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The titles are coming through thick & fast for the rest of the year now! I'd been a little concerned that we'd be at the table end of the GN line having exhausted most o the big-hitters. Glad to see that's not the case. Along with the Mega-Collection, I don't think there's been as much 2000AD reprint available since ... early 90s?

Rebellion can have my money

Woo-hoo! Daily Dredds 2!

What's the intended effect of putting the word Asian in bold?

Not worth starting a separate thread for this, so apologies that it's slightly OT.

Re-reading the Titan 'Judge Dredd 12' for the umpteenth time today, and I finally noticed that the version of the cover of Prog 377 they use has the original dateline (14 July). After 376, the Prog stopped appearing for a few weeks due to industrial action, and when 377 finally appeared, the new dateline was Letra-setted in (with the wrong font).

Depending on how big the book is the first few strips could be scanned from their reprints in the prog & meg. Originals of all the other episodes exist in private collections. One episode is missing entirely as to wasn't printed (ep 3530 - 3536 was printed in its place and then again in the correct order - guess there was a misreading of the last digit).

Be interesting to see how the colour episodes reproduce. A lot of the colour on them as originally printed is very poor - mis-aligned or mis-coloured. You'd never think Dread's uniform had so much yellow on it!

[SPOILER] [/SPOILER]

Yes, the Nerve Centre has told us it's black. It's also told us it's blue...

This is an example I've used more than once on this forum, but it's worth repeating. The original printing of Case Files 5 included a very poor reproduction of the final episode of Block Mania, which had been extended at the top or bottom of the page by an unknown artist. I happened to come across a later edition and all bar one of the pages had been replaced with much better quality pages. Only one wasn't changed and so (for reasons I cannot fathom), the image was squished slightly so it was the same height & width of the others.

At the end of the day, the Next Prog boxes aren't deal breakers for me (though it seems to be a waste of someone's time to remove them from the older strips). There are some improvements that could be made to the older editions of the Case-Files, even if it's just replacing a jpg in the digital file. Bolland's Father Earth strips really suffer for some reason, and it seems to be a problem that's been introduced in the preparation of the Case-Files (not deliberately, I hasten to add). Someone has also mentioned the missing page of the Fink strip, which would again could be amended. I understand that these problems took place years ago, but those files are the current 'go to' ones, hence they re-appear in the Mega Collection reprints.

In most cases the pages are available in Titan reprint form and a scan from these would provide a better image which could be introduced into the digital archive for future reproduction.

I'd also like to see the contrast fixed with some of the current reprints so that we don't lose as much detail as we currently are. For example, in the scene in Ro-Jaw's Memoirs outside the house of the family that adopted him, Mike Dorey drew a whole street which is now just a black blob in the recent hardcover reprint.

The one thing that has baffled me is the Judge Dredd logo in every strip in the 10th Anniversary Case Files 1. Every strip as originally printed had the little white squiggle on the 'J' to make it look like a Judge in profile. This squiggle has been removed for every strip in the reprint. Wish I'd  been paid to do that

At the end of the day, I think that a  lot of work goes into the reprints and I appreciate that there are issues with original sources. I appreciate there are time pressures as well, and it isn't always possible to find the best possible copy of a strip. I just wish that some of the more obvious problems could be revisited at some time.

Please could someone also detail a list of all the stories featured in the Cursed Earth Koburn volume. This could actually be the first in the series that I pick up, as it does not look likely the character will ever get a trade paperback of his own from Rebellion.

All bar the most recent story were collected by Rebellion in the Carlos Ezquerra Collection TP (not the IDW ONE).

I don't think the repro problem is always to do with source material. The worst offender for me is the page from Father Earth where the two robots are sitting watching the Election broadcasts. All of the Letratone has been replaced with blocks of black, losing all of Bolland's detail. I can't find a single reprint prior to Rebellion's that has this error - it seems to have been introduced during the Case Files reproduction.

There seems to be an issue with contrast/brightness levels in general. The recent Dan Dare volume has lost detail in Belardinelli's artwork compared to the original printing, for example, some of the star systems are significantly reduced on the opening splash. 

With regard to the removal of the Next Prog boxes, the 'Brass Sun' isn't a fair comparison. This was designed with reprints in mind. The Next Prog boxes on older stories have been removed, but the story title & summary captions have been left intact (as this was how comic strips were presented back in the day). Removing the Next Prog just results in edited artwork, rather than improving the flow of the story.

I agree with this. It's not as if by removing you feel you're reading a seamless graphic novel. Worst offender is the first part of Deadlock's intro story in Mek-Files 1 as you lose a chunk of his face. It's a shame that the Zenith ones were removed, as they were all song titles. Even the older material with its easily removable 'NEXT PROG +++ THRILL POWER OVERLOAD' captions has had various frames trimmed to make sure a page ends on a straight line.

And someone , presumably, was paid to replace all of the 'Judge Dredd' logos in the 10th anniversary Case Files 1. Not the best use of money...

One thing that I noticed during the pre-publicity is that Mills made a big deal about the 2000AD film company (I may be mis-remembering this as part of a podcast pre-publicity!) The suggestion is that something improper took place that saw money taken away from the comic/creators. Yet the way it pans out in the documentary seems to indicate it's not that big a deal. Am I missing something here, or is Mills' account over-dramatized.

You got a link for the Vol 2 book plate edition?

Book Plate edition of Vol 2?

It's an eye-catching cover and will hopefully do the job. It does raise a few questions:

Is Anderson projecting a Prog into the comic fan's mind, or is she reading what is already in there?

Who shot the comic shop up - Dredd, to the result of the fan's TPO?

Why does the font used for 'comics' look so familiar?

Why is Johnny wearing a pubic wig on the outside of his clothes?

None of the above would have happened if the original creative talents hadn't been lost to American comics. I blame Kevin O'Neill for introducing the credit cards

Serious response - there were simply too many comics trying to draw upon too small a pool of talent in the nineties. Toxic had stolen some key talent with the lure of creator-owned strips (though this failed), Deadline took away another bunch (and failed). If these comics hadn't existed (and Crisis and Revolver and Blast! etc) then working for TMO may have looked much more attractive. It's here that the problems started and nineties editorial were being paid to respond to this situation rather than find a new way forwards. That they found a new way forwards is a testament to the talent of all involved. I look at the Megazines that consisted of 1 original Dredd strip and the remainder unrelated reprint and I am amazed that it's still running today!