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dead man. for ridgway, and for the manner in which my floor was ultimately in serious danger from my jaw.

judge child.
not only for huge nostalgic reasons, but also for three artists at the top of their game, a series of legendary covers, and all that dredd moustache resentment weirdness.

origins

tour of duty

always expected orban to take the lead at some point in this horror (and do recall that his borders have been pretty much sealed off for a long time).

tbh for most of my votes here, the writing has been the clincher, especially when wagner is on fire with his multi year layering of rich sub plots that always, always, always, pay off.
but my vote here went for necropolis despite my feeling that this is one of the master's weaker scripts. honestly, it's such an unsubtle, all-action, fast read, a gaudy telephone directory that reads faster than early noughties marvel at their most compressed disdain for words.
titan is a much richer literary experience imho.
but carlos here makes it a non-contest. seriously, these pages are dangerous in their leaking-off-the-pages violent radioactive audacity. what an experience to know there will be something definitive and exhausting and awe-inspiring with every turn of every page.
i wouldn't want all my dredd to be like this, but what a kinetic and beautifully horrible artefact the collected necropolis is. gave me some serious lucid nightmares when i was younger too - which all the best sci-fi kids' comics should.

necropolis

apocalypse war

1. city of t ... sorry ... cal.
2. judge child
3. tour of duty

1. city of the damned

"your beloved city"

oh my, it's the best ...

(sorry, my mistake, 17th best)

😢

city of the damned out?
just another avoidable tragedy.
even the precogs, even feyy himself, wouldn't have foreseen this scandal. oh well, only 88.8% accuracy, i suppose. bet he wouldn't have seen brexit either.

don quixote
ariel by sylvia plath
love and rockets

"Yeah why's he voted for 'Tour of Duty' three times???"

y'know, the best thing about these polls is going back, all nostalgia-fuelled, to things you haven't read in an age, and realising how much more you like something than you thought you did (the reverse is also true).

reading it now, cotd seems to be a flawed narrative around the most quintessential dreddness we've ever had - in terms of tying up the plots of years, instating new ideas that still matter decades later, and in giving joe the kind of believable psychology that we never really had before - and that fleshed out character is still with us today. so what i once thought was just superior hokum, well, i've revised my opinion in the last few days - and now i think it's just superior.

1. city of the damned
2. city of the damned
3. city of the damned