DREDD: THE COMPLETE CASE FILES 16

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Just received an email from The Book Depository saying it's on it's way. Roll on next week 

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Contents are as follows :-

Firepower
Teddy-Bear's Firefight
Garbage Disposal
Watchdogs
Talkback
Twin Blocks
School Bully
A Clockwork Pineapple
Muzak Killer
The Vidders
The Devil You Know
Twilight's Last Gleaming
One Better
The Flabfighters
Teddy Choppermitz a love story
Rough Guide To Suicide
The Art Of Geomancy
Justice One
Koole Killers
First Of The Many
Raptaur
The Hand Of Fate
The Boy Who Thought He Wasn't
I Was A Mutant Ninja Priest Killer!

I'm looking forward to another hard night at work so I can devour all those 

[James Stacey]

Cover is here. Not seen it before. Nice looking volume

[COMMANDO FORCES]

That's the one 

[TordelBack]

Dear me, but that's a motley bunch of stories when you see them listed out.  I'll take Twilight's Last Gleaming and Devil You Know, and maybe Justice One.  Some very nice art on the rest, and a lovely cover, but otherwise hmmm... Still, it'll be interesting to have them all together, and I've little or no memory many of the non-Raptaur Meg stories.

[Grant Goggans]

Oh, I like "Twin Blocks" a lot.  Garth Ennis's parodies were often pretty awful, but that one was great.

[thehod]

First of the Many is also one of Garth Ennis's best one shot Dredd stories.

[BPP]

lol.


I can't beleive they are going to get me to buy Raptur again. Its like being molested twice in the summer.

Next time you have that lovely GN guy on answering questions do (gently) prod him as to why the hell they did that.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

This is the Case Files where Mr Proudfoot dies, so he'll be buying it  

[TordelBack]

Ach, it's just a long-standing apathy.  While The Boys and Battlefields have made a convert of me, I've never cared for Ennis' Dredd, with the exception of Monkey on My Back and Return of the King, and maybe Emerald Isle.  It's very competent stuff as these things go, but for my money it's overly gory and relies too much on pop-culture pastiche of the week, and Dredd himself seems... hollow.  I am very much looking forward to the chance to reappraise this period in the Casefiles, but it's against  a background of low expectations.

[Dark Jimbo]

Hmm... That's a great cover, but I can't say the contents list is particularly making me want to rush out and buy it. We're entering the dodgy period now, aren't we? By my reckoning Case File 17 will be 'the Judgement Day one', and then 18 and onwards we've got the dubious joys of Millar, Morrison, Mackenzie and any number of other jobbing hacks that Dredd was farmed out to at the time.

[radiator]

It's worth remembering how young Ennis was at the time - barely in his twenties, wasn't he?

I'd definitely single out First of the Many, Return of the King, Death Aid, Last Night Out and Twilight's Last Gleaming as his best work on Dredd, and I think there's much to like about Judgement Day, though there is a lot of cringe-inducing stuff in there, too! He did write some rubbish, and by his own admission. As Tordelback says, all the stories that refer to specific parts of 1990's pop culture like Blind Date and The Word are especially awkward, and now feel more dated than Wagner and Grant's 1980's Dredd - they were a bit more subtle with what they were parodying, I think.

Hmm... That's a great cover, but I can't say the contents list is particularly making me want to rush out and buy it. We're entering the dodgy period now, aren't we? By my reckoning Case File 17 will be 'the Judgement Day one', and then 18 and onwards we've got the dubious joys of Millar, Morrison, Mackenzie and any number of other jobbing hacks that Dredd was farmed out to at the time.

Yeah, but at least there's going to be some strong Megazine material in there to keep the overall standard up - Mechanismo should be coming up quite soon, with Tenth Planet et al not too long after that.

[Dark Jimbo]

Ah, you're right! I forgot we had the Meg stuff to sweeten an otherwise bitter pill.

[Leigh S]

Its interesting to see so much non wagner all falling into one case files - i believe, other than the Devil You Know, only one of those stories was credited to Wagner (Watchdogs?). Might be wrong on that, but generally Im surprised by the wagnerlessness.  all the Megazine Dredds there are Alan Grant ones i think, which are more missable than the Ennis ones for my money.

Would make an interesting read after all this time though, knowing that it was just a phase (admittedly not the worst phase we'd see, but a phase all the same!)

[radiator]

I'm looking forwards to the 'dodgy' period in some respects - I wonder if there will be a reappraisal of some of the truly obscure stories - a few hidden gems unearthed?

Its interesting to see so much non wagner all falling into one case files - i believe, other than the Devil You Know, only one of those stories was credited to Wagner (Watchdogs?).

Watchdogs is a Wagner - you could also argue that Twilight's Last Gleaming is pretty much co-written by Wagner, too!

Texas City Sting by Wagner will be in Case Files 18, but aside from that, it looks like it'll be an entirely Garth Ennis-scripted volume....