The Best of John Wagner's Judge Dredd - coming March 2022

[Dash Decent]

Get Jerry Sing is the only odd one. Bit of a throwaway story but presume the inclusion is because it was the last ever Carlos.

Yes, they note that it is the last ever Wagner + Ezquerra Dredd.

It's a good spectrum of stories, but also nice to see a mix of artists including Ron Smith, Brian Bolland, Ian Gibson, Cam Kennedy and of course Carlos Ezquerra.  Also Tom Frame and Annie Parkhouse, of course.

[Max Headroom]

Can anyone who has picked this up say what the repro in 'Father Earth' is like? Previous incarnations have not been that great.

[Dash Decent]

I'll have to have a look in the daylight.  A quick look under lights shows the blacks looks good and dark, and the text looks reasonably sharp, but some of the pictures look too dark in the dark areas - like they should be lighter and show more detail, but instead we've got big dark patches hiding a bit too much.

[Dark Jimbo]

Can anyone who has picked this up say what the repro in 'Father Earth' is like?

Same as in the Case Files, basically.

[Max Headroom]

Oh, I thought that maybe some new scans might have been discovered. If I cast my mind back, I seem to remember that the repro for this story in both the Case Files and Mega Collection left a bit to be desired.

[Jim_Campbell]

Oh, I thought that maybe some new scans might have been discovered.

There’s no ‘discovering’ new scans, unfortunately. Unless the original art resurfaces and the owner is prepared to send it in for a repro-quality scan, we’re stuck with the film/scans we have.

[IndigoPrime]

Does anyone have this? How big is the book and how interested are the extras? I’ve not seen a copy in the wild and am mulling it over, but already have about half the content from the page shown earlier in the Dredd collection and UC.

[NapalmKev]

Does anyone have this? How big is the book and how interested are the extras?

It measures up to the exact size of the DeadWorld hardcovers if that’s any use. 306 pages and the extras are:

Tarantula from Judge Dredd annual 1985.

Old Pal’s Act from Prog 2000.

There’s also a script for Get Jerry Sing which is the last published Dredd story by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra.

I can provide a full list of stories if needed.

Cheers

[IndigoPrime]

Yeah, I have the Deadworld covers. Thanks. Still mulling.

[The Amstor Computer]

re: Father Earth.

I haven't ever looked into it, but are all the previous reprints of "Father Earth" (pre-dating Rebellion's collections) as bad as the versions in Case Files etc.? It was collected in the 1989 Annual, Complete Judge Dredd 12, a couple of Titan editions and there's always the original printing in progs 122-125. Is every version of it in reprint and the original printing as bad for loss of detail etc.?

Scanning from the comics isn't ideal, but for a Bolland Dredd that only runs to four episodes (20-ish pages?) I'm surprised that scanning and cleaning up from the progs hasn't been done by now.

[Magnetica]

I’m not an expert on the process involved but what I do know is someone recently scanned in one of the worst offending pages (the one with the robots sitting around discussing the upcoming mayoral election) directly from a Prog and posted it on Facebook. It looked fine to me. I’d rather have something like that, than what is in the Case Files.

[IndigoPrime]

It’s an odd one, really. For the Hachette volumes, I’m not surprised some of the repro is ropey. For the most part, it’s an exercise in low costs, using whatever is available. I was very surprised at the SMS changes, but elsewhere you can see how some decisions regarding what was included were driven by what was available. (And, again, at least 2000 AD and Dredd didn’t suffer to the degree Transformers did.)

But with a new, premium, HC Rebellion volume, it’s a pity those pages weren’t improved – unless that wasn’t possible. (I no longer have eg the Complete Dredd comics to see how it was in those.)

[Max Headroom]

Is it possible that one day as technology improves we will be able to scan direct from the Progs (or in some cases the Titan versions) and achieve good results without being plagued by issues such as moire and the like?

[IndigoPrime]

Possibly. AIs already exist that can do superb correction and repair work on old photography, and so a similar application for comics would be feasible, if it doesn’t already exist. The issue is in automating the entire process – or botching it in some other way. (Again: the IDW Transformers recolouring disaster. I’m still not sure what happened there, other than it all being outsourced to people who made a mess of it, and then IDW going “whatever”.)

That said, moire is a very particular thing, caused by overlapping repeating patterns. Even with extremely high-res scanners, you can end up with clashes. And when you have an original print pattern, scan that and then print it again, you’re combining issues. Again, it’s presumably something AI would be able to deal with at some point, but right now it seems beyond basically everyone in the comics industry.

[Dark Jimbo]

Possibly. AIs already exist that can do superb correction and repair work on old photography, and so a similar application for comics would be feasible...

It's a slippery slope, I tells ya...