Judge Death: My Name is Death

[radiator]

Recieved this gn is the post this morning, and lovely it is too. So it's out there - Get out and get yourself a copy!

[The Amstor Computer]

Fingers crossed mine will be at home just now. Mind if I hijack this thread with the usual cover pics, book details etc. when I get it?

[radiator]

But of course....
i'll just say there's a nice Irving sketchbook section at the back

[The Amstor Computer]

Hurrah! It was sat in the postbox waiting for me, so without further ado:


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JUDGE DEATH: MY NAME IS DEATH
JOHN WAGNER & FRAZER IRVING

KILLING IS HIS BUSINESS

Judge Death, a twisted alien being from a dimension where all life is crime, has escaped from a Mega-City One containment facility and is headed for the radioactive hell of the Cursed Earth. Here his path of destruction continues as he searches for the means to destroy all humanity.

This macabre road trip takes Death through the twisted remains of Las Vegas, teams him up with two cold-blooded serial killer, and shows him that the true path to annihilation lies deep below the desert sands.

CONTENTS:

My Name Is Death
The Wilderness Days
Cover gallery (prog 1294, Megazine 209, 211A and 211B)
3-page sketchbook

This volume reprints in full the relatively recent Wagner/Irving stint on the classic Dredd villain.

After years of lacklustre stories and guest appearances, John Wagner brought the alien superfiend shuddering back to gruesome life with the first story collected here. Although Wagner is on form with a brisk, gruesome little tale, I doubt it would have the same impact without Frazer Irving's art. His stark, stylised B&W art brings to mind artists like Berni Wrightson and Lynd Ward, while the scenes in a fog-bound Mega-City One are strongly reminiscent of Brian Bolland's classic work on Judge Death. He's the perfect artist for Wagner's script, and in one particularly chilling scene at the John Wayne Home for Juves writer & artist seem to be in horrific harmony.    

The followup story, The Wilderness Days is something of a disappointment after this return to form.

While the art remains uniformly excellent, the regression into a more comic - albeit blackly comic - adventure is a bit of a letdown. There's a feeling that Wagner has tired of the character again, and while there are some enjoyable moments scattered throughout - the Cursed Earth is ripe for frontier horror, as the latest Cursed Earth Koburn story promises - it never equals the opening story.

The extras are a little disappointing, being limited to half-size B&W reproductions of the listed covers and a skimpy sketchbook. The sketchbook in particular is quite disappointing as it features only a single pin-up of Death, a promo image for the series from prog 2002 and one page of pencils. After the chunkier extras in recent Rebellion trades, this is something of a disappointment.

Still, at just ?9 this is a book that is definitely worth a look. Gorgeous art, Wagner on top form (for at least half of the book, anyway) and all with the now-traditional Rebellion high quality repro & presentation.  

[The Amstor Computer]

Hmm. Didn't mean to use so many variations of "disappointment/disappointint" in that penultimate paragraph.

Ah, well - the perils of not having a preview, I suppose...

[Bico]

Pedantic, but is this the same size as the current Meg pages, or the thinner American-type they had for a bit?

[The Amstor Computer]

Bear --

The book is the same size as the rest of the Rebellion US-style books - approx. 10" tall by 7" wide. The artwork on both strips has been resized to fit within these dimensions, but not - as far as I can tell - stretched either vertically or horizontally. This obviously means there are largish borders around the art, but it's really not anything to worry about.

[Bico]

Cheers, Amstor.  I do like the 'brit annual' look to the collections, and the shiny paper is a bonus.