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Welcome, everyone, to the thread for discussion of Judge Dredd and the related stories set in his world. I'll be adding to this thread as it goes along, with more details about the world of the Mega-Cities and the various allies and foes Dredd has faced down the years. For now, though, I'm just going to provide an introduction to the character and set the ball rolling. Before I start: Dredd has appeared in a number of publications since 1977. To avoid confusion, when referring to specific issues please use the following acronyms: code: To properly introduce Judge Dredd, here is a transcript of a conversation held with one of his fellow Judges. Q: Who is Judge Dredd? A: He is the Law. Q: Yes, but who is he? A: Grud, are you deficient in the hearing? He's a Judge. That makes him the Law in Mega-City One. Q: What are the Judges? A: You can find out all about it in the cubes, creep. Wasting a Judge's time - thirty days! Q: I'm sorry, Judge, I didn't mean to, I'm not from round here! A: I don't care. Cuff yourself to that post, citizen. You know what this is? Q: It's a gun... A: That's right, bozo, and it dispenses six kinds of justice so don't even think about running. A: Control, this is Corcoran, I got a kook at the holding post on Bruce Willis Overwalk. He's asking questions about Dredd ... someone better pick him up for interrogation. *hphlfjhljl* A: Did you say "time slip"? *mmphljghfl* A: You've got to be drokking kidding me... A: Okay, you, you're free to go. Take the zoom to City Hall and request a place on the Temporally Displaced Persons Orientation Course. They'll set you up with Welfare and put you in a rehousing camp until an apartment clears - should only be a couple of years unless some geek nukes the reclam zone again - and they'll give you your Guide to Coping With Unemployment. Q: Yes, Judge. Thank you, Judge. A: And don't let me see your face again, or next time I won't be so nice. Q: Yes, Judge, I won't, Judge. By the mid-21st Century the world's great cities had spread and amalgamated until they were themselves the size of nations. In the wake of massive overpopulation, crime exploded. As the legal system in the United States stretched beyond its ability to cope, it was proposed that an elite law enforcement unit be given the power to instantly punish criminals without recourse to trial or jury. These law enforcement officers, the Judges, received many years training in both proper application of justice and the combat skills required to enforce the law. This system of instant justice proved, if not wholly effective, certainly more successful than the antiquated system of courts and lawyers, and within 20 years had been adopted worldwide as the standard. After the Great Atomic War of 2070 was begun by US President Robert Booth, the Judges took matters into their own hands and removed politicians from the equation, taking charge of the surviving Mega-Cities themselves. The police forces continued to exist and work alongside the Judges, but were gradually phased out and eventually disappeared around the turn of the 22nd Century. The pre-eminent Judge of Mega-City One is Judge Joe Dredd. A clone of the first Chief Judge, Eustace Fargo, Dredd is a living embodiment of both the Law and the Judge system. To put this in perspective: in a city of over 400 million people, Dredd is so well known that when he quit the Judges due to self-doubt it was considered that it would be too much of a blow to the system if the citizens were to find out. Dredd is tough, unflinching and absolutely ruthless in upholding the law, but he also does not allow injustice to pass him by - even when he is under no obligation to assist. He is a fascist because the system is fascist, and he accepts that it is the only way it can work. His outlook is best summed up by these two pages from the classic story America.   WHERE CAN I READ ABOUT DREDD? WHERE SHOULD I START? Judge Dredd was first published in Prog (issue) 2 of 2000AD in 1977, and with one exception has appeared in every issue since. In 1990 a spin-off magazine was launched, the Judge Dredd Megazine, which contains not only Dredd stories but related stories set in other parts of the world or featuring other characters. The launch of the Megazine (AKA "the Meg") saw a decided shift in tone for Dredd; hitherto mainly a garish action strip with a satirical backdrop and some fairly simple political commentary, the Meg opened up a wider world of more adult themes which to some degree bled over into the main comic. One thing that is worth noting is that unlike most other comics Dredd proceeds in real time, with stories always being set 122 years in the future. In the run-up to the 1995 Dredd movie starring Sylvester Stallone, DC Comics released two Dredd comics of their own. The main one, simply titled Judge Dredd, was a full reboot in a differently styled Mega-City One. The other, Legends of the Law, stayed closer to the original material. Neither comic lasted long, folding in just over a year. With a new Dredd movie in 2012 another attempt has been made to break Dredd into the US comic-reading consciousness, this time by IDW Publishing. Their main Judge Dredd title launched in November 2012 and is so far revisiting the early Dredd stories, revising the style to match the more serious tone of later stories. IDW will also be launching a companion title, Judge Dredd: Year One, in March 2013. This book will go back to 2079 and tell tales of Dredd's first year on the streets. So, with 36 years and more than 20,000 pages on story to draw from, where to begin? Luckily, over the last few years Rebellion Publishing have been printing the Case Files series, which compile almost-complete runs of Dredd stories from 2000AD and, latterly, the Megazine. The first fourteen volumes each cover approximately one full year. There are also a large number of trade paperbacks containing significant arcs. Here's a few recommended options: Case Files 1 For the purists who want to go through it in order. The world of Dredd was not fully formed in these early stories, and the tone is radically different. They do provide a reasonable introduction to the world, but it's far from the best option. Case Files 2 This volume contains the first two Mega-Epics - months-long stories that tell of a major event. In The Cursed Earth Dredd and a picked crew travel on a mercy mission across the nuclear wasteland in the middle of America to deliver a vaccine to a plague-struck Mega-City Two on the West Coast, while The Day The Law Died sees a crazed megalomaniac (modelled on Caligula) take over the Judges while Dredd and a handful of Academy tutors struggle to overthrow him. Both stories are excellent; however, they take up the entire book and they provide no real sense of what Mega-City One is like. As such, I wouldn't want to start here. Case Files 3/4 By this point the style has settled down and the background is well defined. Case Files 3 is mainly filler - though it does include the superb Judge Death, which introduces the titular villain and also Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson. Case Files 4 is built around The Judge Child, a Mega-Epic somewhat similar to The Cursed Earth in that it's Dredd and a crew outside Mega-City One - in this case, travelling first to Texas City and then into space in pursuit of a psychic child who is destined to lead Mega-City One in the time of its greatest catastrophe. CF4 also introduces long-time antihero Marlon "Chopper" Shakespeare and begins the setup for the bulk of Case Files 5. Either would be a reasonable place to start. Case Files 5 For my money, the best jumping-on point. It begins with The Mega-Files, a series of stories detailing some of the more interesting crimes in the Mega-City and which are a good introduction to the world - I can attest to this personally, as I began reading 2000AD somewhere early in this volume. The back half of the volume is taken up by the giant two-part Mega-Epic Block Mania and The Apocalypse War, a tale of espionage and holocaust that ran for nine months and changed the face of the strip forever. As previously noted, the setup for The Apocalypse War began almost a year before the story, a feat which was possible because it was given a great deal of lead time to allow Dredd co-creator Carlos Ezquerra to draw all 26 episodes - the first time one artist illustrated an entire Mega-Epic. America John Wagner's now famous story is an interesting place to start as Dredd barely appears in it and it's entirely written from the point of view of a citizen. The story of an immigrant's daughter who dreams of a Mega-City free of tyranny and the man who loves her, it was written for the launch of the Megazine and thus served both as a jumping-on point for new readers and the shift to more mature storylines. The collected volume includes the sequel story - loathed by many due to a switch from painted artwork to hideous early computer colouring - and a third story centring on America's daughter. It's not the best place to start, but it is the best thing to wave under someone's nose when they disparage you for reading comics. OK, I think that's enough to get started. Any questions you want to ask, ask and I'll answer if I can. If I can't, I'm sure someone will be able to. EDIT: Can we please reserve this thread for discussion of Dredd. There's so much more stuff in 2000AD that it warrants its own thread - which someone else can curate. Jedit fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jan 23, 2013 |
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Jan 23, 2013 01:54
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Great OP. What little of Dredd that I've been able to read has been great and the recent Dredd film definitely makes me want to pick up some Case Files.
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Jan 23, 2013 02:20
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...I think I want that smaller panel as my avatar.
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Jan 23, 2013 04:19
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The code tag in your OP really messes with the formatting... I would put the Note outside of the tag. I picked up Case Files 2 - 5 and ordered America (more on that later) out of a sense of nostalgia from reading stuff at a friend's house in the 90s. I might have to pick up Case Files 1 too, since some of the stuff I vaguely remember wasn't in those (something about a rat-face dude?). I think The Judge Child was my favorite mega-epic; the more sci-fi tone of it was a welcome break from the oppressive city scenes. The Day The Law Died was my least favorite - it was more silly than funny; getting through that was a bit of a slog. The Judge Death stuff was the best mid-length stories. As for America? Well, I ordered it from Amazon on October 27th, but it hasn't shipped yet. Amazon even sent me an email wondering if I still wanted it. Maybe the container ship from the UK sank or something...
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Jan 23, 2013 04:25
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Q: Can we get the rest of 2000AD and the rest of Tharg's THRILL POWER up in here?
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Jan 23, 2013 04:49
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Should of called it Judge Threadd  .I'll probably pick up the 3rd/4th case file since I think they were on sale somewhere. Maybe the 1st too since it's cheap digitally.
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Jan 23, 2013 05:06
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I've been waiting for this for a while, thanks Jedit, you are a boss. The Dredd universe is so well embellished at this point that most of everything you can think of has a law, and has probably been mentioned in the comic at some point. Just reading it should be awesome, I can't wait.
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Jan 23, 2013 05:10
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Cool OP but the images in it are breaking tables pretty hard for me, can you size them down a bit so I don't have to scroll horizontally back and forth to read it?
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Jan 23, 2013 05:15
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Sinister Dexter follows the gunsharks Finnigan "Finny" Sinister and Ramone "Ray" Dexter in  Try to imagine what a Tarentio film would look like if he were born 100 years from now, and that's a good starting point. It's notable in that it's one of the 2000AD series unrelated to Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog, or the ABC warriors. They get into some bad situations and make good comics out of them.
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Jan 23, 2013 05:16
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jonjonaug posted:Cool OP but the images in it are breaking tables pretty hard for me, can you size them down a bit so I don't have to scroll horizontally back and forth to read it? How small is your monitor?
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Jan 23, 2013 05:41
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jonjonaug posted:Cool OP but the images in it are breaking tables pretty hard for me, can you size them down a bit so I don't have to scroll horizontally back and forth to read it? It isn't the images, but the notes in the quote box. Reformat them OP, otherwise, the OP is perfect!
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Jan 23, 2013 07:32
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Another Person posted:It isn't the images, but the notes in the quote box. Reformat them OP, otherwise, the OP is perfect! The code box seems to extend to fit the screen. I just halved the line length, but the box is still the same width. I've moved the two pages of America to be sequential instead of side by side for the benefit of people with 4:3 monitors. By the way, can we please keep discussion in this thread to Dredd and related strips only. There's so much more material in 2000AD that the Dredd might get swamped. Back in the day 2000AD and Judge Dredd had their own separate annuals, so they deserve their own threads too.  
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Jan 23, 2013 09:00
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Jedit posted:A: Control, this is Corcoran, I got a kook at the holding post on Bruce Willis Overwalk. He's asking questions about Dredd ... someone better pick him up for interrogation.[/b] Great OP; looking forward to the thread and seeing what newcomers make of Dredd's universe. (Which may or may not also be the universe of Strontium Dog, and Ro-Busters/ABC Warriors and by extension Nemesis The Warlock and just about everything else Pat Mills has ever written, depending on the retcon status this week.)
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Jan 23, 2013 10:00
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Dunno if it's nostalgia, but I think Cursed Earth and Judge Caligula were among the best stories ever. Cursed Earth has so fantastically many interesting sights from the ruins of the old world to people trying to build the new. And insane Judge Cal sets an interesting baseline for the decades to come. 20 years later he seems almost reasonable.
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Jan 23, 2013 14:28
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The WB did a thing with the Watchmen comic that basically turned the graphic novel into a slide show with voice overs (motion comic). Does that exist for Dredd?
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Jan 23, 2013 16:04
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Hob_Gadling posted:Dunno if it's nostalgia, but I think Cursed Earth and Judge Caligula were among the best stories ever. Cursed Earth has so fantastically many interesting sights from the ruins of the old world to people trying to build the new. And insane Judge Cal sets an interesting baseline for the decades to come. 20 years later he seems almost reasonable. You also learned how dangrous Ronald McDonald is 
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Jan 23, 2013 16:07
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bobkatt013 posted:You also learned how dangrous Ronald McDonald is
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Jan 23, 2013 16:15
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berzerkmonkey posted:Haha, holy poo poo - I've never seen that one! Is that part of the original Cursed Earth saga? I'm sure it got pulled and never reprinted, right? Yep it is part of the Burger Wars part of Cursed Earth that was printd once then never again. 
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Jan 23, 2013 16:22
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I've always thought of the Cursed Earth as the libertarian hellhole equivalent to the nanny state hellhole of Megacity One. Giant corporations literally running amok.
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Jan 23, 2013 16:36
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The missing Cursed Earth progs can be found here: http://unseendredd.blogspot.com/
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Jan 23, 2013 16:38
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I don't understand why they pulled them - the Burger Wars characters certainly fall under parody protection. I'm not so sure about the "Soul Food" characters, as they are the original mascots. I guess companies were less willing to screw with big corporations at the time.Cream_Filling posted:I've always thought of the Cursed Earth as the libertarian hellhole equivalent to the nanny state hellhole of Megacity One. Giant corporations literally running amok. Question: Is the Megazine a collection of 2000AD strips, or are they standalone stories?
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Jan 23, 2013 17:35
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The LP subforum has a video LP of dredd vs death. It's pretty good and it inspired me to buy case files 1-5. Which I promptly read in 2 days! I love me the law!
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Jan 23, 2013 18:05
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mrhotdogvendor posted:The LP subforum has a video LP of dredd vs death. It's pretty good and it inspired me to buy case files 1-5. Which I promptly read in 2 days! I love me the law! If you want more law you can get 6-19 on amazon.co.uk Also Judge Dredd Megazine is more stories not reprints https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miVoe7U6Lx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aaubVlhNK4 bobkatt013 fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jan 23, 2013 |
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Jan 23, 2013 18:06
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Are the Case Files in sequential order, or are they more "Best of" collections? I'd like to have something a bit easier to read... VVV Thank you for the clarification. VVV berzerkmonkey fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 23, 2013 |
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Jan 23, 2013 20:19
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berzerkmonkey posted:Are the Case Files in sequential order, or are they more "Best of" collections? I'd like to have something a bit easier to read... They are in sequential order.
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Jan 23, 2013 20:43
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berzerkmonkey posted:I don't understand why they pulled them - the Burger Wars characters certainly fall under parody protection. I'm not so sure about the "Soul Food" characters, as they are the original mascots. I guess companies were less willing to screw with big corporations at the time. Yeah, I'm saying that a lawless, dog-eat-dog, wasteland is about as libertarian as you can get. And that the presence of the corporate mascots is an additional element that adds support to this interpretation. It's a counter-balance to the Nanny state/welfare state dystopia Megacity One is supposed to represent - 95% unemployment and everyone's on the dole, but it still beats the horrors of the Cursed Earth.
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Jan 23, 2013 21:09
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bobkatt013 posted:If you want more law you can get 6-19 on amazon.co.uk By the time you had quoted me my order confirmation had already come thru! This is a crime blitz! I need to see all your grocery store recites for the past 20 years!
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Jan 23, 2013 21:56
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berzerkmonkey posted:I don't understand why they pulled them - the Burger Wars characters certainly fall under parody protection. I'm not so sure about the "Soul Food" characters, as they are the original mascots. I guess companies were less willing to screw with big corporations at the time. IIRC, if you have enough money and expensive enough lawyers you can basically ignore parody law.
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Jan 23, 2013 22:36
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I was actually just reading through the wikipedia summaries of the major arcs of Judge Dredd, so good timing on this. Do any authors try to get Dredd going all comic-book-hero and liberal and poo poo and just not get what Dredd's whole point is, or did they manage to keep him more-or-less on-task?
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Jan 23, 2013 22:45
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rotinaj posted:I was actually just reading through the wikipedia summaries of the major arcs of Judge Dredd, so good timing on this. Do any authors try to get Dredd going all comic-book-hero and liberal and poo poo and just not get what Dredd's whole point is, or did they manage to keep him more-or-less on-task? An amazing thing is that Wagner has been writing Dredd for almost his entire history.
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Jan 23, 2013 22:49
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If you have a kindle, you can get epics as stand alone ecomics, for about 5bux. I just finished cursed earth and just bought Dark Judges. Besides that there is only the Day the law Died so far, at least in the Canadian store. It's interesting, seeing Dredd move over across the Cursed Earth. He mostly dispenses justice to a lawless land by fighting injustice.
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Jan 23, 2013 22:52
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twistedmentat posted:If you have a kindle, you can get epics as stand alone ecomics, for about 5bux. I just finished cursed earth and just bought Dark Judges. Besides that there is only the Day the law Died so far, at least in the Canadian store. Thanks for this, I kept hoping that the originals would show up on Comixology, this is at least something. Also, just FYI for other Americans, there seem to be a few more available here.
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Jan 23, 2013 23:09
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Here is info on th enew storyline coming up and how you can get new progs http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=43316
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Jan 23, 2013 23:12
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Dredd is consistently really great, I love 2000AD in general and it's pretty much the only comic I actually follow. Devlin Waugh is my favourite though.
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Jan 23, 2013 23:12
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rotinaj posted:I was actually just reading through the wikipedia summaries of the major arcs of Judge Dredd, so good timing on this. Do any authors try to get Dredd going all comic-book-hero and liberal and poo poo and just not get what Dredd's whole point is, or did they manage to keep him more-or-less on-task? I'll have to dig out my copy of Judge Dredd: The Mega-History, which is full of candid quotes and anecdotes about the strip's first 18 or so years.
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Jan 23, 2013 23:26
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A Dredd LP and now this? its like christmas.  On topic, people tend to skip over Case File Number 1, but if you want to see the weirdness of Dredd's first outings, its an amusing read, its got the origins of nobody's favorite robot, Walter the Wobot (he gets a lisp due to fear) and first story arc villain, Call me Kenneth, who loves to call everyone fleshlings.
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Jan 24, 2013 00:02
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Be sure to watch the new Dredd movie as well guys, it's pretty good.
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Jan 24, 2013 00:07
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Don't forget the Batman/Judge Dredd comics! I've only read Judgement on Gotham  It's kinda goofy but not a bad read. Simon Bisley's art is amazing.
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Jan 24, 2013 00:15
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Dredd is funny because all of the crossover stories are within canon, which means Dredd has encountered Batman, Xenomorphs, Predators and Lobo.
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Jan 24, 2013 00:31
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RandallODim posted:Dredd is funny because all of the crossover stories are within canon, which means Dredd has encountered Batman, Xenomorphs, Predators and Lobo. And the Jolly Green Giant! The lawsuit that pulled the mascot comics from publication also resulted in a Dredd comic where Dredd and crew explain that the JGG supplies delicious peas and corn to Meg-1.
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Jan 24, 2013 00:44
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