Judge Dredd: The Mega Collection discussion thread

[robert_ellis]

This collection has been perfect for a lapsed reader like myself. Finding out your favourite characters carried on without you and often reached new heights has been a thrill. I love that nothing's really been forgotten - Max Normal could rub shoulders with Dirty Frank, PJ Maybe's murders have become more inventive and Kleggs can be sensitive. Only in Dredd's world could garden robots and taxidermy seem equally valid story ideas. Reading the board it's clear that tastes change just as the characters have. I guess this collection has to balance servicing the casefiles hardcore, the casual reader and even the odd newbie. Some choices have been bonkers, the order of volumes haphazard, but the design & written pieces have been outstanding. I'm buying the prog & megazine now understanding who Beeny, Dolman etc are. Nice one Thargs past & present.

[The Monarch]

creep was certainly better than i remember it feel like a bit of an arse slagging it off for years

[Skullmo]

There has been quite few Dreddworld stories from the Meg that have never been reprinted - Creep, The Hershey stories (I really enjoyed those by Neal and Wigmore and wonder what they are like now), much of missionary man, Inspectre, sleeze and ryder, much of Armitage, Pan-African judges, Pandora, Cabal, Deathwatch, much of Harmony . . . The collection (and the Meg floppy) has done a good job of picking up on some of these and I hope it will do more.

[Trent]

Really Skullmo?
Creep was good and I love Missionary Man with a passion but, art aside, there is very little else on that list that was any good.
It has been both a virtue and the curse of the collection simultaneously that it has brought back previously unpublished Megazine stories.
Inspectre we can't talk about (hi Jim)
The Hershey stories are best left to the memory
A good chunk of Armitage turned up in the floppies
Pan-African Judges was awful but I would be happy to see again for some early painted Siku art
Pandora, Cabal, Deathwatch - very happy to never see these again.
Harmony - good concept and setting, Hairsine art etc made it worth revisiting but it lost its way (see Lawless for how to do it right).

[Bad City Blue]

Ya know it's each to his own... personally I hate Devlin Waugh and can't get through the books. This is mainly due to the fact John Smith writes them, and I have never been able to enjoy anything eh has written.

An unusual opinion, I know, but that's life!

[Smith]

As somebody who went thru those Meg stories recently I can say collecting Sleeze 'n' Ryder and Inspectre and Brit Cit Brute is not a huge gain.On the other hand,Hershey stories were mostly okay.But thats just my tastes.
Btw,was Plagues of Necropolis collected in Mega Collection?

[TordelBack]

There must have been so many factors involved in deciding the content and order of the Mega Collection that it's amazing it exists at all.

First and foremost, I imagine, was the cost of getting each page into the collection : for recent stories or those that have recently been reprinted additional costs have to have been minimal. For older or more obscure material, I imagine wrestling things into digital is both expensive and time-consuming. Minimising that had to be a priority.

Then there was the risk of producing a 'Dredd: All the Good Bits' collection that would effectively kill Casefiles and TPB sales. As it is, there are a lot of Dredd's essential/most fun stories in there, but as this discussion by no means all. New readers are still going to have to tackle the back catalogue to see the full story.

Conversely, the need to produce something that would be attractive to those who already have the Casefiles and TPBs: either unreprinted, obscure or upgraded (the colour spreads) or just collated and repackaged in a clever thematic way.

Then the aim of showcasing the wider Dreddverse to a new audience, to broaden awareness and demand for Rebellion's IP catalogue beyond Dredd, Dredd, Dredd and maybe Slaine. This I think it does most admirably.

And that's before we even get to considering:

- Widespread aversion to B&W
- using 'popular' creators as a draw.
- the idiosyncrasies and/or overexposure of some of the older material
- Page counts that work
- Coherent themes/styles
- Stories that don't rely too much on material that fell foul of the foregoing.
- Personal taste.

As inevitable compromises go, I think it's a pretty amazing achievement.

[Trent]

Tordel, your argument is well thought throughand I have to say I agree with what you say.
That said, my natural greediness for more of those missing Dredd classics and enjoyment of the lovely hardback format still makes me wish for even a 10 book extension.

Just so long as it isn't Cabal, Deathwatch or Soul Sisters....

[abelardsnazz]

Btw,was Plagues of Necropolis collected in Mega Collection?

Plagues hasn't appeared as yet, but as all remaining content isn't yet known, I guess it still could appear in either the initial run of 80 or the much-discussed extension.

If there is an extension, when is this likely to be announced? Anyone got experience of this type of thing from the Marvel run?

[IndigoPrime]

I'm reasonably sure Plagues was confirmed as being included in the Facebook feed. As for extensions, who knows? I recall the Marvel one just abruptly appearing towards the end of the initial 60-book run, entirely without warning. But that also was problematic in splitting the line between 'classic' and 'modern' material. In the end, I vaguely recall Hachette are to an agreement to honour 'modern only' subs, but then the line increased again a bunch of times. So it's gone from 60 to 120 to 140 and now to 150.

With Dredd, I'm not fussed either way, frankly. As long as we get all of the original 80 before it continues, I'll be happy. (I wouldn't be thrilled if we got 'gaps' in the original run while Hacette merrily sent over #92, #101, #294765724 and so on.) For the money, I'll happily continue subscribing. But from Rebellion's standpoint, it might not be a great thing to continue with the collection, given the relative lack of material compared to what Marvel can play around with. (6,000 pages a year is quite a lot for a company that's essentially run 40-80-odd pages of Dreddworld strip on average per month.)

[Frank]

... the need to produce something that would be attractive to those who already have the Casefiles and TPBs: either unreprinted, obscure or upgraded (the colour spreads) or just collated and repackaged in a clever thematic way.

It's also a kind of clever way of subsidising Tharg's archiving project.

Hachette have basically paid for the time and labour necessary to get stuff like Brit Cit Brute off a dusty compact disc and in the condition necessary to be used as floppies, to bulk out future trade paperbacks, and increase the number of strips Tharg can flog in digital form.

The restoration of some colour spreads is also building the skills and systems necessary to produce a version of Case Files 1-11 in the same format as the recent Cursed Earth Uncensored, if that's what Tharg has planned.

[Trent]

Lots of interesting points.
Plagues was, of course, recently reprinted in a floppy so is available for Hachette should they wish. Not seen it mentioned as included. It would make a nice companion to Fall of Deadworld in the fabled extension.

I certainly hope the centrespread work is going to facilitate volumes 2 to 11 in deluxe format but Tharg has been very quiet on that front since case file 1 was reissued so I'm not too hopeful. At the very least we now have a lovely version of Oz. Toss in The Judge Child and City of the Damned and I'll be happy.
Obviously it would be terrific to someday get restored Apocalypse War, Judge Death Lives and many others but we have a few titbits to be going on with.

The point about the collection using material at 5 times the rate of new strip is interesting but we still have thousands of pages of unreprinted material left before we get close to it being an issue. Sure, the back catalogue is a fraction of Marvel's but 80 volumes will only cover somewhere between 50 and 60% of Dreddverse material so another 10 or 20 books is readily achievable.

[IndigoPrime]

I suspect any extension will depend on all kinds of stars aligning:

- Rebellion and Hachette both wanting to continue
- Subscription rates still being high enough (given that they drop over time and you only rarely get new people signing up at this stage)
- Price rises not being prohibitive (not least given the kicking Sterling is getting right now)
- Sales of 2000 AD's own line of trades being broadly unaffected
- Enough material being readily available
- Material suggested for any extension not heavily clashing with new or planned Rebellion trades

Costs in particular could be a clincher. Right now, the sets sit nicely under a psychological spending barrier. A copper under 20 quid a month, or a penny under a tenner for a single issue. What about if the books were £11.99 a pop? Would people still go for an extension then?

[Arkwright99]

What about if the books were £11.99 a pop? Would people still go for an extension then?

For a set 20-volume expansion? Yes, I would happily pay £12 a volume, especially if it included some (or all) of the much requested material not being included in the base 80-volume set. And if it was more than twenty volumes? Yeah, I'd probably go along with that as well. 

Thing is, of course, I'm not buying the Case Files and I don't usually buy the Dredd collected volumes either so for me the Mega Collection is working out really well given that I already have all the material in the original Progs and Megs. Well, bar the few duff stories that have been included which makes me think that when Molch-R used the phrase "definitive collection" I don't think it means what he thinks it means. 

[Mattofthespurs]

What about if the books were £11.99 a pop? Would people still go for an extension then?

I would continue purely because I am anal retentive and that it would kill me not to have a complete collection.