Dredd epics ranked

[Funt Solo]

I have no recollection whatsoever for The Ecstasy - I had to look it up in my spreadsheet. 2009, huh? Ten episodes. I should remember something. I'll try cover clues...



Nope - still nothing.

Okay, I'll read yer blog...

Ahh ... the vaguest of memories are surfacing now. Pretty dire stuff. A cross between Pulp Fiction's case of wonder and that brummy robot from SkIIIzz.

And this ranked higher than City of the Damned?

[Richard]

The Ecstasy isn't so bad when you read it all in one go, but I remember being bored by it when reading one episode a week. It should be lower on the list than it is though.

[davidbishop]

More rankings up this morning, and more choices to argue about!

https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/08/epics-37-34-very-average.html

When you finish this epic endeavour, might I suggest you rank the end of year 100-page progs? This year's festive prog will be the 21st edition. [Only took 2 years of campaigning to convince Egmont it was a good idea to try this in the 1990s...]

[AlexF]

Happy to take requests! You are right to be proud of this tradition, Mr Bishop. I've been a digital subscriber for 6 years now but I make a point of picking up the Xmas prog in print.
(and I trust Matt Smith doesn't curse your name annually when he has to fill 100 pages on a very specific deadline... )

Meanwhile, more Dredd musings:
https://dreddepicsranked.blogspot.com/2020/12/epics-31-29-reaching-for-heights.html

Oh, and to all you 'Ecstasy' haters - I'm willing to bet that of all the epics I've ranked so far, this one is the best to give to someone who has literally never read any Judge Dredd before...

[Link Prime]

might I suggest you rank the end of year 100-page progs?

The first two are hard to beat content and classic creator-wise.

[Jim_Campbell]

The first two are hard to beat content and classic creator-wise.

Prog 2000 (the first one) by a mile, for me. I think there may well have been objectively better end-of-year extravaganzas (extravaganzæ...?) over the years when judged by content, but the nineties, man... the f***ing nineties.

There was a very real feeling in the middle of that decade that the comic wouldn't survive until the landmark year and that end-of-year prog had a triumphal "We're still here" vibe. All those classic creators writing and drawing love-letter-to-2000AD stories... it revived a sense of both pride and hope, bolstered a few months later by news of the Rebellion buy-out.

It was special in every sense of the word.

[Rately]

Thanks for this AlexF.

Love reading 2000AD, and love reading peoples thoughts / reviews / musings.

What's so wonderful, is that you aren't snarky and hateful, and always try to find the positives, and in the year we have just put behind us, we need more of your lovely writing on something we all hold near and dear to our hearts.

Thank you.

[BPP]

Oh, and to all you 'Ecstasy' haters - I'm willing to bet that of all the epics I've ranked so far, this one is the best to give to someone who has literally never read any Judge Dredd before...

Funnily enough I think the same of sin city.
And am baffled the slight dig at walkers art.
Atmosphere, characters, b-plot, showdowns, dredd being the baddest MF... everything works.

[sixmo]

I remember really enjoying the Blood Trails story, but cursing the art. It just did not feel right for a weighty significant feeling story. The other time I recall being as annoyed by the art was the sequence in the Tale of the Dead Man where Morphy is killed and I think the art was by Jeff Anderson. This was one of the most important ever Dredd stories and it was drawn by some randomer and not one of the major artists. 

My Trifecta experience was somewhat unique. For someone who will usually read each prog from cover to cover religiously, for some reason in this run of progs I was just reading Dredd, and only skimming Low Life. I wasn't even reading Simping Detective and whatever else was on the go. I'm trying to recall at what point I realised I was missing two thirds of the story, but I think it was a number of weeks after the actual reveal was made and everyone else in the universe knew what was going on. Did I feel stupid looking back over the stories and finding that I had not even noticed that moment where Dredd burst into the next story? You betcha!

[AlexF]

Ha! That's brilliant - even Tharg can't account for our individual reading habits.
Back when I was getting the physical Prog I would often read strips out of order, picking whatever I was in the mood for first. It's a bit more of a pain doing that with thr Digital Prog so I kind of have to read it cover to cover without skipping bits.

[TordelBack]

The other time I recall being as annoyed by the art was the sequence in the Tale of the Dead Man where Morphy is killed and I think the art was by Jeff Anderson. This was one of the most important ever Dredd stories and it was drawn by some randomer and not one of the major artists. 

And there truly is no accounting for taste!  Anderson's Dredd output was a bit up and down for me, but I thought he (and Simpson) did a fantastic job on Tale of the Dead Man, especially the pages where the Med-Judges are bagging up Morph. The colouring in particular is incredible, coming between Simpson's unique palette and the absolute tour-de-force of Ezquerra's on Necropolis: the full-colour era had truly arrived.  My only beef was the cliffhanger transition between the episodes when Dredd is excessive-forcing Morph's killer in front of the Zoom, which just doesn't work in collected form.

[Funt Solo]

Oh, and to all you 'Ecstasy' haters - I'm willing to bet that of all the epics I've ranked so far, this one is the best to give to someone who has literally never read any Judge Dredd before...

It's a good point, and my tongue in cheek ramblings about it should be filed under "that man only read it once eleven years ago so his opinion isn't entirely relevant".

It does remind me of a movie in which there's some kind of alien in the trunk of a car ... what was that? Oh wait - Repo Man! So, perhaps shades of Repo Man in there.

[sixmo]

And there truly is no accounting for taste!  Anderson's Dredd output was a bit up and down for me, but I thought he (and Simpson) did a fantastic job on Tale of the Dead Man, especially the pages where the Med-Judges are bagging up Morph.

I really loved Will Simpson's work on that story and the previous Kraken stories. Anderson's art was not exactly like Will Simpson's and therefore I was cranky!

[Leigh S]

Pronouncement A: City of the Damned is aces!

Pronouncement B: Dead Ringer is aces!

Pronouncement C: It isnt a real Epic unless it has 100 pages or more (though not sure what that does for City of the Damned...)

[Andy B]

Just to make a change from "I can't believe you put X higher than Y!", I agree 100% with your placing and assessment of 'Trifecta'. I could never get on with Jack Point: almost unreadable. (Spurrier's Hellblazer has been fantastic, though).

That said, next up: two pieces of "fluff" that are better than 'Doomsday'