Judge Dredd: The Mega Collection discussion thread

[Super Mario]

Outcast was insanely dense. It worked fine for me as an introduction story though, it contained all the information needed.

I actually quite liked it, but it was tough going. I had to re-read the last section just to work out if the chief judge had been killed or not.

[bartosznowicki]

Hi Guys,

I've ordered subscription almost a month ago, but still didn't received first issue, so I have a question about 'the Cursed Earth' published in the collection.

Does it include the missing thrills from Complete Case Files vol. 1? Or not?

Does anybody know what was the copyright problem that caused their lack at the first place?

Cheers

B

[robert_ellis]

http://britishcomics.wikia.com/wiki/The_Cursed_Earth
Basically use of copyright characters

[bartosznowicki]

Thanks Robert.

[Dark Jimbo]

...as a relative noob and one who hasn't come across any Shimura stories before, this one was a bit of a struggle for me...

I don't think that's a sympton of your being a newbie as much as a sympton of Shimura!

I first encountered the character in the DC/Rebellion trade - it was basically all these stories, minus the last few (which hadn't yet been written) but included Shimura's first story. And trust me, that first story doesn't make nearly as much difference as you'd assume it might. I still felt pretty lost. Too many of his stories read as though they've got pages missing!

I much prefer Robbie's Inaba stories - the storytelling's a lot clearer and she's a much more interesting character.

[IndigoPrime]

Trudging through the Case Files, a lot of Megazine stuff at the time had a weird kind of assumptive storytelling going on. You got the feeling the writer knew in their head what the story was, but it never fully translated to the page. Shimura's an odd one at this stage of the collection, and especially if it's not starting at the beginning. I think this will be a great collection when complete, but do wonder with some of what we've already seen if it should have stuck with a more focussed 60-book collection than expanding out to 80.

[Dark Jimbo]

Trudging through the Case Files, a lot of Megazine stuff at the time had a weird kind of assumptive storytelling going on. You got the feeling the writer knew in their head what the story was, but it never fully translated to the page.

Asusmptive storytelling is a good way of putting it. It's as though they're trying so hard to eschew the style of 'older', unfashionable comics (it being the 1990s and the era of the grim n' gritty graphic novel) that they've thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Very few thought bubbles, captions, narrative boxes - wherever possible they're trying to show, rather than tell, but combine that with some, er, less than clear artwork and it makes for a really confusing reading expierience.

[Jim_Campbell]

Trudging through the Case Files, a lot of Megazine stuff at the time had a weird kind of assumptive storytelling going on. You got the feeling the writer knew in their head what the story was, but it never fully translated to the page.

I'll be honest: whilst I'm generally appreciative of David Bishop's tenure as editor on the Meg, he could over-prune scripts he felt were too wordy. (Remember that this was an age when you never saw your script again until your comps arrived.) I can offer one specific example:

In the second Inspectre story, where we introduce the location for the rest of the series as being the reconstruction site of East-Meg One, there's a bloody great column going up into the sky. What is it? Part of the construction? A chimney? Who knows — it's never explained. And there it is, in every exterior shot for the next eight episodes.

It's a space elevator. The new city is being constructed in modular sections in orbit and will be lowered into place down the space elevator. We explained all that in dialogue over that opening shot, which is a horizontal half page specifically requested in the script to accommodate the dialogue. Charlie Gillespie obligingly drew us a nice, expansive shot and David cut the entire explanation. Was it important to the story?* No, but we'd have asked for the scripted the location to look different if we'd known David was going to nix the exposition.

As it is, it's just this baffling, huge, column/pillar thing.

Cheers

Jim

*It would have been very relevant to the main story arc of the second series, though.

[BPP]

Trudging through the Case Files, a lot of Megazine stuff at the time had a weird kind of assumptive storytelling going on. You got the feeling the writer knew in their head what the story was, but it never fully translated to the page.

I'll be honest: whilst I'm generally appreciative of David Bishop's tenure as editor on the Meg, he could over-prune scripts he felt were too wordy. (Remember that this was an age when you never saw your script again until your comps arrived.) I can offer one specific example:

In the second Inspectre story, where we introduce the location for the rest of the series as being the reconstruction site of East-Meg One, there's a bloody great column going up into the sky. What is it? Part of the construction? A chimney? Who knows — it's never explained. And there it is, in every exterior shot for the next eight episodes.

It's a space elevator. The new city is being constructed in modular sections in orbit and will be lowered into place down the space elevator. We explained all that in dialogue over that opening shot, which is a horizontal half page specifically requested in the script to accommodate the dialogue. Charlie Gillespie obligingly drew us a nice, expansive shot and David cut the entire explanation. Was it important to the story?* No, but we'd have asked for the scripted the location to look different if we'd known David was going to nix the exposition.

As it is, it's just this baffling, huge, column/pillar thing.

Cheers

Jim

*It would have been very relevant to the main story arc of the second series, though.

Maybe he thought 'why would you lift raw materials and components into space just to construct and then lower them down again'

[Jim_Campbell]

Maybe he thought 'why would you lift raw materials and components into space just to construct and then lower them down again'

They were being constructed in space, largely with offworld/asteroid belt mined materials that were being delivered to Earth anyway. The solution was —ostensibly— easier than transporting an entire city's worth of materials from East Meg Two to the site of East Meg One across an irradiated wasteland.

Also: it was in the story from the proposal stage. If David didn't like it, he had plenty of opportunity to nix before the frickin' pages were painted.

My point wasn't to protest about the unfairness of this specific decision, but to offer one illustration of how "assumptive storytelling" might not be the result of the authors' intent.

Cheers

Jim

[Skullmo]

Wow - that is crazy.

I never knew editors did that.

[Bolt-01]

Heh, you wouldn't 'believe' some of the stomm we do here at Zarjaz...

[Steve Green]

I thought you were looking a bit green lately...

[Fluffy Clemmy]

As suspected the Mega Collection is starting to disappear from Newsagents. My local had a copy on top of their ice cream fridge (?!) every Wednesday. Went to pick up Shimura this week no were to be seen

[Spikes]

Place a standing order would be my advice, that's what I had to do, when they started to become thin on the ground.