Musings on The Small House.

[broodblik]

I really enjoy "The Small House" and we all can see how Dredd's world is changing (an hopefully the stories following will align with the changes). The only issue I have is that this has been building up over a few years and you do lose some cohesion and understanding when reading the story. It would be nice when the dust has settled to have to whole thing bundled together in one collection.

[robert_ellis]

Agreed - I'm guessing the Titan/Enceladus is the latest material to collect this storyline. Is there enough for a new Rob Williams volume?

[Frank]

Agreed - I'm guessing the Titan/Enceladus is the latest material to collect this storyline. Is there enough for a new Rob Williams volume?

[broodblik]

Thanks for that Frank, will be looking to get the collection next year

[broodblik]

From Rob Williams blog: http://www.robwilliamscomics.co.uk/archives/1417

[broodblik]

Interview with Rob Williams: https://www.comicsbeat.com/interview-rob-williams-judge-dredd-the-small-house/

The last part of the interview he mentioned that his working on a new long-form Dredd story

[IndigoPrime]

Good to know he's not gone. I feared the previous story was his Dredd swansong.

[TordelBack]

I found it very interesting that between The Small House and the most recent story he killed off (or appeared to kill off)[spoiler]pretty much all of his own original characters[/spoiler], but of Dredd's 'tribe' left [spoiler]Ewing's Maitland[/spoiler] and of course Wagner's Giant. It suggests a change of focus for his future work.

[AlexF]

Having just re-read the Small House in collected form, with the prologue, I liked it even more than when it was first in the Progs. I remember it felt like a breakneck thrill-ride at the time, with not enough explaining what was going on and what it all meant - but in collected form that's really not a problem at all. I sort of wish there were another couple of earlier stories in there bridging the Rob Williams 'saga' in between Titan/Enceladus and Act of Grud, but that's the thing with Dredd - it is possible to break it into satisfying chunks, but to get the absolute most out of it, you've just got to read basically ALL of it!

In all, a hugely satisfying conclusion to the Trifecta / Titan sequences; a slight shame that the 'ramifications' basically amount to a couple of character deaths (I will miss you forever, Dirfty Frank!) Hershey resigning and us getting a new chief Judge - one of these days Wagner or someone is going to dare to relax the iron rule of the Judges into some sort of democracy. Can you imagine if Dredd has to step back to being merely Judge, but requiring another person / body of people to take over the jury/executioner parts...

or maybe that would break the whole concept of the character/story too much.

[broodblik]

Scripts from Rob Williams site:

http://www.robwilliamscomics.co.uk/archives/1461

[Dash Decent]

I've just read "The Small House" GN.  Interesting stuff!  I want to mull over the story some more, but in terms of 'consequences' and what sticks (the main discussion point of this thread), it's interesting how much of present Dredd revolves around those key, well-known 'we all read them' events of the past.  Just as the Chaos bug came out of the Apocalypse War, we now jump back and learn that Smiley could have stopped (delayed?) the Apoc War and therefore many of the subsequent problems and ramifications are down to him. The present is built on the past however, and what happens now has consequences for the future.  It will be interesting to see if events continue to chain through the years so that in ten years from now we are enjoying stories that are only happening because of the events in "The Small House" and other 'currently recent' stories.

The only thing that seemed a bit odd was when they all left their special Encephalagraph goggles behind with Sam.  With invisible killers lurking about, you'd think you'd keep them on you. 

Henry Flint's art is as brilliant as ever.  I love Dredd's gritted teeth (p.40), the overhead shot of Dredd in Kazan's cell as he arranges a meet with Smiley (p.64), the medical Judge with a red cross symbol on the left bum cheek of her uniform, Dredd with his face in the dark (p.61) and much more.
Dredd standing up as he rides his bike through the door (p.49) reminds me of a great drawing of Dredd boosting his Lawmaster over a jump or gap.  I think it was also a Henry Flint drawing.  It may have been in the story with Nimrod?

It's striking what a difference the colouring makes.  Gary Caldwell's work on "Pets" is much more vibrant than Chris Blythe's muted tones in the rest of the book.  Unfortunately this makes it look a little gaudy in comparison (Dredd looks rather yellow on p.91).

We get a good view of the ghost Judge's uniform on p.45, when he's held in the Wally Squad safe house.  It looks very much like a nod to the 2012 movie uniform.

Smiley's very British sitting room with ducks on the wall, cups of tea, etc seems odd for a futuristic American, but perhaps he's tickled by referencing his namesake, or perhaps it's part of the Mega City angophilia madness that has them name city blocks after ancient British celebrities.  (Look out for a future story where the twin towers are rebuilt and named 'Ant' and 'Dec'.)

Possibly I still havent forgiven Rob Williams for that horse(!)

the magic horse

Perhaps the magic horse uses the Enchilada energy in the same way as Smiley and his secret ghost Judges, lurking about in corridors and emerging into view when needed.

Grud knows Matt Smith can't have many spare moments putting out 180 pages of original comic and who-knows how much reprinted content month, but I think having a slightly heavier editorial hand on Dredd in particular might be worth the extra effort.

Pfff. The real problem is that Matt Smith sees all this stuff before anyone else, probably on a bigger scale too.  What he really does is lay all the new pages out on the floor, locks the office door, then he spends the rest of the day lying on his stomach reading comics and eating packets of Monster Munch.  Then he goes home.  Every day.  How jammy is that?!?

[Robin Low]

To my mind, because of Dirty Frank, The Small House really begins with the first Low Life story. On that basis, can anyone provide an order of reading of all relevant/connected stories leading up to The Small House, and whether or not they've been collected?

Too lazy to do it myself, but if there is a sequence of books collecting the full story line, I'd be tempted to get them all and put them on the shelf together. I might even get a second set and send them to a friend in New Zealand.

Regards,

Robin

[abelardsnazz]

As a dodger, most definitely.

What else has Smiley known about/influenced/left to run its course? Brilliant game-changing stuff from Williams, paying tribute to and developing all of Wagner and Grant's work.

[AlexF]

To my mind, because of Dirty Frank, The Small House really begins with the first Low Life story. On that basis, can anyone provide an order of reading of all relevant/connected stories leading up to The Small House, and whether or not they've been collected?

Too lazy to do it myself, but if there is a sequence of books collecting the full story line, I'd be tempted to get them all and put them on the shelf together. I might even get a second set and send them to a friend in New Zealand.

Regards,

Robin

If you're going to bring Low Life into it, and you should, the ultra-complete reading order, as available in collected form, would be:

Judge Dredd Mega Collection Vols 20 and 21 (all Low-Life all the time, + the first bit of Titan)
or else Mega-City Undercover Vols 1, 2 and 3 (All of Low Life + Lenny Zero + Max Normal)

Trifecta

Judge Dredd: Titan (Which covers Titan + both books of Enceladus)

Judge Dredd: Cold Wars (which has a couple of Williams-scripted bits about Sov stuff - but you could easily skip this volume)

Judge Dredd: the Small House (which includes a vital pre-Small House story, and a neat epilogue)

That pretty much has it all. There are a couple of uncollected Rob Williams Dredd stories you could arguably throw in that delve into the Dredd-Hershey relationship, and introduce SJS Judge Gerhard, and heck why not all the stories with Sensitive Klegg, but you don't need to read those to follow the overall story. Plus, I can't remember what they're called or which Progs/Megs they were in.

If you're being super thorough, you might want to hunt out some uncollected Gordon Rennie and Al Ewing stuff, to see where the Kazan Clone came from (Gulag, I think?), and to meet Account Judge Maitland (The Bean Counter?). The Rennie Stuff will come up in the Case Files soon enough...

[Robin Low]

If you're going to bring Low Life into it, and you should, the ultra-complete reading order, as available in collected form, would be:

<snip>

I'm sorry Alex, I completely failed to pay attention there! Thanks for putting that together.

Regards,

Robin