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If you've read enough Dredd to be up to CF26, then I'd say definitely yes, this volume is worth picking up! In general, Dredd is on an upswing from this point onwards.

It includes all the Dredd strips from Progs 1029-1052, and from Megs 3.19-3.33 (except that it doesn't include America II: Fading of the Light, which was originally run under the Judge Dredd banner, but has been reprinted several times collected under the 'America' banner.)

The biggest story arc in it is 'The Hunting Party', which was one of the first Rebellion Dredd collections from years and years ago, but hasn't been reprinted since. It is both a fun story (about Dredd tkaing some rookies into the Cursed Earth) and, in a loose way, a foreshadowing of Origins. Plus it introduces some new young Judges who continue to be supporting characters for a while. Oh, and it's specifically a sequel to the Dune Sharks story that was reprinted in CF25.

The main Meg reprint is Fetish, which is John Smith and Siku - both somewhat acquired tastes when it comes to Dredd - but worth some time if you like stories where Dredd leaves MC1. The majority of the rest a short one-off Wagner eipsodes, which are always fun. Even the Mark Millar effort that opens the volume is one of his less bad ones.

There are also two stories in which Dredd teams up with characters from other Megazine strips, which may or may not tickle your fancy.

Artistically speaking, it's one of the most stylistically varied volumes yet.

Thanks, I will try!
Another hard-to-pin-down (thematically) fellow this week:
Al Ewing. Hope I've done him justice!

http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/no-57-al-ewing.html

Time to peek behind Tharg's curtain again for a brief celebration of long lost design droid
Graham Rolfe
http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/no-56-graham-rolfe.html

(and a couple of even more hidden heroes, besides).

On with the show, and yet another unsung hero of days gone by:
script-droid Alan Hebden
http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/no-55-alan-hebden.html

Sticking with editors past, it's Kelvin Gosnell at number 54:

http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/no-54-kelvin-gosnell.html

And in fact, I'd got my Progs muddled up anway, as the definitely-Wagner-Penned final epsiode of Button Man was in Prog 791!

What a fascinating thread, sad to be late to the party!

I sort of feel that the argument has been pretty much sewn up - Mills's assertion that editorially mandated ideas made 2000AD bad in the 90s is just not true - or at least, not entirely true. They may have been to blame for him not trying his best to write great stories in that decade.

I'd like to add a couple of comments. Much as I struggled with Mills's Slaine work in the 90s as I read it in the weekly Prog, I really enjoyed reading them in one big go in the reprints. I guess this is a LOT to do with the improvement in printing technology, as I recall Slaine being by far the worst offender for brown-mudness (along with poor Nick Percival's 'Goodnight Kiss' epic) - even Bisley's Horned God suffered a lot. It's also a lot to do with Mills himself apparently thinking more along European album lines and less along weekly episode lines. Compare Book 1 of Nemesis the Warlock, which has a lot of stand alone episodes strung together, with, say, Slaine's 'Demon Killer'. Basically, I found most weekly epsiodes of 90s Slaine and later Finn pretty much incomprehensible. Read i a chunk, and they're really rather good - even the Secret Commonwealth has some fun ideas, just poorly executed.

The other big thing is that my memory of reading comics in the 90s, primarily 2000AD, the Meg and various Marvel comics, is that the art in 2000AD was always the best, and that Tharg always seemed able to find exciting new artists who worked in a wide variety of styles. There were a bunch I hated / thought weren't very good, but it was still exciting to get that shock of the new. And a lot of the ones I didn't like at first were, miraculously, given room to develop into some of the best going (e.g., for me, Simon Davis, Carl Critchlow). Good artists can make a bad story way more palatable - I'm thinking of Kev Hopgood on Dry Run, Dillon/Walker on Harlem Heroes and so on.

I imagine it's nervewracking losing your top creators to other comics, but it's energising, too.

Statisticians may be interested to note that John Wagner has provided far fewer stories for 2000AD in the noughties than he did in the 90s.

The longest stretch without a Wagner story in the Prog was the opening of Judgement Day in Prog 786 (which he co-wrote don't forget) to 'The Time Machine' in Prog 889.
In other words, two years worth of Progs - but, if you were reading the Megazine, you'd get a single or double or even triple-hit of Wagner each month/fortnight during the same period.

Eagle eyes there Jim!
And yes, it's not such a big surprise to find that a master artist is able to mimic the work of his peers.

Finding it hard to say now why I thought the Dredd had a Baikie-ish look to it!

Thanks
Alex

My favourite Star Wars quote!

To test out who really cares, here's number 53, super-sub-editor supreme,
Simon Geller
http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/no-53-simon-geller.html

As if the internet was lacking in articles about the man, here's Number 52:
Grant Morrison

http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/no-52-grant-morrison.html

I do like the Comics Should be Good! blog, so it's always nice to see a little 2000AD over there.
As for the Gothic Empire thing, I'm pretty sure that story matches up with the intro to the old Titan collection of Nemesis Book III (NB Titan skipped over Redondo's Book II in their reprint run). It doesn't say how the entire series was conceived, but apparently O'Neill DID draw episode 1 of the Gothic Empire, intending it to be the first episode of the ongoing Nemesis series (after Killer Watt, in other words). But even Mills thought it was a bit far out so they went back to work on what would go on to be Book I, opening with a more familiar Termite setting.

Back in traction with Number 51...

it's John Higgins
http://heroesof2000ad.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/no-51-john-higgins.html

This is a staggeringly better use of YouTube than so much other nonsense out there. Thank you!

I don't suppose many people on this board read the Bookseller - the weekly trade magaizne for publihser and bookshops in the UK.
Anyway, Rebellion publishing droid Ben Smith had an interview in it last week; I hope it's OK for me to link to a scan of that in case forumites are interested.
http://meanwhileon.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/behind-scenes-at-rebellion.html

It's mildly indicative of the fact that the Bookseller is spilling more and more ink on the fact that 'graphic novels' (as Neilsen BookScan defines them) are continuing to sell pretty well in Bookshops, where lots of other types of books aren't.

(I posted the scan on my old essentially defunct 2000 AD blog so as not to interrupt the flow on the creator-themed Blog. Which I will be getting back to!)

I'm super excited for this. The little of Misty that I've read is marvelous. And yes, I'd love to be able to give my 6-year-old daughter some spooky comics goodness with a female lead. (Anderson, Psi Division is a good start, obviously, but the more the merrier!)