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I got neither. At least that bodes well that the bank holiday is the reason, rather than just being lost...

The postal system on BHs is curious though, I guess different parts of the UK are more lenient to their workers. I'm based in the South East. Have any Southerners gotten their mail?

First you'd have to explain what a judge is then basically say "but the main character is this weird kind of judge with special abilities that's not exactly like this judge called Dredd who is the main character really but we can't really get into that". It's a weird pitch and doomed to fail. It's like saying your main draw is defective.

Not really. If it was about Anderson, you'd just introduce people to the judges from her perspective. I.e. an officer in the Psi-division of a fascist police force (ok I know the judges are more than that, but that'd be the parallel. The judges full powers made apparent (powers in this case being their role of police, judge jury and executioner I mean, not psi powers) during the episode.  Dredd would appear of course as an iconic figure  in the main force to which she is attached, but I don't think that cause confusion. Not when you consider all the psychic-attached-to-police stories that have gone around.

Anderson would still be central, but there's no reason Dredd couldn't take a centralish role too, albeit it would be in the same way the Scooby gang characters are central in Buffy. Sept, more laconic. And more, head cracky than wise-cracky. If that makes sense.

Oh, yes, and the spine for the collection:

I can see people point on this, but to me the comic seems to thin for that. No doubt it's doable, but I wonder if it would be superfluous and would just push the price up more.

Overall I thought the presentation with the slightly smaller (than other Megs/Progs) glossy pages was lovely. And I don't mind too much if I can't stack it sideways on my bookshelf. I'm out of space there for that anyway, and I can just stack it on my side (although this'll probably end up in a box at some point with other comics.)

OK. I've read the Jock collection now.

What a good set of stories!  The long ones were a great read. The short ones had great gags. I even found myself laughing out loud on occasion, something I rarely do in a Dredd tale. (Not that the humor in past stories was necessarily bad. Often I'll find myself smiling, but of late most of the Dredd stories I've read have been a bit more serious.)

As for the art, I hope my mention of 'faces being asymmetrical' didn't come across as negative. That was mainly something that I noticed in the first story. However, that art isn't bad even there, and it gets better. (A couple of the ladies look darn ugly though but maybe they are )  It's particularly interesting seeing the changes in style in different stories. Lovely work.

I don't usually get the Meg... but I confess I succumbed to the temptation of the extra comic today.  Partly because
a) my prog didn't come today and
 b) my Dad's wife was blaring music downstairs and it gave me an excuse to get out of the house. (Her idea of playing music is to turn up the portable (yes portable) CD player in the front room... then she works in another room. Did I say the CD player is portable? As in with a handle you can pick it up and ... oh never mind....
c) I just wanted an excuse for an excuse anyway to be honest. (So I was actually quite glad for b)

OK:

Judge Dredd:  Obviously I've missed the first episodes (wondering if it's worth getting back issues? I think this really should have been a jumping on prog, what with the changes but never mind.)  I enjoyed it though. Nice art, decent episode.

Tank Girl:  I've read a couple of the earlier graphic novels, and whilst I found it amusing I kind of missed the storyline, and I wasn't all that keen on the 3rd wall stuff. However, I was still curious about an all new story... and I enjoyed it. Nice art too. First glance I thought "no colour?" but then I went with it, and it worked very well. Lovely in fact.

Anderson:  Again with missing the earlier bits, but I enjoyed it just the same. Is it me or is she a bit more stern in her old age though? Aged remarkably well though hasn't she?

Black Museum:  Sick stuff. I loved it!

Articles:  The first one dragged a bit for me if I'm honest. The rest were ok, fairly interesting. To be honest I'd prefer the comics stuff. I'm curious that the Meg is described as the last of the Adult comics though. Isn't the Prog pretty adult too? I guess he means that the Meg was created with an adult readership in mind whilst the Prog was originally aimed at kids, but evolved through time.

Comic as a whole: I prefer the more strips we get with the Prog. (Then again, I noticed these tend to be a bit longer so I guess it's all swings and roundabouts.) I like the focus on Dreddworld though. I'm glad the Prog is more expansive though. Point is, it's good to get a different flavor with each comic.

Jock collection: This is more of a novelty for me than for many of you as I only started reading the Prog last year. I've caught up on quite a bit of Dredd history since then in library GNs but there are a lot of gaps, so this pretty much made for me, if that makes sense.

 I'm only a few pages into this so maybe more on that later. I'm enjoying the story I've read so far though. The fountain bit was sick. Hyuk hyuk. Art itself is decent although some of the faces look a bit asymetrical. Maybe that's intentional though. Flicking to the back I've seen changes in style. I'm curious to know if that's his evolution as an artist over time or change of colourist etc. (Bit of both I think.) And from what I've seen of Jock's work in the prog, the style was quite different. (That was a while back though, and my memory is sketchy.)  More after I've had a more informed read.

Worth the money? A fiver still seems pricey to me, although plenty of magazines go for that price (they tend to be pretty big.) Considering the price of other comics and the fact you get two for that price, I'd say it's about right. Not expensive, but not particularly cheap.

Got mine from local thrill merchant so it is out in the shops but haven't had chance to have a proper read of it yet. Although I did mis-read the ad on the back for 'The Clockwork King of Oral'....

Shops that early?

My subscription usually comes Saturday too but not today.

I went out and bought Meg 275 to tide me over. I don't get that usually but I was tempted by the new format and the extra comic. I'll state more detailed thoughts on that in the proper thread, but so far so good. On my way through the Jock Collection now.

Well not now, now, cos I'm typing this... but I'm sure you understand what I mean.

1) Mini-Bolt (Good art + sick humor = My cup of tea.)
2) Shark 1 (not sure I get the reference, although it rings a bell, but a skintight nun with a blade... am I wrong?)
3) Bolt01.

I disagree it would need to include kids to work, there are plenty of shows which aren't really suitable for kids (new BSG for example.) I agree they may need to tone down the violence a bit, but that's not a bad thing. (It's funny in comics, but I've sometime found myself thinking "Isn't that a bit extreme?" when Dredd shoots an unarmed perp in the back just because he didn't stop running when he told him to.)

Live action would be doable, although it could be expensive, depending on what route they take. I.e. they could show city-scapes from time to time, but they could limit those shots and focus on more closed in locations. I'm sure there are plenty of places like that in Mega City 1. Places where current buildings would suffice (they'd just be old in that world.)

Animation would also be a good route.  3-D certainly. Even more conventional 2-D animation. I'd prefer not to see Anime though. It can look sumptuous but I think the more Western animation would be better for the subject matter. I know that not all anime is big eyed kids and effeminate looking young men... but even so.

One question though: How come Abe was able to spend large amounts of time walking around without his breathing gear? Doesn't he need that to live, or have I just completely misunderstood how his character works?

I think it might be a comfort thing really. I.e. we could survive if we went up a mountain to thin air, but we might grow faint and need a wiff of oxygen to tide us over. Still, if that wiff wasn't forthcoming... you might feel tired, or even faint but you'd probably survive. Well, unless you fainted and fell of a cliff, but that's a whole other thing sorted by a parachute or giant bouncy castle at the bottom. (Don't mind my silly, er, mind.)

(Just a theory. I haven't seen Hellboy 2 yet.)

I ordered the extended version of the first film from HMV yesterday. Great value, they're selling it for the same price as the shorter version (£3.99)!

I saw a selection these in WH Smiths today. (A nice surprise actually. I didn't think they stocked 2000 AD and the Meg there. Turns out I was looking in the wrong place. They store these mags on opposite shelves to the Marvel and DC stuff for some reason high up. The other comics are low down. A way of protecting the young uns from the lashings of ultra violence maybe?)

What struck me was how thin both comics in the package look. I suppose the Meg would be a bit thinner with the removal of reprint material ... However 64 page extra comic (I agree it's not a GN) is a big chunk nonetheless right (albeit smaller than the usual GN/Collection)? Maybe it's thinner paper stock or an optical illusion or something.

Anyhoo, undecided about picking these up. Might pick up this one though, give a proper informed judgement so to speak. Trouble is there's another series of comics I'll be getting soon,(Dark Tower: Treachery), and money is scarce...)

I read a bit of his Daredevil stuff.

I've largely forgotten much of it, but I do remember he wasn't bad. (My forgetting has more to do with my leaky mind than his ability.)

Don't worry fellas, worst case scenario, this guy's got our backs:

//http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlkou5MtAdU

Quick! Join the campaign! Save the dog!

I've seen that Quality of Mercy episode. Great story and twist. Not the sequel though (now I've gone and spoiled myself, shame on me.)

Anyway, hoping Stalag 666 will be something original. Despite all the concentration camp/war cliches I've got some hope. I thought the twist at the end was actually rather good.

As I said above, I wish they'd made a bit more effort to make the alien forces ships and uniform more alien though. Even their flags looked nazi-ish.

And they put this forward after the film got made? Great timing.

I'm not ashamed to say I loved the first Sin City book, I even liked its gratuitous sexism and violence, raving about it even to non-comic readers. Watching the film, the humour kind of disappears when you see what looks more like real people whacking each other. While watching someone jumping up and down on another man's head until it was mush I began thinking: 'Why am I watching this?'. If I meet someone who proclaims they are a big fan of the film I am instantly wary of them.

Don't get me wrong, I found the violence disturbing. [spoiler]Heroic character ripping off yellow dwarf's todger for example. He was a scumbag that had it coming but .... yikes.[/spoiler], but it's meant to be. It could be argued that taking away the barrier, stating, "This is what the comic is actually portraying." isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't mean that in a gratuitous thrill sense though, it just seems honest somehow. I agree, I wouldn't want to see that in all films though. I do find excessive violence distasteful (although the stuff in horror films I do find amusing, mainly as it's extreme nature ironically makes it funnier somehow. As in..."how did they think that one up?")