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That's great news, Jon. I'm a bit disappointed that Case Files 1 and Death have slipped into next year, but if I can pick up copies of the other four before Christmas they should tide me over!

Thanks again for the updates.

Now what are the chances of play.com getting the book to me in time for Christmas!

Well, since there's still no sign of the three books that were meant to be out last month (The Red Seas Vol. 1, Dante Vol. 3 and Dredd: Total War) I'd say the chances of getting hold of December's books before the New Year are slim-to-none...

Heh - try shelling out ?10+ for the 50-page Rebellion hardbacks, then you'll see what value for money even the shorter Case Files are!

;-)

[could]

It does if you consider where the Mega-Epics begin and end in the early years.

Volume 1:

"Judge Whitey" to "Firebug" = 316pp. Including "The Cursed Earth" would bump it up to nearly 500 pages, so that falls into Volume 2.

Volume 2:

Going by Amazon's page count, this should be:

"The Cursed Earth" to "The Exo-Men" = 311pp.

Volume 3:

"The DNA Man" to "The Blood of Satanus" = 239pp. The next story chronologically is "The Judge Child", but including that bumps the page count up to over 400 pages. That seems to be well beyond the upper limit Rebellion are going for, so we end up with a shorter Volume 3 and "The Judge Child" as the opening story in Volume 4.

Volume 4 could run from "The Judge Child" to "The Body Sharks" for a page count of 328pp, but that means (because of the need to run both "Block Mania" and "The Apocalypse War" in one book ) Volume 5 would either be very short - 180-odd pages or very long - 400-odd pages. I suspect Volume 4 will be a bit shorter, Volume 5 will pick up "The Body Sharks" and some earlier stories to bulk it out a bit, and Volume 6 will be a longer collection opening with the Apocalypse War saga and including the follow-up stories.

Does that make sense?

[seems]

Also what is the schedule for these books - with Volume 2 listed for a February release on Amazon can we expect one book every two months?

I believe that was supposed to be the plan, but since there have been a couple of changes of editor over the past 12 months - including one very recently - it's all a bit unclear.

The pattern seems to be:

Month 1:

One shorter Dredd collection
One Euro book (the hardcover, full-size trades)
One other 2000AD release

Month 2:

One Case Files
Two other 2000AD releases

...and in turns from then on. For example, November and December:

November:

Judge Dredd: Total War
Nikolai Dante Vol. 3
The Red Seas Vol. 1

December:

Case Files Vol. 1
Judge Death: My Name Is Death
Robo-Hunter Vol. 3

Also is anything similar planned for Strontium Dog? I would love a complete SD series possibly even more than Dredd!

The first volume of SD has already been released, and I believe a second is still on for an early 2006 release. Unless there's been a change of plan, they won't be anything like the size of the Case Files collections - more like 150-odd pages.

Douglas --

I imagine some of the extra page count will be chewed up by the title pages and - if it's anything like other current Rebellion books - chapter divides, so I don't think you'll see a great deal of extra material in there. At best - and again, going on past experience - we may get a brief covers section and an intro. I'd love to see some other stuff in there - "lost" pages of early Dredd, for example - but I doubt it'll happen.

Heh. Quite a few crossovers with my own library there.

Off-topic a bit - has anyone else read the wonderful Chaykin/Mignola adaptations of Leiber's work?

...and Midwinter! One of the finest titles I ever played on my old Atari ST, and a game that is just crying out for an intelligent revamp. Many hours lost skiing from outpost to outpost, desparately trying to outpace a heavily-armed snowmobile... :-)

What I especially like is the use of the creator credits and other text to create a kind of typographical mirror of Dredd. Very neatly done.

...provided I brush my teeth :-)

Sounds good, and if the Case Files turn out well it might convince me to finally shift my old Complete & Classic Judge Dredd issues in favour of something a little more convenient, and a bit more permanent.

One final Q for Jon:

The Case Files collections seem to be - to an extent - modelled on the Marvel Essentials and DC Showcase lines. As with those books, should we expect these chunky Dredd collections to be on cheap stock, or will they be printed on the heavier, glossy paper used in the most recent Rebellion trades?

Very geeky question, I know, but it would be wonderful to have these stories nicely reprinted on paper that doesn't turn yellow when you breathe on it... :-)

Cheers for the info, Jon - your time is much appreciated.

Delighted to hear that the November titles are shipping. As luck would have it, I get paid in a couple of days... ;-)

Is this TPB starting at issue 2 of 2k and working onward to date?

AFAIK, yes. I suspect - hope - that Rebellion will keep on publishing the books as long as they remain profitable, and with three volumes announced already they do seem fairly committed to the line.

Anyway the print on that covers small anyone anyidea the stories inside the snazzy cover?

Every Dredd story from progs 2-60, so that's from his very first appearance right up to the story before The Cursed Earth. Volume two will pick up The Cursed Earth and The Day the Law Died, plus a couple of others.

[little]

Very nice covers - congrats to all involved, and especially to the design droids. It does now seem that it was DC's dead hand on the rudder that perhaps led to some of the iffier design choices on the original run of trades...

The new Dredd Case Files design is much stronger than the placeholder that was doing the rounds, and it should be lovely if it's presented in the same matte finish as Rogue Vol. 3 & Satan's Island.

BTW - is the Robo-Hunter cover a "remastered" version of that classic prog cover, or has Ian Gibson redone the image? ISTR the original being slightly different, but that could just be my iffy memory.

All good stuff, but I do have one little complaint - we're nearly out of November, but there's still no sign of the November TPBs, and a couple of online shops I've checked seem to be saying they won't be out now until January! Even my usual supplier doesn't have them & doesn't know when they'll be available.

Any comments?

David --

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd--
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainess of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor's sweet comissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love

[little]

I hope so - that kind of material is fascinating, and it makes the price of a Euro hardback that much more bearable. ?10-ish for 50-odd pages of story is just a little too steep, and as longer Euro collections seem unlikely, any "bonus" material helps take the sting out of the price tag.

The Dark Horse collections of Edginton & D'Israeli's work would seem to be the ideal model - Scarlet Traces comes packed with 15 extra pages of conceptual sketches, notes and other material, and even Kingdom of the Wicked manages to squeeze in Edginton & D'Israeli's first collaboration, a 4-page B&W strip.