The Mega-City One Archives Volume 02

[John Caliber]

... should be arriving before the weekend. Looking forward to reviewing it!

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Have you had a confirmation email?

[John Caliber]

Yes, but it's NOT coming from Amazon. The Book Depository stocks it and states I'll have it before 26 February. I've used them many times.

I did originally order it via Amazon, but they're arsing about with the 'Available in 9-12 Days' routine.

[Taryn Tailz]

The Book Depository is an excellent seller. Bought from them loads of times.

[James Stacey]

I've had a mail from Amazon stating it's been dispatched.

[CraveNoir]

Likewise email from Amazon.

Book Depository is seriously undercutting Amazon's prices! 

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Got my confirmation, in the middle of the night

[John Caliber]

Chances are Amazon customers may get their books ahead of mine, as the Book Depository can take 2-3 days after notice of dispatch.

[Jared Katooie]

Herriman's entry doesn't seem quite right.

[John Caliber]

I've read the book 2-3 times. I actually like it far less each time and am wavering selling it and not bothering with the rest. It doesn't know seem to know what its audience is supposed to be. I may buy Vol 3 and then make my decision whether to continue.

[John Caliber]

Volume 02 just arrived. Hmmm, if you didn't like Vol 01, then your hopes won't be buoyed by this sequel. A detailed review coming shortly...

[John Caliber]

Volume 02 in the 13-part Mega-City One Archives deals with the 'personalities' of the Justice Department (the 'Lawbringers'), whereas Volume 01 provided an overview of the Justice Department organisation.

The cover art is of the same quality as Vol 01, the three characters (Judges Giant, Guthrie & former Chief Judge Hershey) positioned in rather dull static poses against a background cut and pasted from a Kevin Walker illustration. By the time Vol 02 was published, Hershey is no longer Chief Judge of Mega-City One, so it appears the cover artist was not privy to the comic strip's upcoming plots, dating the Archives very slightly.

The Credits page seems to be making more effort to list the artists involved than Volume 01 (which largely ignored the 2000AD freelancers in favour of lesser-known artists). On examining the preponderance of exotic names in the Artists credits, one wonders if the publisher is struggling with a tight budget by farming out to cheaper artists (operating under a more favourable exchange rate). If so, this definitely hurts the project, especially when some of their efforts are compared to professionally more capable 2000AD stalwarts such as Henry Flint and Carlos Ezquerra.

Volume 02 favours original art over comic book samples, which in principle is good: we expect the book to have a fresh look, but this ambition fails when the art is below par, as is sadly the case with the Mega-City One Archives to date (and very much in evidence in Volume 02). Also of disappointment is the amount of art reused from Volume 01 (this reviewers counts at least five incidences). Many of the illustrations are oversized and unnecessary (how many times do we need to see a full length Street Judge's uniform almost the height of each page?). As with Volume 01, a wonderful opportunity to include panels from the comics (with speech balloons reminding us we are reading a comic book tie-in) has been entirely wasted.

The writing treats the Judge Dredd mythology as something profound and very serious, offering deep psychosocial insights into the Judges and the citizens they oversee. It entirely misses the point of Judge Dredd, which should be fun, action-packed, quirky and satirical, not a psychological treatise for scholars—or the more anally retentive among the role-playing community (who to be fair do not happily all share this mindset, this reviewer included .

The book's layout is exactly the same as Volume 01: predominantly dark background on which large colour illustrations and big blocks of text are overlaid. The writing style, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, is dry and methodical, nary a sense of humour or enthusiasm apparent, rendering the book on the whole a draining reading experience, thrill-sucking the reader into the Abyss. The text font is not suited to endless pages of text and soon grates on the eye, while the boxes that divide the text up only appear to exist to spread out the text and so make up the page count; their removal would make the text flow much easier (also, the single column format would be better replaced by the two-column, making for a quicker read).

The book is divided into many entries, composed of several paragraph boxes and a character illustration. Entries include: Judges Anderson, Beeny, Bonaventura, Brufen, Buell, Cal, Castillo, Dekker, DeMarco, Dirty Frank, Edgar, Feyy, Fish, Garcia, Giant, Giant Jnr, Grampus, Grice, Guthrie, Herriman, Hershey, Izzard, Janus, Judd, Karyn, Koburn, Kraken, Kruger, Kurten, Larter, the Angel Gang(?), Logan, Lopez, McTighe, Morph, Niles, Nimrod, Nixon, Ocks, Odell, Omar, Omar, Pal, Pepper, Perrier, Priest, Plaski, Point, Prager, Quincy, Renga, Rico, Roffman, Roff, Sanchez, Shenker, Slocum, Stark, Steel and Zero. The research is largely accurate, with a minimum of role-playing lore 'interference'.

Where is Judge Dredd's profile? Nowhere to be found! No doubt saved for a later volume. The question has to be WHY? Dredd is THE star of the Judge Dredd comic strip and yet subordinate characters dominate the first two volumes. It would have been without question the best marketing tactic Mongoose could have made to dedicate Volume 01 to Dredd, satisfying new Dredd readers who want to read about his backstory, and putting some steam in the Mega-City Archives' stride, building momentum for future volumes. Instead, the series limps painfully along. It may also be argued that – compared to the colourful and vast gallery of villains and citizens - the Judges as a whole (discounting Dredd and Anderson) are one of the lesser interesting aspects of Mega-City One and do not warrant such a big page count discussing many trivial details that comic book fans can happily live in ignorance of.

I'm trying my best to support The Mega-City Archives, but the publisher has somehow managed to serve up a hugely disappointing second volume. What is sadder still is how good it could easily have been, with fewer volumes, less text and more comic strip illustrations out together in a truly thrill-powered package. Rebellion is advised to seek another publishing outlet. I want to buy Dredd books, but Mongoose is making it a VERY difficult prospect, which is hurtful.

[CraveNoir]

It may also be argued that – compared to the colourful and vast gallery of villains and citizens - the Judges as a whole (discounting Dredd and Anderson) are one of the lesser interesting aspects of Mega-City One and do not warrant such a big page count discussing many trivial details that comic book fans can happily live in ignorance of.

Having just browsed through the book I have to agree on every point in your critique, expecially that one. So far, I've found it less bothersome than the first volume beacause, as you pointed out, it sticks to established facts more.

I would say that the illustrations are better this time around if only 'cos the muggles are getting a little more to grips with the uniform. And, RPG-ers aside, if we can't be anally-retentive on a comic-book forum discussing an RPG source-book based on a comic, then where can we be?

[John Caliber]

The problem is it's not being marketed as a RPG sourcebook, but clearly is leaning heavily in that direction. It's as if the agreement was to publish a general purpose Dredd guidebook but is steadily biased towards that publisher's main audience: role-players. If they were conscientiously setting out to 'bag' comic book fans then the books should have been formatted entirely differently.

[TordelBack]

No Souster?  No Mortal?  No Sladek?  Sacrilege!

PsiDiv also comes out of that pretty light (no Kit Agee, for exmaple)- maybe there's a Psi Div volume on the way?