New to Dredd (what to buy)

[Rubmygnome]

Hello all,
Recently I was given the graphic novel Trifecta and I loved it, so I've been looking at collecting more. So from searching the web I have stumbled upon the judge dredd mega collection which I believe is just a selection of dredd story lines. I was happy to order it, until I found on Amazon the judge dredd complete files, which has all (judge dredd only) the story lines in it. Now my question is which one should I buy or pushed more towards. I'm not gonna say I'm a hardcore fan of dredd, I did have a few 2000AD comics growing up and I did rather enjoy the new film, but I'm apprehensive about buying the mega collection just incase I get it and think wtf is happening who and what is going on as I'm sure there will be back story and so on leading to these events. And the only reason I haven't gone ahead and ordered the complete files is I have seen they don't include everything in the dredd universe as the so called great story line America isn't init?.? Now the question is should I just buy the mega collection as it's the best story lines and will be a great collection to have, or should I start collecting the complete files and buy the random books like America and so on with it?

Thanks all and I AM THE LAW!

[Colin YNWA]

Tough question. There's no denying the completest in me wants to say get the Case Files (but if you do don't forget the first isn't particularly representative of whats to come as the strip is developing so stick with it!) but common sense says Mega Collection. Hand picked great storylines, as the collection develops you'll get a nice wide spread of other great Dredd World stuff (and some stuff  that stinks) if the hints are to be believed and it looks like a lovely format AND will have loads of lovely addtional information which I'm sure will cover any gaps the stories don't?

Whichever way you go they both represent pretty great value. Maybe get the first couple of cheap Mega Collections and see if the format wins you over and you'll have America (and the follow ups) so you'll kinda be saving money anyway if you decide to go the Case File route as you'll not have to buy the America trade seperately?

.... so I'm no help, well except to say what you should really do is collect the Progs as you get Dredd and a whole heap of other good stuff...

[ZenArcade]

Yeah, the real fun is in collecting the Progs. Took me a year to collect over 1450 progs and 300 odd megazines. Beats building the Millenium Falcon any day and not a whole lot more expensive. Z

[Recrewt]

It's hard to give advice when its not clear what your own preferences are.  As Colin mentioned, some of the early stuff is not to everyone's taste so perhaps this would not be suitable for you.  Douglas Wolk has done some great work over at his Dredd Reckoning blog to review all the Dredd books and there is even a suggestion of where to start:

http://dreddreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/where-to-start-reading-judge-dredd.html

The mega collection does indeed look good but it looks to me like they will not be releasing stories in order so you might not like this.  Perhaps you might want to have a look at some of the other recent books like the Day of Chaos ones and then you can work backwards?

[JudgeGerry]

Ordered the Mega Collection myself and also have a few Graphic Novels to read. I am reading the Megazine in Digital format which I enjoy. 

[shaolin_monkey]

Case Files 5!

[Magnetica]

Given what you have said I would think the first edition of the new Mega Collection is a no brainer. As I understand it it contains America and is at an introductory price of £1.99 from 21st Jan.

Also as I understand it America doesn't appear in the case files as it wasn't actually a "Judge Dredd" strip, rather a story set in the Judge Dredd world.

After that - I will leave it to others more familiar with the case file volumes to comment on whether you should go down that route or not (I'm more of an original Prog and Meg kind of person). What I will say though is personal favourites include: The Judge Child saga, Judge Death, Judge Death Lives, the Day, the Law Died, PJ Maybe stuff, Tour of Duty, Day of Chaos, plus many many ones offs and two parters - generally around Prog 120 ish to Prog 450 ish (that's just off the top of my head). And that for my taste the best Dredd is often to be found in the Prog, not the Meg. Certainly all the major events tend to  occur in the Prog not the Meg (but I always buy both).

[Fungus]

'Origins' ?

[Skullmo]

Personally I would say Origins is not a good place to start. It doesn't have that much resonance unless you have read a lot of stuff before it.

[Fungus]

It needed a smiley. This 'what first ?' question is pretty common, it just tickles me that 'Origins' never - understandably - gets a mention 

[Rubmygnome]

With a lot of judgement I'm going to go with the mega collection and see how I get on. If I find I love the Dredd seriers I will start collection th complete case files, thanks again everyone for your advise

[radiator]

I'd say the Mega Collection is perfect for folks like you, so good choice.

The Case Files are wonderful but by their nature a little samey if you want to go through them chronologically (they also get off to a rocky start with the 'vintage' volume 01) . The Mega Collection should give you a great cross section of Dredd and lots of variety, from modern stories to the B&W classics and even spin-offs.

I would say that Dredd is by and large well-written enough that new readers should be able to jump in pretty much anywhere and enjoy it - it has a long backstory, but nothing too daunting. It certainly isn't bogged down in continuity/retcons/reboots etc the way that a lot of superhero comics tend to be.

America is a fantastic way to start a collection - one of the first Dredd stories I ever read and a stone cold classic.