Judge Dredd: Crime Chronicles - New From Big Finish!

[Cyber-Matt]

NEW FROM BIG FINISH...

JUDGE DREDD: CRIME CHRONICLES

Doctor Who's Leela helps fight crime!

Big Finish makes a long-awaited return to the 2000 AD universe in October for a brand new series of adventures in crime and space. Judge Dredd: Crime Chronicles finds the iconic lawman of Mega City One starring in four new stories where he faces off against foes old and new and, for the final story, partners up with a fellow Judge played by Doctor Who's Louise Jameson. Officially licensed by Rebellion, each story is a dramatic reading, with full sound design and a specially drawn cover by 2000 AD artist Cliff Robinson, and features Toby Longworth as Judge Dredd.

The series begins with Stranger Than Truth by David Bishop and told by Brit-Cit academic, Eliza Blunt (Helen Kay). Captured and imprisoned by Judge Dredd, author Truman Kaput has spent years in the Mega City One iso-cubes, his work banned. His crime: writing lurid detective novels in which the ficticious Slick Dickens repeatedly outwits the cowardly bully, Judge Dredd. Now a new Truman Kaput novel is being serialised, and each chapter predicts an imminent murder with chilling accuracy. Has Slick Dickens escaped the page to commit real crimes in Mega-City One? Is a serial killer using the chapters as templates for
their crime? Where does fiction end and the truth start? Can Dredd stop the plot before his nemesis fulfils the finale of Slick Dickens: I Killed Judge Dredd?

In Blood Will Tell by James Swallow, a frenzied mutant attack on Mega-City One's shield wall is revealed to be the cover for a group of infiltrators. Judge Dredd tells the story of how he was forced to face a deadly opponent from his past: Garris Hale, a man whose life he destroyed. Back from exile in the radioactive wilderness of the Cursed Earth, Hale has possession of a dark secret – a secret so explosive that it could plunge the entire city into anarchy and chaos! With his judgement in question and the future of his city in the balance, Dredd must face a lethal enemy intent on revenge at any cost...

The third tale, The Devil's Playground by Jonathan Clements, is narrated by Wendy Plainfolk (Gemma Wardle) and finds Judge Dredd hunting a killer on the loose, his only lead a girl who's never seen the sky or the streets. Raised in a religious commune, locked in a closed farming habitat in the heart of the city, Wendy Plainfolk knows nothing of the temptations and dangers of Dredd's world. But she is the only link to a double homicide in a place she calls the Devil's Playground: Mega-City One.

Finally, much-loved Doctor Who alumnus Louise Jameson (Leela) narrates James Swallow's Double Zero in the guise of Judge Anderson. On the Mills-Wagner scale of psychic potentiality, the Double Zero rating is ranked as the lowest possible level of human telepathic receptability and/or psionic ability. When a strange premonition draws Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson to her fellow law officer, Joe Dredd, what begins as an inkling of something sinister soon becomes a matter of life and death. With telepathic secret agents from a dozen city-states infiltrating the Big Meg in search of a psychic weapon called 'the pariah', Anderson and Dredd find themselves in a race against time to save the life of an innocent child – with the power to start a war...

Judge Dredd: Crime Chronicles begins in October and is released monthly until January, priced £9.99 per CD and £7.99 for an MP3 download.

Both are available from www.bigfinish.com

[Bad Andy]

Wahey! Rebellion are true to form with their official announcements, but I'm pleased to see this.

I've recently got addicted to Big Finish stuff, so am well happy to see these.

Not so sure about the costs though. Big Finish currently has them on pre-order for £8.99. http://www.bigfinish.com/2000-AD

You can also subscribe to the range for £30 (CDs) or £25 (downloads).

[TordelBack]

Good on Bish-Op!  Nice idea for a story too, can see the pastiche element working well in audio.

[dweezil2]

Glad for some official info on these. The radio 1 Cursed Earth and Apocalypse War adaptions were great and the previous Big Finish audio production were a lot of fun, so I'll definately give these a go.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I just paid for the bulk 4 CD's for £30 option, great value. Plus I like to feel the product in my hand knowing that it's all mine

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Just seen my email confirmation of my order and it says, "If you have purchased one of our audio adventures on CD that is available to download then you will be able to download it to your computer or MP3 player - for free!". Well that's not bad if you ask me!

[Bolt-01]

Commando- that is a pretty decent thing for Big Finish to do. Especially if they keep that option open for new technology. That way when we are all live streaming stuff in our headcases you will have permission to refresh your versions of older product.

I think this is something I was talking about at work the other day- with the current vogue for purchasing downloads, the next step as I see it will be purchasing a liscence or permission to download material you have already bought in later formats.

Mind- there is a reduction in what money can be made from that system...

[Toni Scandella]

But... if you have the CD it takes - what - about a minute to rip it to MP3 anyway?  I understand that it might feel like an incntive, but I don't get it :/

[COMMANDO FORCES]

As said I've paid for my 4 CD's as I prefer to own the product, just like the comics. I don't rip stuff for myself to an mp3 player but I do for my wife with her CD's.
Now imagine that I lost the CD (it'll NEVER happen) or it gets damaged, I can then always fall back on downloading it from the site for free.
It's just a free backup deal as far as I'm concerned.

Imagine if all your files suddenly got deleated from your computer because of a bug, it'll be easier to download the programmes off Big Finish than try and recover the files I suspect.

[Large48]

Plus, most insurers still don't cover digital content, so no CD no pay out.

[planetoid]

Be interesting to hear if Dredd works better as a narrated story with Toby Longworth doing Dredd. The original format worked reasonably well but had its limitations. It's possible someone describing Mega-City 1 will add a new dimension to the stories. 

[Noisybast]

"Garris Hale"?

[Bad Andy]

A couple of trailers are up and running. Toby sounds good doing Dredd + others.

http://www.bigfinish.com/101-Judge-Dredd-Crime-Chronicles-Stranger-Than-Truth
http://www.bigfinish.com/102-Judge-Dredd-Crime-Chronicles-Blood-Will-Tell

[Mike Gloady]

The auidios happened along just about the time I was starting to be unfaithful to Tharg - having discovered them late, I'm eager for more.

By the by, there were ones released that aren't up on the Big Finish site.  Now I understand they might not have CD copies available, but what about downloads?

[ThryllSeekyr]

Hale and Pace, one of the few comedy shows I've enjoyed watching,in the mid ninties and still don't mind even now. Like "Little Britain".

It's the Asutralain comedy shows that I used to watch and that they have now I  no longer think are fnnuy. There are a few starting now now.

I won't even mention there names/titles, because that would be just advertising for them.

As for Hale and Pace.

I even went to see them at Twin Towns on the south coast --When I was Still Working--, just over the border.

About their performance. I think they made some errors in choosing which material to use, but it was good to see them up there.

Favorite skitt of theirs is when one them dreseed up as a young hoon or punk or chav driving a small car that looks like alarge penis down the road while singing "Here we go, here we go, here we go"

Thats really funny.