money to the person with the saddest life story. Dredd caught the criminals who were targeting Sob Story winners and Sump was left a multi-millionaire. [2]

Deciding to make sure nobody would be as ugly as him, he opened a chain of beauty clinics. Since he wanted to do the work himself - and was incompetent - he made his customers uglier. This accidentally started a fad. Young, attention-seeking citizens competed to look uglier and uglier to stand out in the crowd. This made Sump decide that 'ugly was beautiful' and that he'd work to make the world an 'uglier' place. [3]

The Judges slapped a tax on ugly products to manage it, so only the rich could buy products. Sump suffered in Mega-City One but expanded his line abroad.[4] Eventually, the proliferation of unsafe black-market ugly products forced Justice Department to lift the tax. [5] With the money from this, Sump went into other industries. After the Apocalypse War he sold Gunge, an ersatz food made from disgusting ingredients and waste. It was found to be not only safe to consume, but twice as nutritious as Munce. Unfortunately, social disorder made the Judges ban it (and then repurpose it as bland Justice Dept approved rations that didn't list ingredients).

Later, to sell a so-called intelligence-enhancing sweet called "Smart Candy". The trick was that the ads didn't claim they actually did anything and even said "You gotta be dumb to buy 'em". The unamused Judge Dredd found an excuse to shut this business down when a group of particularly stupid criminals claimed that Smart Sweets gave them the intelligence to plan a crime.

With his wealth, Sump followed his promise: he was a major donor to charity, friendly and helpful to all he met, and kept tracking his mother down to try and look after her in her old age (repressing that she despised him). He got married to a (bad) air-dancer named Oileen, showering her with affection and ignoring her bad dancing. (She would later admit she liked him but didn't love him, marrying him for the money) [6]

In 2124, his mother murdered him. By the time Dredd uncovered the truth, Mrs Sump had passed away. His last words had been "rosebud", triggered by a childhood memory ("I've got a rosebud and mummy loves me)". His widow and business partner mourned him as a lost friend, while anti-ugly compaigners celebrated his death. [7]

Trivia[]

Citizen Sump is an obvious pastiche of Citizen Kane: the idea had been suggested to Wagner by his editor. The story is also an inversion of Kane, with Sump being remembered as a good, generous man who wanted to help people. The famous scene where Kane angrily 'applauds' a terrible performance by his wife is inverted as Sump genuinely applauding a terrible performance by his wife, calling her "the best".

Appearances[]

  • Sob Story - 2 episodes (2000AD, Progs 131 and 132 - 12 pages).
    Script: John Wagner, Artist: Ron Smith.
  • Otto Sump's Ugly Clinic - 3 episodes (Progs 186 to 188)
    Script: John Wagner, Artist: Ron Smith.
  • Who Killed Pug Ugly? - 1 episode (Prog 203)
    Script: John Wagner, Artist: Ron Smith.
  • Get Smart - 1 episode (2000AD, Prog 436 - 6 pages).
    Script: John Wagner/Alan Grant, Artist: Ron Smith.
  • Citizen Sump - 2 episodes (Judge Dredd Megazine, Megs 4.12 to 4.13 - 30 pages)
    Script: John Wagner, Artist: John Higgins, Letters: Tom Frame
Judge Dredd
Main Characters Judge Dredd - Judge Hershey - Judge Anderson - Judge Beeny - Judge Buell - Galen DeMarco - Dirty Frank - Judge Edgar - Chief Judge Fargo - Judge Francisco - Judge Giant - Judge Goodman - Judge Griffin - Judge Guthrie - Judge Janus - Judge Karyn - Judge McGruder - Judge Niles - Judge Rico - Judge Shenker - Judge Silver - Judge Solomon - Judge Volt - Detective-Judge Armitage - Inspector Shimura - Devlin Waugh - Johnny Woo - Judge Larter - Judge Jack - Judge Agee - Judge Bennett - Judge Castillo - Judge Dekker - Judge Goon - Deputy Cheif Judge Herriman - Judge Kruger - Judge Munn - Judge Perrier - Judge Prager - Judge Minty - Detective-Judge Steel - Detective Judge Trant - Judge Kazan - Chief Judge Ohno - Judge-Inspector Akio Anaba - Judge Marshall Lawson
Recurring Villains Angel Gang - Mean Machine Angel - Elmer Angel - Junior Angel - Link Angel - Judge Bachmann - Oola Blint - President Booth - Judge Cal - Dark Judges - Rico Dredd - Armon Gill - Judge Grice - Morton Judd - Kleggs - Judge Kraken - Mechanismo - Stan Lee - Marty Zpok - PJ Maybe - Nero Narcos - Orlock - Shojun the Warlord - Judge Sinfield - Call-Me-Kenneth - Mr. Moonie - Murd the Oppresor - Owen Krysler - Don Uggie Apelino - Captain Skank - Father Earth - Kazan - Bulgarin - General Blood'n'Guts - Satanus - Satan - Fink Angel - Ratty - Rhode Island Red - Phobia - Nausia - America Jara - Cesare - Judge Mortis - Judge Fear - Judge Death - Judge Fire - Manners - Ramses - Trapper Hag - Sabbat - Wu Yang - Yin Mie - Randolph Whitely - Judge Choke - Judge Sleep - Judge Sludge - Judge Burroghs - Judge Fistula - Judge Skinner - Judge Stigmata - The Seven Samurai - Rex Peters - Slocum - Kenny Who? - Nosferatu - Grampus - Heavy Metal Kid - Ratty - Elvis - The Warlords - DeGaulle - The Joker - The Scarecrow - The Riddler - Arnold Wesker - Lobo - Judge Kurten - Pink Eyes - Aimee Nixon - Mr. Bones - Effil Drago San - Bella Bagley - Dune Sharks - Xenomorphs - Ueno Hama - Raptaurs - The Explosive Man - Judge Sherman - Ankhhor - President Clinton Box - Pamelina Oswin
Other Characters Chopper - Vienna Dredd - Fergee - Yassa Povey - Jacob Sardini - Walter the Wobot - Henry Ford - Spikes Harvey Rotten - Tweak - Tony Tubbs - Otto Sump - Mrs. Gunderson - Sensitive Klegg - Jack Point - Maria - Benneet Beeny - Grunwalder - Old Joe Blind - Max Normal - Toots Milloy - Mr. Harke - Mr. Burr - Jim Grubb - Dave the Orangutan - Nimrod - The Creep - Johnny Alpha - Wulf Sternhammer - The Fargo Clan - Randy Fargo - Jubal Fargo - Hocus Ritter - Batman - Harry Henson
Storylines America - The Apocalypse War - Block Mania - City of the Damned - The Cursed Earth - Day of Chaos - Democracy - The Doomsday Scenario - The Hunting Party - The Judge Child - Judgement Day - Mechanismo - Mutants - Necropolis - Origins - Oz - The Pit - The Robot Wars - Tour of Duty Trifecta - Wilderlands
Crossovers Judge Dredd vs. Aliens - Judgement on Gotham - Predator vs. Judge Dredd - Mars Attacks Judge Dredd

References[]

  1. Megazine 4.12
  2. Prog 132
  3. progs 186 to 188
  4. Prog 188
  5. Megazine 4.12
  6. Megazine 4.12 to 4.13
  7. Megazine 4.13
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