2000 AD Online Forum

Spinning off from the Rogue Trooper phone books thread, I'd be interested to know how people would like to see the Judge Dredd material from the Megazine reprinted.

Personally, I would like to see those stories which crossover with stories from the Progs (e.g. Judgement Day) appear in the main case files series. In fact, I think it is pretty much essential for that to happen because stories which have holes in them would very severely detract from the volumes in which they appear. It would probably even make a lot of people who would otherwise snap them up without question (myself included) think twice about even buying them.

As for the other Meg stories, I'd really quite like to see them reprinted in a separate series of phone book style volumes. I have no objection to putting them in the regular case files as such, because I would buy these anyway. However this way people who don't want to collect the Meg stories wouldn't have to feel like they were being forced on them, and people who do want to collect them (like me) would have the option to do so.

Anybody else have thoughts on this?

It's a tough one, and there's downsides either way (the recently-reprinted America taking up a huge chunk of Case Files xx, for example, and it does seem very odd that a standalone Mechanismo book is scheduled for later this year, when it will presumably be appearing within the next few volumes of the Case Files....

Despite this, I'm kind of the opinion of 'In for a penny...' - I'd rather see all of the Meg material than just the crossovers. After all there have been some really great Dredds in the Meg that have never been reprinted (and that a lot of fans have never read), and including the Meg stuff will keep the quality up with a higher ratio of Wagner-scripted material that will provide some relief when we get to the Millar/Morrison/Steelgrave era of 2000AD Dredd material - though there's also a lot of Meg Dredd that is very poor quality.

An alternative would be stopping the Case Files after volume 14/The Dead Man and then carry on collecting the best Dredd material in story or artist-themed collections - however its quite unlikely that Rebellion will want to cancel a very successful series.

All of them. Integrated in as close to publication order as coherence allows. Reprints a lot of Wagner stories that a lot of people wont have read for the first time and means you never have to sit through an entire Case File of Morrison & Millar.

There's no need to reprint America in the Case Files. Like The Dead Man, it was originally published as a standalone story, not a Dredd story, so the existing separate volume will be fine.

Edited to add: Oh. Radiator's already said most of that.

Yeah I'd be very pleased if the Megazine Dredd stories got a showing as my Megazine collection is far from complete. That said I suspect they will be a while in coming to avoid flooding the market?

I'm up for the DREDD stories from the Meg to be reprinted (obviously) but please, let's keep the non-Dredd stuff on a strictly "classics-only" basis.  Not that anyone was thinking about that.  Werer they?

Oh wait, they published Red Razors.....

The likes of Judgement Day, Wilderlands and the importance of certain 2000ad tales as background for meg tales (and vice versa) mean that it'll make a hell of a lot more sense to just bundle the meg stuff in with the twoth.  Although that DOES mean that case files for certain years (fortnightly meg for example) will become huge and unwieldy.

And I don't really have a solution in mind for that.  Sorry.

I'd like them to keep them seperate.. might tempt me to buy them if the breaks fit well - that is, I can switch over from teh 2000AD files to teh meg files and have a (mostly) wagner run.

THIS THREAD HAS GOT ME VERY ANGRY! Are the publishers actually considering now after making me buy 13 releases of 'THE COMPLETE JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES' that they might not actually be putting in the COMPLETE Judge Dredd Case Files? Surely such a move to save money/book space would be criminal and false advertising? This title IS NOT called 'The complete 2000AD Dredd Case Files'. It is too late to change this now Im sorry but thousands of fans and myself now insist that ALL of Dredd's material be printed Prog OR Megazine as the title promises.

well, its already not complete, what with all those annual and special stories not being reprinted, let alone the marvellous DAILY STAR DREDDS (emphasis mine!)  that could fill a casefile or three....

Calm down, digitalworlds, there's a good person.  It's not worth getting so irate over.  I'm under the impression that the decision hasn't been taken just yet and this is a conversation regarding whether or not we the readers think splitting the series into 2000ad and Meg is a good idea.

Personally I don't agree with the idea of "splitting" either, but I've yet to hear anything from Rebellion as to their plans. 

I'd LIKE it if they made these so-called "Complete" volumes a tad more complete regarding specials, annuals, newspaper strips etc.....

Quote from: digitalworlds on 02 August, 2009, 05:09:57 PM
THIS THREAD HAS GOT ME VERY ANGRY! Are the publishers actually considering now after making me buy 13 releases of 'THE COMPLETE JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES' that they might not actually be putting in the COMPLETE Judge Dredd Case Files?

Oh, for crying out loud.

You haven't been 'made' to buy anything. Get over yourself.

Quote from: digitalworlds on 02 August, 2009, 05:09:57 PM
Surely such a move to save money/book space would be criminal and false advertising?

No, it wouldn't.

Quote from: digitalworlds on 02 August, 2009, 05:09:57 PM
I'm sorry but thousands of fans and myself now insist that ALL of Dredd's material be printed Prog OR Megazine as the title promises.

We do? Speak for yourself, lad. We're not in any position to 'insist' or 'demand' anything. Rebellion don't owe you a complete collection, as you seem to think. What an ungrateful attitude.

Sorry, double post. Nothing to see here, move along.

The last I heard, Megazine stuff will be included.

Well, let's all have a cup of tea to celebrate then.  Goodness me, silly boarders getting all grumpy with each other *tut tut* I've a good mind to put you all over my knee.  Shake hands, that's it.

Now, who's for a slice of victoria sponge with their tea?

Quote from: digitalworlds on 02 August, 2009, 05:09:57 PM
Are the publishers actually considering now after making me buy 13 releases of 'THE COMPLETE JUDGE DREDD CASE FILES' that they might not actually be putting in the COMPLETE Judge Dredd Case Files?

I have to assume that we are glossing over the obvious incompleteness for copyright reasons of the 'banned issues'. ;) 

Could I have some shortbread with my tea please?

'Course you can.  There's even some homemade bakewell tart.

Ooooh! Bakewell tart!

We'll just stay here and try to ignore the noise from the neighbours arguing about who had sex with who's ipod.  *tut tut tut*  Lovely tea and cakes are the way forward.  I tried to pour oil on troubled canada geese over there with my baking, but to no avail.  At least we all enjoy a good omnomnom over here. 

Ok well maybe to say I was 'VERY ANGRY' was a little over the top but I am quite pee'd off if Im honest and I'm afraid Dark Jimbo you can't take that away from me. Ive read hundreds of 2000AD progs and hundreds of Megazines and when I saw 'The Complete Judge Dredd Case Files Vol 1' I thought wow thats great idea and to quote from the pack cover:

"Now you can re-discover the roots of this legendary character in this vast and Thrill-packed series of graphic novels collecting together all of Dredd's adventures in chronological order, complete and uncut!"

As I'm sure many can agree when something is described as "Complete and Uncut" you wouldn't expect after spending £181.87 (13x£13.99) for the cases to be 'incomplete and cut' which is clearly what is being considered here. Again I must draw attension to the fact that Rebellion has never made it clear that the material will only be from the pages of 2000AD.

A definition of false advertising is:

"(i)the use of false or misleading statements in advertising. As advertising has the potential to persuade people into commercial transactions that they might otherwise avoid" Another important element of this would be truth labelling which dictates: "(ii)Truth in labeling refers to essentially the same concept, that customers have the right to know what they are buying, and that all necessary information should be on the label of said product".

Im my opinion neither of these rules have been followed (i) the book states complete adventures/cases of Dredd and (ii) it does not provide the appropriate truth labelling explaining it might only contain the material from the progs.

Technically I think this is false advertising, is it serious enough to take further? hell no! but Its still really annoying and I for one will be sticking my books for sale on ebay/amazon the moment a wrong decision is made. I want the complete cases thats why I started buying it.

I wouldnt buy a can of coke and be happy if I got Pepsi inside I want whats on this tin.

Maybe they didn't think they would be this popular. Maybe rebellion didnt have anyone that actually looked 2-3 years ahead and thought 'how are we going to fit all those colour pages in and still make a profit with such massive volumes'.

These books aren't really for kids they are for die hard DREDD fans with cash to spend who want to re-live they're youth reading DREDD. I want it complete and I want it in one volume and I have a feeling most people do and thats why they started buying it in the first place.

But if it was 'complete and uncut' does that mean it has to include all the 'Heavy Metal Dredd's then cos some of those were gash. What about stories like America that feature Dredd but aren't actually Dredd stories? What about the 'Lawman of the Future' stuff ? Where does it end ? Zarjaz Dredd, it's not in 2000ad but its published.

Quote from: James S on 03 August, 2009, 07:58:59 PM
Where does it end ?

DC Dredd? Annuals? Sci-Fi Specials? Yearbooks? Daily Star strips? Metro strips? Other stuff Dredd appeared in? Red Razors II? Lenny Zero? The epic adventure I drew on the back of my school exercise books when I was twelve?

Yes, to be honest, I can kind of see why you're a bit nobbed off, but clearly there is going to have to be some kind of editorial process to decide what goes in and what doesn't. At that point -- unless you're seriously suggesting that everything be printed -- it's just a question of whether you agree with where the line has been drawn.

Cheers

Jim

The time to notice it wasnt complete was really when teh special stories werent all appearing, so about case files 1....

Having said that, I understand your frustration to some degree, as for my money, if the Daily Star Dredds ahd made their way in (or been published as standalone but still cAsefiles) I'd ahve bought them like a shot.  Though to balance that, i'd personally ahve loved a complete "Mills(for those early important stories)/Wagner/Grant wherever it appeared" approach, if only so you could appreciate that stripped of the Morrison/Millar stuff, Dredd has always ahd something to offer, even through the darkest days. I'd much much rather read the MEgazine Dredds collected than the 2000AD strips that were running at the same time

Ideally I would like to see the remaining Wagner/Grant Daily Star material reprinted in the Meg - as part of a graphic novel. The Meg did reprint quite a lot of Daily Star in the late 1990s but I wouldn't mind seeing some of that or any remaining DS Dredds getting the graphic novel treatment.  :)

As a long term reader of the Dredd Meg, I have all issues, I'm not a fan of seeing Meg stuff reprinted. I've got Armitage, I've got next month's Harmony graphic novel so I'd rather see non-Meg material as graphic novel content. However, I'm sure percentage of Meg readers have not collected from issue one, way back in 1990!

Sorry, James S ... I've noticed that I've quoted you and then implied that you were also the one that was nobbed off about the Case Files. You may -- or may not -- be but that wasn't the point you were making. Apologies for the unintentional misrepresentation.

Cheers!

Jim

I'm slightly surprised Rebellion have never released a Daily Star Dredd graphic novel. Assuming there's no legal problems reprinting the material, it would be nice to see the early Ron Smith/Ian Gibson Wagner/Grant Daily Stars in graphic novel format (preferably in their correct order). I'm sure many fans would buy it and any subsequent volumes.

This really is the new what will 2000ad be called in the year 2000 topic isn't it.

yeah - same here.. its basically a massive source of often unreprinted, unobtainable classic era Wagner Grant material.  If i want 2000aD strips, i can buy the old progs, or the monthly collection thing from the early 90s, or the Titan books... if i want those Daily Star Dredds... i'm stuffed. Its like the missing Doctor who episodes, only they arent as missing as those, and could conceivably be retrieved from purgatory by the right person.

Now presumably, I may be stuffed as a punter if i want to access the Daily Star strips, but all those Stars are archived Im sure, and you'd hope Rebellion would ahve the ability to pull a few strings to get those archives. As a bonus, they can perve on all the 80s Star Stunnas whilst "collating the valuable archive"....

The Daily Star strips were collected a long time ago in the following volumes.
By the way The Mega Collection is a hardback and your best way to read these is to visit my Cellar of Dredd ;)

There are another 2000 episodes after that not collected unfortunately!
If I win the lottery I'm hiring someone to go to the archives and photocopy them all.

ah well, no one said anything about Bakewell tart!  Sold! :P

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 03 August, 2009, 11:32:42 PM
Sorry, James S ... I've noticed that I've quoted you and then implied that you were also the one that was nobbed off about the Case Files. You may -- or may not -- be but that wasn't the point you were making. Apologies for the unintentional misrepresentation.

Cheers!

Jim

Not to worry, I hadn't noticed till you drew attention to it. Personally, no I'm not nobbed off, I'm looking forward to (re)reading what ever comes out in the complete case files (and getting the Anderson ones when they come out too) Lots of quality material that even looks good on the shelf. My only real gripe with the casefiles is they started printing colour strips in greyscale. I I appreciate the change of paper needed but I'd rather have seen them colour on the lower grade paper than no colour.
Oh and despite having the majority of the books CF mentions you can add my voice to the DS Dredds getting collected. The Ian Gibson ones printed years ago in the Meg were a joy to read.

Quote from: COMMANDO FORCES on 04 August, 2009, 12:03:38 AM
The Daily Star strips were collected a long time ago in the following volumes.
By the way The Mega Collection is a hardback and your best way to read these is to visit my Cellar of Dredd ;)

I have all these too, as well as all the annuals and specials that reprinted stuff... and even if you take all the various reprint sources and combine them, theres still roughly 40 of these Saturday strips missing, and thats before we get to the daily strips, as seen in sporadically in just this book a few 2000ads and some annuals and megs....

Quote

Theres a ridiculous number of these that ahve never seen light of day - admittedly a lot are McKenzie  Millar nonsense, but not all - theres a good few gems that ahvent surfaced m

I was always thought it was obvious that the Case Files only feature the material that appeared in the progs and nothing else which is not unreasonable really.

I wouldnt expect to find all of the material that has featured in other publications to be included in the Case Files because Rebellion dont have copyright over that material so i think its unreasonable that someone else here who posted earlier starts throwing a hissy fit over something that is perfectly obvious and also they could have done some research like reading what is written on the covers before buying the case files to see what material they contained.

In any case he could keep some of the early case files that publishes material that appeared in the prog long before Fleetway and IPC were licencing out the character to other publications.

I also didnt know that JDs strips that were published outside of the prog were known as Case Files.They started in prog 2 and then continued onwards and this is the material that has been published in the case files.

They dont say "Judge Dredd - Case Files no.9 - complete and uncut - plus additional material previously published in the Meg - The Daily Star etc etc " so whats the problem ?

They are only "CUT" in the sense that they dont feature the Burger Wars material and that is a long standing legal matter that every fan would be aware of and it would be unreasonable to complain about that material not being included as it wasnt Rebellions choice .

This seems to boil down to one persons definition of the word "All" but the way i see it Rebellion are *not* guilty of false advertising because it says clearly in plain English on the front cover of Case Files : 4 : "2000AD Progs 156 - 207 " and the other Case Files are no different.

FAIL.

Thats it.



Case closed.

                                     

Quote from: digitalworlds on 03 August, 2009, 07:28:53 PM
Ok well maybe to say I was 'VERY ANGRY' was a little over the top but I am quite pee'd off if Im honest and I'm afraid Dark Jimbo you can't take that away from me. Ive read hundreds of 2000AD progs and hundreds of Megazines and when I saw 'The Complete Judge Dredd Case Files Vol 1' I thought wow thats great idea and to quote from the pack cover:

"Now you can re-discover the roots of this legendary character in this vast and Thrill-packed series of graphic novels collecting together all of Dredd's adventures in chronological order, complete and uncut!"

As I'm sure many can agree when something is described as "Complete and Uncut" you wouldn't expect after spending £181.87 (13x£13.99) for the cases to be 'incomplete and cut' which is clearly what is being considered here. Again I must draw attension to the fact that Rebellion has never made it clear that the material will only be from the pages of 2000AD.

...

These books aren't really for kids they are for die hard DREDD fans with cash to spend who want to re-live they're youth reading DREDD. I want it complete and I want it in one volume and I have a feeling most people do and thats why they started buying it in the first place.

You have to admit, the fella does have a point, the inference that this will cover all of Dredd's 'adventures' is a reasonable one.  Interesting to note though that if you look at later case files this tagline does not appear on the blurb.  It would be nice to have some idea of how Rebellion plan to deal with the Megazine period, after all it will be necessary to synchronise in one or two cases.

I'm not entirely sure that I would agree completely with the point about these being for die hard fans, personally I felt that they missed an opportunity by not doing a hardback edition which I would happily spend dosh on to preserve the originals.  I did like what Titan were doing with the hardback versions they put out before Rebellion took the contract back in house.  That said, it's only because my collection is already as complete as I want it.

Now, about that Bakewell ...

QuoteI was always thought it was obvious that the Case Files only feature the material that appeared in the progs and nothing else which is not unreasonable really.

It does indeed say that on the cover - each volume has the range of Prog numbers clearly displayed on the front, no promises about annuals, megazines, specials or owt else. 

I'm assuming the model for the Casefiles are the American 'phonebook' reprints of recent years (although it was of course Canadian Dave Sim that was first of the gate on this one by a decade or more), and in my limited experience these all limit themselves to one title (e.g. there are separate series for the various Spiderman books).  I don't think it's unreasonable for Rebellion to stick with this model.     

This isn't to say I wouldn't love to see the series cover the whole shebang, but I can see how separately numbered (but similarly dressed) volumes might cover the missing annuals and specials, and of course the Megs - especially since each Casefiles voluem also displays the fictional year for cross-referencing purposes.  I'm less sure about the Daily Stars fitting into this format, and how to treat the hated crossovers is always going to be a pain.

Hey, this is my first post here but I thought I'd stick my two bobs in.

I never read 2000ad when I was younger, but that wasn't because I didn't want to; it was just that I was introduced to loads of other comics and could only get so many on my pocket money at the time.

Anyways, I always thought that I missed something and in particular Judge Dredd and I was delighted when I found out they were doing a complete case files and have bought the entire series to date and I'm loving it (Also just bought Strontium Dog Volume 1 but still to read it).  So it's not just the core 'Dredd Fans' that are buying the books.

Although it would be cool to have absolutely everything in one place, I can understand that Dredd stories spin off in different directions and that may lead to a 'complete' series being impossible.

What I think would be really good to see would be a suggestion guide in the book to read other available graphic novels that lead into the storylines.

A main example was after reading the volume with OZ, I accidently found out that the Megazine was including the Chopper follow up series in a collected form and it was awesome and I was glad that I was lucky enough to find out just as they were being released.  Also the Judge Anderson DC novel was another one I managed to pick up at the right time to keep me up to date with the Judge Death storyline.

Incidently if anybody knows of anything else I may have missed between the stuff released so far would be greatly appreciated. :)

Oh by the way, I just noticed that they're releasing Case Files 0 to cover all the specials and annuals that haven't been covered (due for release Feb 2010 - check Amazon)

QuoteOh by the way, I just noticed that they're releasing Case Files 0 to cover all the specials and annuals that haven't been covered (due for release Feb 2010 - check Amazon)

What, seriously?! That is seriously good news.

I can't believe I said seriously twice. Well, nothing I can do about it now.

That's what you get for staying away so long, Jared.

Hello all.

I've just started buying the Dredd Case Files and I did start wondering what Rebellion were going to do when it came to the Megazine stories... and I see there has already been some (at times heated) debate here.

Everyone seems to have been debating one of two choices, both of which have pros and cons.

1. Keep the Megazine stories separate:
At the time of original publication I felt the Megazine stories had a different tone to the 2000AD stories, and I feel that constantly flipping between the two within the same volume will sometimes be a bit weird, so keeping them separate will feel more cohesive. But some fans will feel that this means the case files are 'incomplete'.

2. Integrate 2000AD and Megazine stories together:
Definitely there will be times when this would be an advantage, as there are a number of epics which were published concurrently in both titles, and this would satisfy completists, but formatting will be a bit clumsy as (if i remember correctly) the page sizes were different between the 2 titles.

It's a difficult choice, not least because whichever one Rebellion chooses, they will undoubtedly piss some collectors off.

Personally I would go with a third option:

3. Publish seperate 2000AD and Megazine collections but publish them AT THE SAME TIME.

Consider - the 2000AD stories and Megazine stories were originally published separately but at the same time, so people could buy both and experience the two narrative streams concurrently.

If fans want to still do this with the Case Files they can buy both volumes and dip in and out of each one in whatever way they like. But if some fans are only interested in the 2000AD stories then they won't feel 'forced' into buying an 'impure' collection.

This way collectors can feel both that they have the main complete collections for both titles, and feel in control of how they enjoy those stories. And the collections will, in tone and style, feel more coherent.


I guess we'll see soon what Rebellion decide to do.

Great first post, Mansep, and welcome.

Totally agree with your Option 3:  publish and be damned!

Since it was before my time as a reader, can someone let me know when this will actually become a factor? Which CF will include the first Meg stuff if they go that way or by not including it confirm they aren't.

Well the Meg launched around the time of issue 700 (the first issue after Necropolis) so the next case file will be the one.

That soon eh? I guess we'll find out soon enough then. Cheers Mike

Ah... that'd be why the next Case File desn't seem to be on the horizon any time soon. Guess Rebellion are still trying to decide what (if anything) to do.

Or, he says with his fingers crossed, maybe they've already decided to include the meg stuff and the delay is in the fact that there is a little more editorial work to do. Deciding on the runing order, when the cut off point for each CF will be and suchlike. After all, I'm guessing that the old system of one CF equals one year of strips, or thereabouts, probably wouldn't work.

Quote from: radiator on 02 August, 2009, 06:50:52 PM
The last I heard, Megazine stuff will be included.

Well there's good news if it's reliable. I'd like to see 'em all reprinted and I don't care that much about the format as long as stories don't get split between volumes the way they were split between progs and megs.

Craig who runs the books site was saying on another thread recently that the last he heard the plan was to split each Case File 50/50 with material from the prog and Meg (Presumably as of #15).

Be a bit of a mare to put the books together (crossovers, continuity, different page formats etc) - hope they manage to come up with something workable.