Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files Vol. 3...

[The Amstor Computer]

Still running a bit behind on these reviews, but hopefully it'll be of use to somebody!


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JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 3

IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!

The story of future lawman Judge Dredd continues in this third book collecting together his adventures in chronological order. This bumper volume features many of Dredd's most exciting cases including the first appearance of Judge Death and Psi Judge Anderson and the return of Satanus, first featured in the epic Cursed Earth saga.

CONTENTS:

Every Judge Dredd episode from prog 116-154
Dr Panic (reprinted from the 1979 2000AD Annual)

Cover gallery (progs 117, 121 & 128)

The Case Files series rolls on, collecting a series of shorter tales from Mega-City One.

Necessarily shorter than the preceding two volumes (the next story for collection is The Judge Child , and including that story here would have pushed the page count up to over 400, and likely caused more headaches further down the line) but no less satisfying for it. It may be missing the double-whammy of epics that were presented in volume 2, but the eclectic mix of short stories here is more representative of Dredd over the years, and the quality is far higher than the rather patchy tales collected in the first book.

With the first appearance of Judge Death, Umpty Candy, Otto Sump & Vienna, the return of Satanus & the first mention of the Long Walk, as well as classic work from artists like Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland and the (criminally underappreciated) Ron Smith, this is an absolutely essential collection. It marks the beginning of a golden age for the character and introduces concepts and characters that have served the series for decades since.

Reproduction is generally very high, as usual with these collections, with only the occasional over-heavy or "ghosting" linework betraying either poor original source material or the downside of reducing the artwork to fit. Some readers have complained of black smudging on their copies of this collection, but my copy is clean and unmarked. If anyone reading this runs into problems, I'd recommend returning the book to the seller and requesting an acceptable copy, as this is certainly not a problem across the whole print run.

The inclusion of a rare 2000AD annual story is welcome, but I can't help but feel that - as this was a far shorter volume than is typical - there was the potential for adding so much more in the way of extra material from companion publications like the 2000AD and Dredd annuals. The continued absence of any kind of story index or creator credits is also rather a sore point, as it would take little effort or extra space to include.

Overall, though, this is another strong, attractively presented collection that does the character - and the writers & artists who worked on him - justice. Highly recommended.

(Oh, and for anyone who was concerned about the position of the title on the spine, I've put together an image of the first three volumes for comparison below. I'm still of the opinion that the designer made the right decision in keeping the relative distances of the elements the same and not stretching or tweaking the spine to fit. Hopefully other readers will agree!)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v297/buttonman/casefilesspines.jpg">

[The Amstor Computer]

Forgot to mention - the green of the cover isn't exactly as you see here, but I've tried to get it as close to the book as possible. Still, it's better than the version on the site!

[Artificial Idiot]

Just ordered mine, along with vol.2 of the Walking Dead - And really, really looking forward to it. The Case Files, so far, have been excellent - And although this is much shorter, your review quashes any doubts I may have about quality.

Cheers, Amstor. :)

[The Amstor Computer]

No worries, AI :-)

For anyone who's interested, I've put together a brief guess as to the contents of the next series of Case Files collections, starting with Volume 4:

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 4

The Judge Child to Unamerican Graffiti
Approx. 334 pages

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 5

The Problem With Sonny Bono to Block Mania
Approx. 228pp

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 6

The Apocalypse War to The Last Invader
Approx. 336pp

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 7

Shanty Town to Bob & Carol & Ted & Ringo
Approx. 328pp

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 8

Pieromania to City of the Damned
Approx. 355pp

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 9

The Hunters Club to Merry Tale of the Christmas Angel
Approx. 307pp

JUDGE DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES VOL. 10

The Warlord to The Witness
Approx. 347pp


----------------------------------------


That would bring us up almost to Oz and the point where the Complete/Classic Judge Dredd reprints ended, and I'm not going to try guessing beyond this point. If the Case Files do continue, I'd hope that they shrink slightly and move to full colour, as greyscale reprints of colour - often painted - art isn't really what I want to see, or what I would be prepared to pay for. Drop the page count by 100-odd pages and you'd still have chunky volumes, but it would perhaps be more economical to run colour reprints.

Now, a few provisos about the above listings:

-- Vol. 4 could end before Unamerican Graffiti and include some bonus material. That would increase the pagecount in Vol. 5, making it slightly chunkier.

-- I'm confident that Vol. 5 will be a shorter volume, however, as including The Apocalypse War would boost the page count to 400-ish again.

-- Volume 6 may not end where I've said, but it would make sense, as it wraps up the Apocalypse War saga with a pair of follow-up tales.

-- Volume 7 could be a bit longer, but as the final story falls at the end of a calendar year, I think that's where it will conclude.

-- I'm a bit wary of Volume 8, and I suspect that City of the Damned may fall into Vol. 9 instead.

-- Volume 9 is another that could be longer but falls neatly at the end of a year.

[The Adventurer]

I know it's really just spliting hairs, and in the end it truely doesn't matter. But...wouldn't this have looked so much better?

I sure think so.http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6647/casefilesspines1eb.jpg">

[Dark Jimbo]

Hmm -actually, Adventurer, you're right, but I don't really care about this too much. Having still read next to no early Dredd, (never read a single one of these relatively early epics) I can't wait to get these.

Oh, and BIG respect to Amstor for this. Believe me, these informative posts of yours are massively appreciated (by me, at least) and of great help in deciding future purchases!

[Noisybast]

Top tip: Why not print out you own custom spines for your Case Files books? Then they'll all match!






Do I win five pounds?

[paulvonscott]

I think Amstor has computed what would have been the best option.  Use this thinner volume to include the stories from the 2000AD and Dan Dare Anuuals and the specials to pad it out.

Still, it looks okay to me, I think the designer went for the best option, but it;s a close call.

This is a proper messageboard topic and a half ain't it me old gronks?

[Grant Goggans]

Ideally, volume 5 will play catch-up and reprint the annual and special stories from 1978-81.  Especially the first Dredd annual, which has all that great McMahon art.

[Steve Green]

I'd definitely like to see the specials/annuals stories collected.

I don't know what's the best way to do it, though - whether to use it as filler for the thinner volumes, or to keep it separate.

The annual stories tended to be colour, and it would be criminal to have mono versions of them, it would be much better to have them as a standalone collection.

- Steve

[Pyroxian]

Well, I'd like to see colour versions of the centre spreads too - I'd gladly pay a few extra quid if they were included.

   Steve

[IndigoPrime]

As far as I'm aware, printing restrictions mean that the entire book would then have to be "full colour"; I suspect that colour on the current stock would annoy people, too. This means you'd either be paying something like +50 for the colour spreads on iffy paper (for colour) or at least double for books using the same stock as elsewhere.

[The Amstor Computer]

Colour on the stock Rebellion are using at the moment would be, IMO, unacceptable.

I'm quite happy to go with greyscale repro of the occasional colour spreads, but I think that once we reach the full-colour Dredds (always assuming we do get that far, of course) a rethink of the series will be necessary.

My ideal - and what I would be prepared to pay for on a semi-regular basis - would be:

-- A drop from 300-340pp to around 200pp

-- Switch from the coarser, plain stock used at the moment to something closer to the heavy, glossy paper on their other trades

-- Stories reprinted in full colour

-- Price maintained at approx. ?12-13 per book

It would mean that the reprint rate would slow substantially - I'm assuming that the books wouldn't be appearing any faster, and with the page count cut by this much, you're talking about 1/2 a year per volume instead of the full year we're getting at the moment. However, if the current pace was maintained, we could still end up with a couple of years worth of material each calendar year.

I certainly wouldn't be willing to buy greyscale reprints of tales like Necropolis, so a Case Files series that continued on that basis would be losing Rebellion at least one customer.

[Ignatzmonster]

Thanks Amstor for the summations. Now I know what I should be ordering

[numanti]

The biggest headache I think is going to come when they get to the crossovers - will Dredd world stories be included, or just those 2000ad stories appearing under the main Judge Dredd heading?  

2106
Helltrekkers

2107
Anderson: Four Dark Judges

2108
Anderson: The Possessed

2109
Anderson: Hour of the Wolf

2110
Chopper: Soul on Fire
Chopper: Song of the Surfer
Anderson: Contact

2111
Anderson: Contact
Anderson: Helios
Anderson: Triad
Anderson: The Prophet
Anderson: Random Man
The Dead Man

How does all of this fit in?  Some of it is important stuff in the development of Dredd's world and effects Dredd stories directly (such as 'Four Dark Judges' and 'The Dead Man')

And then it gets *really* complicated with the introduction of the Megazine.  Will there be seperate Case Files for Megazine Dredds and other direct Dredd world stories?  How will they piece together stuff like Judgement Day?

So far we are missing a handful of Annual and Specials stories, but as the series grows, I'm interested to know how it will be handled.

I'd have gone for what they seem to be doing - taking it a year at a time and including everything related to that year in one or two (or three...) books with the year clearly labelled on the spine.  I'm geeky enough to have an excell spreadsheet dividing all the stories into thier respective Dredd years in order and everything, and for me any complete re-read of Dredd should iclude at leaast those extra stories that have an impact on the development of the story - those early Anderson's in particular.