The Daily Dredds: Vol 1

[Richmond Clements]

By Rebellion, I mean Keith. Excellent job. Well done, and worth all the effort. Thanks.

Agreed. But let's not forget Kat, our expert reprographics droid, and lead designer Pye - both of whom put a LOT of work into making sure this looked lovely.

You're all drokking robots! Know your place!

[glassstanley]

The November 83 strip was probably one of the 3 miscellaneous strips included in the section at the end of the weeklies. Away from my list at the moment, but I seem to recall that there were 2 weeks where the strip couldn't be identified due to gaps in the British Library collection, and as you can see 3 strips left over.  Which strip went in which slot, and which was the 'spare' is anyone's guess.

[Tiplodocus]

Just ordered mine.

Not told Mrs Tips yet.

[Proudhuff]

Checked out the copy in FP Edinbra, and lurverly it is, quality paper good size clear repro, well done all droids involved.

[Spikes]

The packaging is rather on the large side

He wasn't wrong, you know. And thankfully someone was in.

I'm number 65, and a quick flick through reveals a very handsome looking book, indeed.
So a big 'well done' to all involved.

I guess a good few of us on here have bought similar releases for these, over the years, but to finally have all the strips, and in order, makes this book indispensable.

[IronGraham]

Can't wait for mine to turn up in the post

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Any idea how many volumes there'll be?

[Fungus]

Stunning book, arrived today. Well done, those droids 

[Leigh S]

That would depend on how they formatted it - there are another 1400 or so daily strips by Wagner/Grant with Gibson/Collinson art... if they stuck to the 2 strips per page you could get most of them in a vol 2 - given the format of this book is mainly based on the landscape Saturday ones though, who knows.... There are over 3500 daily strips on top of those already in this book

[J.Smith]

Got mine earlier this afternoon (#43) and what an amazing book it is. Following on from my post in the Zenith topic, I first of all have to say that this is another beautifully designed book. In addition to the aesthetic look however, I have to also say that I love that two page list of contents with each strip dated, and also how each strip's title, creative team and other sources of being reprinted, if any, are provided on each page. You ain't kidding when you say, "We included everything". Just brilliant, guys.

As a small side note, like SBT, I also noticed that the binding's a wee bit loose feeling when you have enough pages stacked to the left hand side but it hasn't, and I don't think will, cause me any problems. Taken a page at a time, it's all good and lies comfortably on the knees or a table. It was a small worry of mine, how the book would turn out in this landscape format, how it would be to read, but it's absolutely fine and another good job in the hardback line.

With this, Zenith and the Mek Files earlier in the year, I'm completely convinced that the hardbacks to be released next year are going to be just as amazing, possibly better (my one small complaint about the first volume of the Mek Files, for example, was that some of the artwork of the colour spreads was lost to the gutter, though I suspect this was due to the sheer size of the book). What've we got so far besides continuations of these three anyway? There's the new Slaine, presumably A.B.C. Warriors: Return to Mars, Dan Dare, Dark Justice and Urban Warfare; any other glorious stuff I'm missing?

Anywaaaaay: I've said (gushed) all that but haven't even mentioned the contents of this book. The only Daily Dredd strips I had ever read prior to this volume were the small number collected in the annuals, which I loved as a kid. In fact, these kind of short strips, daily or weekly, were a favourite of mine growing up. Not just these Dredd ones - I also discovered Oor Wullie and The Broons and really enjoyed those two immensely as well, quite the large collection of their annuals lying in the loft. Once I had my own computer as a kid, one of the other discoveries I made was web comics. Never really followed any for a particularly long length of time (except maybe Ctrl+Alt+Del, which admittedly is the only one I can recall a great deal of), but it kept me interested in these sort of daily or short, punchline strips, which got me into a whole lot of other comics as a kid, such as Matt Groening's Life In Hell and I recently discovered one Liz Prince through Top Shelf's recent $3 sale.

All to say that I've always found these sorts of short strips very special, admiring a great deal how talented the writers and artists, or the one person doing both, are at what they do, and consistently at that. In the case of this particular volume, a few things have amazed me from skipping through it. First: however the hell it is that Wagner and Grant could come up with so many of these wonderful strips each week in addition to the work they were doing in the Prog. You would think that, in the shortened format, there wouldn't be enough room for them to come up with some of these but I've been hugely impressed by what I've read so far. It's not difficult to fit a story in these small number of panels, I think, but it is difficult to make that very short story entertaining. And yet they succeed every time whilst continuing to convey the characters and sense of humour just as they appear in the Prog. That last point is very interesting, I think. Put it this way: it's been quite some time since I've read through the early Case Files or the Eagle comics collecting Prog stories from this time and yet I recognised the dialogue and humour as very much belonging to that era. Fantastic.

The second thing is of course the magnificent Ron Smith. Back when I was growing up again, he was my favourite Dredd artist (I think he may have been my dad's too as I'm sure several of the annuals are signed by him) and although it has, as I say, been a while since I read any of those early tales with him on art duty, I wouldn't be surprised if this still wasn't was the case. What amazed me about Wagner and Grant simply shocks me in his case. How the fuck is it that all the strips collected here look this good? The amount of detail in these is simply insane / too good to be true / impossible / bananas. It's so wrong, but so good. Just how the man was capable of these things each week is beyond my understanding. I'm really not even sure that you'll find a page of his (not to discredit the other artist's work at all, but skimming through, I simply passed over their stuff until I read this proper at a later date simply because of how astounding Smith's was) in this volume that you can point to and say he missed a storytelling beat in - everything about the artwork here is just perfection and I can't wait to see more in the next volume.

To conclude all this rambling, I guess I can only say that this is most assuredly one of my favourite purchases of the year. Every Dredd fan needs to get their hands on this bad boy.

[NapalmKev]

Any idea on delivery waiting times? I ordered mine last Sunday but still not arrived.

Cheers

[IronGraham]

Has to wait patiently for mine

[Magnetica]

Just got my copy today and it is a lovely book.

I do have a lot of these already from previous reprinting, but never knew the very first one was an adaptation of the first ever Dredd from Prog 2. That was quite an inspired idea to get a story out at short notice. One thing that doesn't sit will is the perp being described as a Futsie and then given a sentence, as it is well established that Futsie requires medical treatment not the cubes (or in this case Devil' Island). Indeed the 4th strip addresses just that. Also the foreword on this the genesis of this first strip is a bit odd with the asterixed explanation.

Sorry as I don't want to pick holes with what are very very minor quibbles - it really does look like a fantastic book and I can't wait to read /re-read these.

[The Sherman Kid]

Not got mine yet (ordered in October)??

[Ghost MacRoth]

Got mine the other day, couple nice strips I'd never seen, but like many I already had the 'collections'.  Still a worthwhile purchase though, as it looks great.  Look forward to seeing the next instalment, and more unseen strips!