Dredd Thread

[Rob McCow]

Ah, I thought it seemed to deal with 'modern' concerns about US Presidents, what with the vote-rigging and warmongering! Although some elements of the strip seem timeless, there's a lot of satire which gets dated. Although that's good in a way, you instantly know at least what decade you're in depending on who's being lampooned

[Paul Monk]

I've got an urge to get some Dredd out of my local library now.

Wasn't Dredd a newspaper strip as well? In the Express or something? And were these reprints of old stories or a separate entity?

[Stuart Wallis]

Wasn't Dredd a newspaper strip as well? In the Express or something? And were these reprints of old stories or a separate entity?

They were in the Star, I think. AFAIK they've never been re-released anywhere else, which is a shame because they were all-new. Damn the Daily Star!

[Alex]

They were in the Star, and some of them were put together in collections, because I used to have some of them. I don't remember them being anything that special though, I think the newspaper strip format limited it somewhat.

Here's one on ebay at the mo - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/THE-JUDGE-DRED...QQcmdZViewItem - and there's a couple of others too, and they're mostly going for around £3 (plus £2 p&p)

[Rob McCow]

For Christmas I got two of the collected Dredd titles - Volumes 04 and 05, which feature the epics:
'The Judge Child', an extended race through space which meanders a bit but has some exciting moments. It features The Angel Gang, who turned up in the Dredd movie. They're fairly good villains. Dredd picks them off rather too easily though.
'The Mega City Rackets' a series of vaguely linked stories about the large-scale crimes that Dredd goes after. These are some of my favourites of the ones I've read, with 'Chump-dumping', 'Umpty bagging' and 'Blitzing' being explored in detail.
'Judge Death Lives!' is far too short! The fantastic and iconic pan-dimensional Judges are too easy too kill. I think Dredd should have spent longer hunting down the Judges in their own dimension. Very, very cool though.
'Block Mania' / 'The Apocalypse War' is absolutely stonking. Everyone in Mega City One goes crazy and start fighting each other, then the Soviet-based East Meg One launches a nuclear offensive that tears the city apart. Inevitably, Dredd leads the fight back and saves whatever is left of Mega City One. Although the Soviet stuff now looks out of date, the Sov-Judges, tanks and robots look fantastic.

Great stuff that's left me wanting more!

[Stuart Wallis]

It took long enough for the Dark Judges to get an epic-length story of their own, though (Necropolis). They did deserve one.

[Alex]

I was always surprised how long it took for them to have a proper epic story for the Dark Judges, especially considering how popular they were. But Necropolis does deliver, and in spades. I think you've been reading some excellent stuff Steve, but it's from here on in that the strip becomes really great - for a good few years at least, anyway.

There's supposed to be a new Dredd movie coming along soon too (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39529) , and advance word seems to suggest that they consider the Stallone effort to be appalling (thankfully), and that it will be more of a faithful adaptation this time around.

[Andrew Curnow]

Ignore, see below.

[Andrew Curnow]

Those ones Rob mentions are really the stories I remember most fondly from my early years getting 2000AD - although there'd been 'epic length' Dredd stories before, The Judge Child was the first one since I started getting the mag. Even as a kid I do remember being particularly impressed with the ending where (a bit like a Mac Hulke novel) it wasn't a simple good/evil thing. Having gone through all that effort to track the kid down, Dredd basically judges him not worth it, and no future saviour of Mega City.

I expect you know, Rob, but the strip returned to the Judge Child, and the prediction of destruction, several times over the year - there's one strip where Dredd and Anderson (or is it Hershey?) go forward in time to a possible future Mega City, full of zombies and ruled over by an evil, bloated creature that was once the child. And in 'real time' (ie, 20 or whatever years after the predicion of destruction) the mag was just one huge strip devoted to the 'resolution' which was in essence Dredd facing up to the prediction, which never came to pass.

As for Block Mania, the artwork started off really weird IMHO (Mike McMahon I think, of Junkyard Demon fame?) but once it segued into The Apocalypse War it was superb. That cover to issue... is it 162? with just Dredd's badge and a bullet hole - brilliant stuff, great days!!

[Rob McCow]

Here we go - just picked up Volume 9 of Judge Dredd this weekend thanks to Si's 'Help'. ("Go on, buy it, you'll really like it!")

Well I've quite liked it so far. I've had Chopper taking part in Supersurf 7, Killer shape-changing space-spider Nosferatu ("All Judges look out for a short woman with grey hair and glasses. Details subject to change without notice!") and a Two-Ton Fatty winning the Biggest Fatty contest. Not forgetting Megaman, 2000ADs answer to Superman who lasts about 8 pages before getting clobbered by Dredd.

All good fun, with imaginative writing and grotesque artwork, but for me it's the epic stories where Judge Dredd really comes to life. Preferably ones that involve other Judges. Dredd is a magnificent character, but when he's shown alongside more human Judges it gives the story more impact.

[Llordllama]

All this talk of Necropolis and no one mentioned Tale of the Dead Man (not to mention the years long arc of Democracy Now, tight boots and well certain events pointing all the way back to the Judda in Oz).

I quite liked Doomsday for MegaCity 1; but that's because the focus was Galen DeMarco; who was introduced in the excellent "The Pit" (Dredd becomes Sector Chief of the worst sector in the big Meg).

You'll have to browse some of my collection sometime Steve

[Alex]

I picked up the first volume of the Case Files reprints last week and was really surprised by how much the character changes during the first ten or so issues. In the first couple of stories he shows the occasional hint of kindness, makes the odd humourous comment, and is in general far more human than I'd remembered. I'm glad they made the changes they did though, and turned him in to the all round b'stard that we know and love.

[Rob McCow]

I got hold of Vols 1 and 2 at the weekend. It's all very formative in Dredd's early years, the stories are fairly average but Dredd's character does lift it. The basic story format (New villain gets tracked down and clobbered by Dredd) rarely gets deviated from. Yes I know that story-line applies to every Judge Dredd story, but it's the little twists and bizarre situations that make it special.

And his old-style helmet is awful. Redesigning it was the best idea they had!

[Stuart Wallis]

I think it's the strip that follows the end of the Luna-1 storyline, when Dredd returns to earth, where they change the helmet - except that because there's two artists doing alternate episodes, the helmet changes shape about three times during the course of the story.

[Rob McCow]

Recent acquisitions have brought me also up-to-date with the Dredd compendium releases! Vols. 7,8,10 and 11 turned up a few days ago.

Naturally I tanked through Volume 7 first. These feature Dredd becoming a Werewolf (though it was cured too obviously and too easily). Dave the Orang-utang becomes Mayor of Mega City One, beating off competition from the Lib-Lab-Flab coalition. Chief Psi-Judge Omar is called in to help deal with the Haunting of Sector 9, a brilliant horror story. There's the Graveyard Shift, which depicts a typical night in Mega-City One, complete with running death toll.

Judge Dredd gets a pie in the face which starts off a craze of pie-throwing in Pieromania. And Dredd takes Rookie Judge Dekker under his wing - first to offer protection to a Super Bowl team, only they end up arresting half the team including the coach - then to bust an illegal Bingo hall.

So no major epics or any developments, but still great stuff.

[Stuart Wallis]

Some of the best stories are the simpler, shorter ones. After volume 11, and they're up to 15 now, they'tr shorter, but they're into the full-colour reprints.

[Stuart Wallis]

Out now is Judge Dredd: The Restricted Files volume 1, which contains stories from the early Judge Dredd and 2000AD annuals and summer specials, and a coulpe of Dan Dare annuals as well from the same period.

[Rob McCow]

This is a completely magnificent, 27 minute long fan film of Judge Minty. Absolutely superb. I loved the psychic crazy with the hockey mask and the eyes...

[Dirk Gently]

That was quite good.