PURGE!

[JOE SOAP]

This curio has been mentioned on facebook and on Pat Mills blog,


It's a story called Purge! that was published in Creepy #73, 1975. Drawn by former 2000AD stalwart Ortiz.


Few sample pages,








Found this article too,

And here's a rather Judge Dredd comedy police state official in the short story Purge! from Creepy #73, Aug. 1975, decked out in gear that suggests Ortiz might have been paying attention to visual developments in the freshly-launched Métal Hurlant. Attribution is tough in the Warren magazines, though; the colorist on this story is Warren's notoriously hands-on editor-of-the-time, Bill DuBay, who was famous for extensively reworking writers' scripts and sometimes re-drawing art to reflect story alterations (or, admittedly, to cope with the somewhat dodgy translation process scripts would go through to reach the publisher's stable of European artists). The motif seen above — a dual narrative on opposite halves of the page, linking up later in the story — was used before in stories by DuBay himself and Jim Stenstrum (another interesting writer who pretty much vanished from comics with the end of the b&w magazine era), and eventually hinges on a very self-referential punchline: the materials the bottom character is smuggling in his suitcase are back-issues of Warren magazines.


http://www.tcj.com/this-week-in-comics-62211-studies-in-delayed-thrill-power/

[JOE SOAP]

Quote from Pat's blog,



With the prospect of a better and fairer future ahead of us, John and I enthusiastically talked about his idea for a cop of the future.  We were both impressed by a one page American underground strip called Mannix that was reprinted in Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, by Les Daniels.  It featured a ruthless cop who shoots a fleeing criminal in the back and was obviously satirising dirty cops some years before the Clint Eastwood films appeared. We were also impressed by a story in American magazine Weird and Eerie where a science fiction cop pursues a criminal through a futuristic city and executes him.  We then discover the perp's crime – he was carrying a copy of a sick and seditious magazine, Weird and Eerie!




DREDD – THE KILLING MACHINE

[Spikes]

Wow, thats all a bit unreal isnt it, reading those.
And those panels showing proto-Dredd shooting out the tyres of that car heading to Hospital...
Has Joe ever been that mean!?!

[Frank]

You're a regular truffle hound for this kind of stuff, Soap - thanks muchly. That made for a very Mills-like read; the didactic, anguished internal monologues feel like those of Hammerstein from the most recent ABC Warriors strip, and the text inserts read a lot like Third World War - both of which I enjoyed too.

[TordelBack]

Amazing stuff. Love the Moebius-style proto-judge.

[Frank]

... and the scooter design of the 1995 film is there too.

[gdwessel]

Quote from Pat's blog,



With the prospect of a better and fairer future ahead of us, John and I enthusiastically talked about his idea for a cop of the future.  We were both impressed by a one page American underground strip called Mannix that was reprinted in Comix: A History of Comic Books in America, by Les Daniels.  It featured a ruthless cop who shoots a fleeing criminal in the back and was obviously satirising dirty cops some years before the Clint Eastwood films appeared.

1) There was, also, a TV series called MANNIX, from 1967-1975 on CBS, that actually had a rather interesting SF-for-the-time premise for its first season. A bit like that PERSON OF INTEREST show really. It's totally possible that the underground comic mentioned was mocking that show.

During the first season of the series Joe Mannix worked for a large Los Angeles detective agency called Intertect, which was the planned original title of the show.[1] His superior was Lew Wickersham, played by Joseph Campanella with the agency featuring the use of computers to help solve crimes. As opposed to the other employees who must wear dark suits and sit in rows of desks with only one piece of paper allowed to be on their desk at one time, Mannix belongs to the classic American detective archetype and thus usually ignores the computers' solutions, disobeys his boss's orders and sets out to do things his own way. He wears plaid sport coats and has his own office that he keeps sloppy between his assignments. Lew has cameras in all the rooms of Intertect monitoring the performance of his employees and providing instant feedback through intercoms in the room. Unlike the other Intertect operatives, Mannix attempts to block the camera with a coat rack and insults Lew, comparing him to Big Brother.

To improve the ratings of the show, Desilu head Lucille Ball and the producer Bruce Geller brought in some changes[2] making the show similar to other private eye shows. Lucille Ball thought the computers were too high tech and beyond comprehension for the average viewer of the time and had them removed.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannix

2) COMIX by Les Daniels is one of the greatest books ever, and probably the reason I'm here.

[Spikes]

... and the scooter design of the 1995 film is there too.

Ha! Yeah, loving those Lambretta's! The Perps must have been Rockers, i guess.
Is this the full story, Mr Soap?

[JOE SOAP]

The story is longer, about 10 pages.

[Spikes]

Is it possible to post them on here (if you have scans), or does posting the full story go agasinst fair usage?

[JOE SOAP]

I'll scan them over the next few weeks.

[JOE SOAP]

It's interesting to think, especially when people say 'Americans don't get Dredd', that most of Dredd's core roots are American from the Dirty Harry, Manning* persona; the satire and look of of Death Race 2000 and Purge! right down to John Wagner himself.



*

[maryanddavid]

Ortiz was at it a few years later too, this is from the 13th floor.

[JOE SOAP]

Samurai Joe!*

He drew one Dredd story, 'Night of the Ripper' in prog #517 which has an infamous swipe,









*Why can't we have a full 80's digital Eagle collection?

[gdwessel]

Damn, it was Manning, not Mannix! I need to dig out my copy of COMIX. Been way way way too long.