JUDGE DREDD: CASE FILES 20

[radiator]

Well, this has been a long time coming - my copy arrived today!

It's progs 856-887 and Megs 2.44-2.56, so the following stories:

Roadkill
Book of the Dead
I Hate Christmas
Frankenstein Division
Crime Prevention
The Sugar Beat
Top Gun
Under Siege
The Manchu Candidate
Scales of Justice
The Enemy Below
It's a Dreddful Life
Bury My Knee at Wounded Heart
You are the Mean Machine
Freefall
Do the Wrong Thing
Giant
Howler

So yeah, bit of a mixed bag to say the least!

Strapline: 'Dredd vs the Undead!'

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Mine turned up as well. Read the first story as soon as I opened the parcel and was aghast at all those vehicles with wheels that looked normalish!

[radiator]

Whoops, should be 'Case' Files!

[Minkyboy]

Just for my own curiosity, why are the case files released so infrequently?

[radiator]

They're not, really. They have slowed down since the early days when we got one every few months, but not by that much.

Although we haven't had a 'proper' Dredd Case Files since this time last year, we have had Anderson Psi Files 03 and Dredd Restricted Files 04, and they count.

I suspect they've spaced them out a little as we're starting to catch up with stuff like The Pit and Mecahnismo that have already been published as standalone graphic novels in recent years.

[Jim_Campbell]

I suspect they've spaced them out a little as we're starting to catch up with stuff like The Pit and Mecahnismo that have already been published as standalone graphic novels in recent years.

Keith Richardson has also mentioned that there are only so many available print slots in a year, and if they have wildly popular Case Files selling out, obviously they're going to prioritise the print slots in favour of re-printing the books that are proven sellers over untried material.

Cheers

Jim

[Professor Bear]

I also imagine colour reprints would cost a bit more to produce than the earlier b/w volumes.

And I know it's wrong, but I want to get this for Frankenstein Division alone.

[radiator]

Perennial wingers will no doubt be pleased that the book is basically split into two, with separate detailed 'contents' pages for the 2000ad and Megazine sections.

[Richmond Clements]

Whoops, should be 'Case' Files!

It is now!

[TordelBack]

I think I really have to get this, despite having stopped getting the Casefiles after 14. After many, many years I gave up on the House of Tharg during (and partly because of) the second episode of 'Book of the Dead', and while I've read some of this stuff in reprint, I have no sense of its context.  I would never have suspected that pure classics like 'Bury My Knee' and 'Howler' were published in the same year as 'Frankenstein Division'.  Terra Incognita for TB!

[radiator]

Yep, it's a real mixed bag. Funny that there's always all this talk of Wagner 'leaving' Dredd after Necropolis - but did he really? Seems he just concentrated on the Megazine and the Batman crossovers and the like.

I've never read the story before but can anyone confirm if 'It's a Dreddful Life' really begins with a panel of Dredd ducking and saying "What the Drokk?". Seems a bit abrupt to the point where it kinda looks like there's a page or two missing...

[Jim_Campbell]

Wagner didn't work for 2000AD proper for about two years straight. Infer what you will about the whole Burton/McKenzie/Bishop/Diggle/Mills/Dark Days furore, to which this period is central.

Cheers

Jim

[JOE SOAP]

I've never read the story before but can anyone confirm if 'It's a Dreddful Life' really begins with a panel of Dredd ducking and saying "What the Drokk?". Seems a bit abrupt to the point where it kinda looks like there's a page or two missing...

That's how it appears in the Meg. I presume it's so they can hold back on the [spoiler]drugged-up mince-pie[/spoiler] reveal.

[Frank]

Yep, it's a real mixed bag. Funny that there's always all this talk of Wagner 'leaving' Dredd after Necropolis - but did he really? Seems he just concentrated on the Megazine and the Batman crossovers and the like.

Wagner didn't work for 2000AD proper for about two years straight. Infer what you will about the whole Burton/McKenzie/Bishop/Diggle/Mills/Dark Days furore, to which this period is central.

Yep, but Wagner's loss was perceived more acutely because of the less frequent publication schedule of The Megazine, and even when he was writing for that title it wasn't necessarily Dredd. I'm sure Wagner wanted out of the car wreck that was the 2000ad of that time, but I assumed his preference for the Dredd title was that he had (and still has?) a financial stake in the success of that venture. The period where he was completely absent from 2000ad coincided with his defection to the ill-fated Toxic, didn't it?

[Richard]

Some of us may heave felt Wagner's absence from 2000AD more than others because we weren't all buying the Megazine yet in those days.

Mind you, some of the 2000AD stories are not as bad as I had remembered them as being, which was a pleasant surprise. (Although that could be because my memories were hideous.)