JUDGE DREDD: IDW #1

[CrazyFoxMachine]

Sonic the comic,

Still running. And actually really really good.

Not sure I agree with you - it's still going - but is it just a glorified fanmag - ?

[The Adventurer]

I don't know where that's from, but I'm pretty sure it's not from the Archie comic (cause the art on Sonic the Hedgehig is excellent). Sonic the Hedgehog from Archie is easily one of the coolest All-Ages action/adventure comics I had my hands on recently. Between it, and The new Mega Man series Archie is really killing it.

[The Adventurer]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Apparently 'Sonic the Comic' is different then 'Sonic the Hedgehog'. I did not know that. For all i know Sonic the Comic is rubbish.

So strange.

[MercZ]

It was great to see something Dredd related in my neck of the woods here in Texas. They had the issue with several covers in their new releases section, next to a copy of the Judge Dredd/Batman collection. I've mentioned in my intro thread the issues with finding anything Dredd related in stores around here so I won't go anymore in to that.

As for the comic itself, it was average to me. I came in with low expectations and I was surprised that for a launch comic it wasn't as bad as I thought. It was alright for me, but of course reading Judge Dredd in 2000 AD with the current arc as well as Day of Chaos overshadows it for me. Hopefully we'll get some example of the ability of their writers to do a long story arc- I felt like they were hinting at some equivalent of a robot war in the opening panels of the first story and the attitude of the robot in the second one.

I'm hoping the comic will improve- at least for the sake of having more Dredd related stuff stocked in comic stores here.

[Dark Jimbo]

Apparently 'Sonic the Comic' is different then 'Sonic the Hedgehog'. I did not know that. For all i know Sonic the Comic is rubbish.

Wash your mouth out, sir! STC was a British take on Sonic that ran from 1993 to 2002, completely distinct from the US comic, with regular input from Tooth luminaries such as Richard Elson, Mick McMahon, Nigel Dobbyn, John Burns and more (even Mark Millar, if you like that sort of thing). It was ACE, and this excellent little article perfectly articulates why:

http://nemo-incognito.livejournal.com/36255.html

StC has nothing to do with the games that inspired it now, aside from a few shared characters and concepts. The comic, and it's fans, exist in a little self-contained bubble cut off from the modern Sonic.  Even when the reputation of the Sonic games was at it's worst I was never bothered by the idea of the series 'going bad'.  In my mind this is the real Sonic, not the games.  This is my personal Sonic and he doesn't let me down.

[Proudhuff]

Finally got round to picking this up, its really really bad. Seriously that first story  is a mess, was the job planned? the tree speaks, but there is no exlianation of the tunnel conversation/head exploding thing, or the whole 'we have no masters', fruit jam/not jamming, the other Judge shouts at Dredd, but what irked the most: check out the nightstick that morfs into a lawgiver then back again, Dredd goes down the sewer with   no weapon or holster, he has a nightstick while chatting, the perps head explodes the nightstick turns into a Lawgiver ( no sign of the nightstick) he goes topside no nightstick no lawgiver no holster. lazy lazy lazy.

As mentioned above Zarjaz does this so much better

The second story is even worse...  Is it linked to the first? a simple box could  have said, but what is the Stallone uniform doing here? lazy online pic ref maybe?
 
WTF is the robot talking about 'dressing me up like this' a tiny person strangles a big guy with a ipod headphones...really? There's mass looting going on and Dredd stands like the robot chatting... give me strength!!

I got the B cover where Dredd has two Lawgiver... er palm prints anyone?

[Richmond Clements]

Yeah, but what did you really think of it?

[JOE SOAP]

I got the B cover where Dredd has two Lawgiver... er palm prints anyone?

If Dredd can't have 2 Lawgivers, who can!

[James Stacey]

Palm prints don't work through gloves anyway so 2 lawgivers can't be that hard

[Trout]

Palm prints don't work through gloves anyway

Yes they do. We've seen Dredd remove the locks on a lawgiver before, so he can use it.

[Dark Jimbo]

...check out the nightstick...
...he has a nightstick while chatting...
...the nightstick turns into a Lawgiver...
...(no sign of the nightstick)...
...no nightstick...

A pedant would point out that Judges use a daystick. Not me, though. Nossir.

[Richmond Clements]

I got the B cover where Dredd has two Lawgiver... er palm prints anyone?

To be fair, Ron Smith regularly drew Dredd with two guns.

[Colin YNWA]

Well read it and... it was okay. Really quite enjoyed the first story in and of itself. It set up the world well enough, it had a stab at Dredd as a character, though of course without even approaching the complexities we've got used to. It looked pretty good, I did like the art. I'd have thought it was an okay comic IF I'd never read Dredd before. As I have it read like a pretty poor stab at the character. Possibly it went a little to far down the comedy line at times, especially when compared (wrongly, but its impossible not to) with what we've had of late in the Prog. It covered a lot of standards in a Dredd introduction strip, we've had a load of times in the Galaxies greatest.

That said it feels as if given time it might get there and its earnt itself another buy (well I was going to get it for three months to see how it went anyway). I'm quite looking forward (well if things step up) to seeing how a typical American long form storytelling style sits with our fella.

The back up was poor. It felt utterly disposable, it covered well trodden ground in an uninspiring way. and lacked any of the charm of the old strips that did this type of the law is hard story. The art wasn't as bad as I'd feared from the little I'd seen UNTIL it did that unforgivable thing, what was he thinking thing, the wrong Dredd thing, that having not had a chance to look through this thread yet I assume has been mentioned too many time to be worth re-treading BUT I mean really.

Still next months back up could make me forget all that. You can't come soon enough Mr McCarthy.

[SmallBlueThing]

The inclusion of '95 movie Dredd seems so bizarre, thinking about it, that i have to ask whether there's more to it than we think. From an editorial point of view, do we think they'd allow this kind of 'error' to just slip into their first issue of such a high-profile comic? Wouldnt someone, somewhere- even at Rebellion- say "hang on...", for fear of appearing like an incompetent laughing stock- which is how we are viewing IDW right now. Do they even OWN the rights to the likeness of '95 dredd? Wouldnt that be cinergi or disney or whoever?
Could this not- what with the odd decision to run back-up strips and have that back-up strip basically a retread of the themes from the main strip *in the same issue*- could it not be part of a ruse? Might we not be looking at a cross-dimensional Robot War? Call-Me-Kenneth's IDW avatar (presumably that robot from the main strip last seen making faces) making trouble for all Dredds, from Sly to Karl to 'our' Joe and 'their' Joseph. Maybe not copyright-infringeing (cont)

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) exact duplicates, but close enough to make the point. After all, Gulacy got the helmet 'wrong' didnt he?

Maybe next month's McCarthy backup will have the riot cop version beloved by many. Maybe we'll find out any day now when it's (not) leaked.

And if not, and it was just another drokk-up in a comic seemingly littered with them, how can they seriously expect people to fork out hard earned cash each month for something so casually thrown-together?

SBT