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The Judge Child Quest

Started by JoFox2108, 16 June, 2017, 11:46:34 AM

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TordelBack

And the indispensable Casefiles 4, of course (which also has The Fink, Pirates of the Black Atlantic, Otto Sump and Unamerican Graffiti- I mean dear Grud what a volume!)  'Block War' should be considered the last episode/epilogue of the Judge Child, and never separated from it.

Greg M.

It's an odd one, the Judge Child. Starts quite well, has quite a flabby middle - basically, all the stuff in space - and properly comes to life at the end, more or less at the exact point Alan Grant comes on-board, and the black humour gets cranked up a further notch. And then the epilogue's better than the entire story.

TordelBack

#32
Quote from: Greg M. on 15 August, 2017, 10:19:42 AM
...has quite a flabby middle...

Flabby middles are very underrated, and I speak from personal experience.  The 'space stuff', while obviously largely irrelevant to the plot, oracle-spice-yadda-yadda, is the best bit: it's the spectacle that justifies the story, and what a spectacle it is.

The usual accusation that Dredd-in-space stories don't work because of the absence of the City seems to miss the point that space can be just as wacky and engaging a backdrop or foil, it just has to be rendered by McMahon, Ron Smith and Bolland.

Greg M.

It's maybe less the absence of the city, more the absence of world-building, at least at this stage in the strip's existence. The interstellar shenanigans are fun enough, and undoubtedly spectacularly well-drawn, but bar the odd fan-pleasing call-back years down the line, they're swiftly left behind and onto the next. The one highpoint is Murd - I'd happily have lost Agros and Lesser Lingo and had more of the Necromancer.

Where I think the epic does score in lasting impact is in terms of character. Hershey, Krysler, Dredd-as-Bastard, and most of all, the Angel Gang. The last six episodes are brilliant - much more visceral, mean-spirited (pun intended) and grounded.


TordelBack

#35
Quote from: Greg M. on 15 August, 2017, 11:26:17 AM
It's maybe less the absence of the city, more the absence of world-building, at least at this stage in the strip's existence. [...] they're swiftly left behind and onto the next [...] Where I think the epic does score in lasting impact is in terms of character.

Agreed and agreed, but only if it's 2017 and we're looking at Judge Child in terms of its legacy.  In the moment, on the page, that crazy stuff is where it's at.  I wouldn't sacrifice a panel of Agross for another page of character development: that stuff is vital, but it's only worthwhile because it takes place in such a rich and deeply silly context, aka the Judge Dredd strip.  'Death of a Legend' needed McGruder legislating on the pie-to-the-face craze and chucking snakes about to make it so poignant.

Greg M.

Quote from: TordelBack on 15 August, 2017, 12:23:51 PM
Agreed and agreed, but only if it's 2017 and we're looking at Judge Child in terms of its legacy.  In the moment, on the page, that crazy stuff is where it's at.

It's a fair point - I wasn't reading 2000AD at the time it was published, so I've only ever viewed Judge Child retrospectively, which is a different experience.

pert

shame it was retconned so that Pa and Junior survived

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: pert on 04 January, 2018, 12:28:32 PM
shame it was retconned so that Pa and Junior survived

Only until the retcon was retconned so that IT NEVER HAPPENED.
@jamesfeistdraws

Richard

It's a rare example of a John Wagner story Tharg should have said no to.

Tjm86

It does have it's weaknesses to be sure, but I wonder if some of that stems from a tendency to view it as a single coherent story rather than a collection of tales tied together with a common idea.  It does seem to me that the structure to the early 'epics' tends to be quite different to, for instance, the Apocalypse War.  That did feel like the first attempt to tell a single Dredd story over an extended period of time.

The Cursed Earth Saga, Day the Law Died, Judge Child Quest and the Lunar Marshall stories tend to be more thematically / locationally linked.  They are far more episodic in nature, with substrands running for several issues at a time or simply as standalone stories that are interesting vignettes but don't really move the story along much

Greg M, I would agree that reading JCQ as a back prog experience is different to as part of the original audience.  I do think we occasionally forget the demographic of the readership back then (okay, how old we actually were at the time!) and what that implies for sophistication.  Not to mention editorial conventions at the time.

Oh, and Sheridan, the Titan volume does include the Block War episode.  Makes the Mega Collection omission all the more bizarre.

Greg M.

Quote from: Tjm86 on 04 January, 2018, 03:26:26 PM
The Cursed Earth Saga, Day the Law Died, Judge Child Quest and the Lunar Marshall stories tend to be more thematically / locationally linked. 

Fair enough on the others, but The Day the Law Died is pretty squarely one coherent story. Which, in part due to lack of variety, isn't a patch on Cursed Earth (though there's a lot to love about it, mostly Cal himself.)

Colin YNWA

Yeah I'd say both Cursed Earth and Judge Child have a similar structure. At a guess to enable the world to be developed more, both have a core plot and story but are essentially a series of related shorts delving into new parts of Dredd's world.

The Day The Law Died is much more similar to Apoclypse War as being a single story across many episodes.

Tjm86

Fair point.  I guess at times DTLD just feels a bit like a Dredd on the run strip, morphing into the revolution, morphing into Klegg Invasion then finally the attack on Cal but actually on reflection I am happy to be corrected in that respect and view them more as chapters in a story / acts in a play.  So; yes it is closer in narrative structure to Apocalypse War.

sheridan

Quote from: Greg M. on 04 January, 2018, 07:00:28 PM
Quote from: Tjm86 on 04 January, 2018, 03:26:26 PM
The Cursed Earth Saga, Day the Law Died, Judge Child Quest and the Lunar Marshall stories tend to be more thematically / locationally linked. 

Fair enough on the others, but The Day the Law Died is pretty squarely one coherent story. Which, in part due to lack of variety, isn't a patch on Cursed Earth (though there's a lot to love about it, mostly Cal himself.)


A more recent example: Tour of Duty - thematically linked by taking place in the Cursed Earth during Dredd's time of 'exile' but featuring discrete stories.