Comeback-reader

[Juulsgaard]

Hi everybody. Dredd fan, from Denmark, 39 years old. Back in the 80'ies i read and collected the danish translated judge dredd magazines. There was too little of it though and soon only read DC and Marvel.
In the early 90'ies i completely stopped reading comics.
1 year ago I bought myself an Ipad an immediately took up buying some Marvel Digital Comics in the Marvel app.
I thought this was a good way of reading comics - and no complaints from the wife about lots of comics stacking up in the living room. I got the marvel comics digital unlimited subscription. 2 months later i am bored with Marvel, Spiderman, Xmen etc. etc.
Then I read an add for the Judge Dredd complete case files. Ordered 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. 1 mont later ive read them all. And I want more - This is the sort of comicbook I want to read - I now remember how fascinated i was with the Dredd magazine when I was a young kid - i feel like i have gotten some of that feeling back reading Dredd again. Im back for good!

[nuffsaid]

Hello and welcome!

New technology and a more global world opens up new ways back to comics

[Dandontdare]

HI and welcome. I had no idea they published Danish translations of Dredd in the 80s! That's a whole lot of casefiles to get through, but they're still years behind, I recommend the TPBs of Origins, Tour of Duty and the current Day of Chaos story.

[Juulsgaard]

Thank you guys. Yes Dredd was published in Denmark - I dont have the magazines anymore but I clearly remember reading Cursed Earth, The day the Law Died - and some of the early Ron Smith illustrated stories. The danish magazine stopped around complete casefiles 4 I believe, but they didn't publish the Judge Child epic.
So yes I got quite a few case files to get through - and actually I have a bit of a dilemma about it.
I also bought CCF 6, 14 and 15. Im a bit worried about going dredd-exhausted with so many pages to read. Ive read that the case files suffer severely in quality after number 14 (after Necropolis). And the case files currently waiting to be released in the near future should be offputting.

So when is the complete case files going to get interesting again?

I'm thinking about buying number 18 with the Mechanismo story in it and then maybe buy some of the other essential collections. (not case files)
What to buy and read first? I want all the important stuff - and i would like to read in the correct order - so where to begin. The easiest way would be to just buy case files - but i guess theres going to be too much waiting then...

[a chosen rider]

I'm thinking about buying number 18 with the Mechanismo story in it and then maybe buy some of the other essential collections. (not case files)
What to buy and read first? I want all the important stuff - and i would like to read in the correct order - so where to begin. The easiest way would be to just buy case files - but i guess theres going to be too much waiting then...

If you want to read everything in order, then after the case files I think the collections where significant events occur are:

* America
   Wilderlands
   Blind Justice
* The Pit
   Scorpion Dance
   Doomsday For Dredd & Doomsday For Mega-City One
* Brothers of the Blood
   Satan's Island
* Total War
* Origins
* Tour of Duty - The Backlash
* Tour of Duty - Mega-City Justice

The ones marked * I highly recommend getting.  The others really depend on how much of a completist you want to be.  (And some of them are out-of-print collections by previous publishers, so might be more difficult to get hold of.)  Some other collections like Mandroid are pretty good too, but tend to be more self-contained stories that don't have a big impact on the ongoing continuity.

[SmallBlueThing]

Welcome, and yes i'd agree with the post above- with one proviso based on taste. Id add wilderlands to the 'essential' list, if only because for me it's the last gasp of the strip in its earlier 'crazy, anything goes' form, and has certain similarities to early epics such as the cursed earth and the judge child quest- things that the later version of dredd has all-but dropped. If you enjoyed the sheer mentalism of the early years then the heavily procedural and more serious dredd strip we have today can be eased into a bit more smoothly by going via senor ezquerra's photoshop plug-in vision of hell. But whatever you do, dont miss The Pit. That's where modern dredd starts, and is one of the best examples you'll ever read.

SBT

[Juulsgaard]

Thank you all - that list, and advice, is what i have been pondering for in the last couple of weeks.
I have just bought 10 progs (digitally) starting with the beginning of Days of Chaos. I will read those and keep up with the 2000ad prog from now on. Then ill read Necropolis, order complete case files 18 (Mechanismo) - and then buy everything on the list. One by one. Good times are up ahead I guess 
Then probably ill buy the case files once in a while to get all the classic Dredd - which really have that satirical feel to it - what probably made me fall in love with Dredd universe when I was younger.

Thanks again - quick replys and good advice. 

[Bat King]

Welcome!

I can't read Danish but I'd like to see a Dredd in Danish...  I have a few foreign reprints somewhere.  Spanish, Italian...  I think French and maybe Polish...  Though not all are 2000AD... Years since I looked at them.

[Emperor]

Welcome - it is always good to hear Thrillpower how far Tharg's thrills have spread. Pity you don't have the Danish Dredds any more, it'd be interesting to see a scan or two - I have a few of the early French ones and one of the things I was thinking about for the wiki would be a look at 2000AD abroad.

Anyway it looks like you've got a solid reading list there that should keep you busy for a while but if you have any other questions then fire away.

[Juulsgaard]

Heres a danish cover from 1985: "Dommeren" simply means "The Judge" The white on black text says "In the 22. century HE'S the law!"

Text-bubble says: For the last time Satanus: Surrender

The danish "Dommeren" were all in glorious colour - I remember clearly how some of Bollands strips looked awesome.

Heres two others:



Sadly I can't find any scans from inside the comic

[Frank]

Thanks for that and welcome back, juulsgaard. Even the way the art design's swiped Jan Shepherd's brilliant Dredd typeface for the Dommeren logo gives me a kick.

There's something really superficially appealing about experiencing something you're (over) familiar with rendered strange and exotic by translation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrZQk03uKsQ), so I'd be interested in reading Emperor's wiki round-up of all those foreign reprints that provoked Wagner's campaign for creator royalties.

I'd agree with achosenrider's choice of essential reading and SBT's assertion that Wilderlands represented the end of something- I'm not sure I'd want to read it again, though.

[SmallBlueThing]

I reread wilderlands fairly recently, and while it's plainly not as good as i remembered from the progs, there's something joyous about carlos's art and colouring and trevor hairy's mcmahon-esque episodes. I love that it's set on a mad alien world with killer robots and nasty indigenous life. But as i say, i think it's notable most as a last hurrah for that kind of storytelling within the pages of dredd. So yes, not claiming it as a classic, but as a fun read, it's hard to beat. The storytelling convention of going over the same events, but from different viewpoints that the prog/meg split necessitated, is a lot more familiar these days, post-Lost too, so should be more acceptable.

SBT

[SmallBlueThing]

*Hairsine, not 'hairy'. Stupid phone.

SBT

[Juulsgaard]

To me "Dommeren" is a bad translation - I remembered how talking to others about the new magazine "The Judge" (directly translated) could make everybody go: "Judge!?! Thats not very cool". The name gave them the impression that it was a comic about a "Rumpole-character" sitting in a courtroom. Guess that impression faded, if they saw a magazinecover - but not exactly a very cool title.
I also remember at the time when buying Spiderman comics in Denmark - it was translated to: "Edderkoppen" - "Spider". I was once in a little shop asking for the new "Spider-comic" and was replied with: "No, but we have this book about gorillas" hmmmmm....

Luckily those days are over - today we are so anglophile that many, many titles both comics and films doesn't get a translation at all. 

[Emperor]

Luckily those days are over - today we are so anglophile that many, many titles both comics and films doesn't get a translation at all.

Are you importing the 2000AD trades you are reading yourself or are the English language versions on sale there?