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Judge Dredd: The Mega Collection discussion thread

Started by Molch-R, 10 December, 2014, 03:30:20 PM

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IndigoPrime

81–90 was, on average, of a much higher quality than any other ten-book run in the collection.

Davgardo

81-90 have been a delight and when the final volume dropped through the door I did feel a pang of sorrow that this was finishing. Personally. I'd have liked it to have finished at 100 - a much more satisfying number than 90.

My only criticism of the the collection is an old one but its worth repeating: the publication of Dreddverse strips whose quality was just not good enough and the extension has proven that it was at the expense of a huge body of work of a far higher quality.
Lowlife, Simping, Insurrection, Anderson, Devlin, Creep, Young Death, Lenny Zero, Hondo, Shimura, Missionary Man, Armitage, Koburn: yes all great, happy that they're there.
Harmony, Calhab, Red Razors, Pan African, Sleeze n Ryder, Heavy Metal, Brit Cit Brute: complete and utter drek. When the editorial is telling you its rubbish you do wonder about the logic behind reprinting it and you can't help regretting parting with £10 for it.

Fungus

I haven't got any of the dodgier volumes because... why?!
Glad to hear the editorial content is honest, that would actually be interesting to read.
When you've a captive audience of subscribers, the logic isn't so surprising. In this case, it's not just Rebellion but presumably choices by committee.

IndigoPrime

I thought the same. When the intro and interviews are both effectively saying something is crap, the reasoning for including it would need to be pretty watertight. You can fairly easily justify the likes of Inferno, on the basis it's an epic, Dredd, and Morrison. But Brit Cit Brute? Red Razors? All the crap in Heavy Mob?

Still, it's interesting to see Davgardo's list, in the sense that it showcases how opinions differ. Creep was a surprise – I hated it at the time, but rather enjoyed the re-read. But Missionary Man was so often a trudge, and Shimura was often incomprehensible. But I actually quite liked Pan Africa and some of Harmony. That said, I wouldn't have been upset had the collection ignored all of those.

abelardsnazz

As promised, here's a link to my index for the whole collection, duff issues and all. There are bound to be some errors, feel free to correct, share and use as you see fit.

[url]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QLPkkRSGHDOnlci50ppBWWZk6P3Pg3JONmF0v_gD7Mo/edit?usp=sharing/[url]



Jade Falcon

Only read part way through War on the Streets and I'm not at all happy. Not with the stories which are great but the reproduction is lousy. Too dark and a lot of text is virtually unreadable. I wonder if it's possible to get a proper replacement from Hachette.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

robert_ellis

I'm guessing it's the original scans that are bad, since all the more recent colour material looks fine.

Jade Falcon

So you mean that's the only scans there are, or thats the only ones Hachette has access too?

If that's the case I'd rather a different books with good stories if we couldn't have got decent quality text.  One or two stories, acceptable, but not the vast majority of the book.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

Apestrife

Recently finished reading through all of them (sans Dead end and War on the streets), and all and all I'm quite pleased with the collection. Approximately 35 of the books being "not my favorite", 20 "Good!" and 35 "Fantastic/classic".

The last book I read (as of now) was Lawless. For some reason I managed to miss it in the MEG. Really liked it. Especially the art. While I'm not too sold on the "who is she really?" mystery, luckily it never felt like it became much of a focus of the story. I could safely focus on the bang bang, marshal Lawson stuff.

As for the collection as whole. I'm most pleased how the extension of Tour of duty and Day of chaos (with aftermath) turned out, especially in conjunction with Blood of the emeralds. Also really liked collections like Crazy town and Mad city. They're as funny as sad. Funny the extremes cits will go to escape the boredom, and said boredom being sad when you realize how hopeless alot of it is for people in mc1. I think collections like Fast food also managed to channel this. It's through hilarious tragedies like these MC1 comes to life for me :)

abelardsnazz

So that was that. Really pleased that The Graveyard Shift made it into the collection, it's a stone-cold classic. And the rest of War on the Streets ain't too shabby either.

So if some of the lower quality stuff in the collection could have been ditched, what should have taken its place? For me, the following should have been included:

Blood of Satanus
Pirates of the Black Atlantic
Question/Error of Judgement/A Case for Treatment
In the Bath


Jade Falcon

Any chance Pirates of the Black Atlantic will be in the 2000AD collection?  Really, compared to some of the tripe that made it in, it's a crime it wasn't in, especially as a prequel to Block War and Apocalypse War.
When the truth offends, we lie and lie until we can no longer remember it is even there, but it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. That is how an RBMK reactor core explodes. Lies. - Valery Legasov

abelardsnazz

Quote from: Jade Falcon on 25 June, 2018, 10:39:19 PM
Any chance Pirates of the Black Atlantic will be in the 2000AD collection?  Really, compared to some of the tripe that made it in, it's a crime it wasn't in, especially as a prequel to Block War and Apocalypse War.

Don't think this is likely unless there's an extension, as the third and final Dredd-themed volume will contain Dark Justice and Dreams/Fall of Deadworld.

Tomwe

Quote from: abelardsnazz on 26 June, 2018, 08:20:13 AM
Quote from: Jade Falcon on 25 June, 2018, 10:39:19 PM
Any chance Pirates of the Black Atlantic will be in the 2000AD collection?  Really, compared to some of the tripe that made it in, it's a crime it wasn't in, especially as a prequel to Block War and Apocalypse War.

Don't think this is likely unless there's an extension, as the third and final Dredd-themed volume will contain Dark Justice and Dreams/Fall of Deadworld.

I wonder if there would be any value in a Ron Smith spotlight collection, along the lines of Kenny Who & Return Of The King. Have all his other signature works already appeared?