Best one-prog Dredds

[dancornwell]

Bury my Knee - Dredd has a heart! Doherty art!

The Good man - Murray on art made my Christmas!

[radiator]

I liked JD Megson - I suppose a casual reader might enjoy it in and of itself, but it's written purely for the hardcore fans and is a bit meaningless out of the context it was published in.

[Frank]

The Mega-City Way of Death - in many ways a definitive slice of modern Dredd - poignant, bittersweet and inventive. Greg Staples on art

I was drawing a complete blank on this, so I plunged into the pile for a re-read. Thanks a million, radiator, because that was a fantastic read. It manages to balance a genuine emotional weight with the kind of black, black humour (and delight in gore and the gothic) which makes a story like America so unique and work so well. There's the same fascination with misplaced love for the returned object of affection which underpins the first America too.

Some of the more lachrymose tales cited on this thread dip too deep into the well of sentimentality for my taste, but Wagner formulates this story perfectly. Despite being equal parts Bon Jovi (Tina works the diner all day ...) and O. Henry (the irony of that ending), Zag and Marta's relationship is believable enough that I'm prepared to give Wagner a free pass for the violins playing as the kid on a ventilator struggles for life.

If Staples had painted this, it would probably have joined the ranks of the Beeny saga in my memory and my estimation, but even Craddock-color (TM) can't ruin this one. Intertextual references to The Mega Rackets, Return Of The Taxidermist, and They Shoot DJs, Don't They ground the individual story in the wider context of the history of the strip and that of MC1, and I don't think I'll ever get sick of shots of the Resyk building and its conveyor belts. Prog 1111.

[radiator]

That's the one - it's also quite long for a one-off IIRC - perhaps double-length?

[radiator]

I feel like there's quite a lot of those solid gold nuggets around the late-nineties that have been little-read and scarcely - if ever - reprinted. One of John Wagner's most prolific periods when it comes to Dredd - he was writing the character pretty much single-handed in both the prog and Meg from 96/7-2000. It's great that they'll be getting a well-overdue airing soon as the Case Files start to cover that era.

Another one well worth revisiting is A Walk on Gang Alley from around the same time as ...Way of Death. It's another extended episode that is slight, and hinges on a pretty obvious punchline, but is a great fun little one-off, with lot's of extended, wordless, action scenes the likes of which we don't often get with 2000ad Dredds. Has a definite Warriors vibe which gets plus points from me.

I must confess to not being a huge fan of Alex Ronald's work when I first read the prog during the mid-nineties, but I think he was an artist - like Colin Macniel - who was particularly poorly-served by that ugly computer colouring. Revisiting that period recently I noticed how wonderful his work is when coloured by Gary Caldwell (2000ad's best colourist by far IMHO). See also Termination With Extreme Prejudice - an effective little Wagner/Ronald two(?) parter from around the same time that foreshadows a lot of the Mutants in Mega City One/Tour of Duty stories.

[Dark Jimbo]

I have to add "The Guinea Pig That Changed The Law"

We're still naming stories we think were good, aren't we?

It does have the best-ever caption misreading. Wagner writes 'Dredd posts a heavy guard on the door' and Cooper proceeds to draw the fattest Judge ever seen in the strip. 

I don't think it's a 'misreading', I think it's a 'joke'! 

No, I don't buy that. It's not really a funny strip, so to slip just one joke like that in would be very weird,  and Cooper's hardly the sort of artist to fill the backgrounds with Ken Reid-like easter eggs.

[Pete Wells]

I'd like to mention Prog 476's 'Paid with Thanks.' It's a delightfully batty Grover/Gibson one parter where professional biller Adele Dahl(!) makes money by sending billing people. The bills she sends are to pay the costs of the bill she is sending! It all gets a bit weird when dead folk start turning up at her apartment.

It features one of my favourite Dredd panels ever, this beauty...

[hippynumber1]

I have to add "The Guinea Pig That Changed The Law"

We're still naming stories we think were good, aren't we?

It does have the best-ever caption misreading. Wagner writes 'Dredd posts a heavy guard on the door' and Cooper proceeds to draw the fattest Judge ever seen in the strip. 

I don't think it's a 'misreading', I think it's a 'joke'! 

No, I don't buy that. It's not really a funny strip, so to slip just one joke like that in would be very weird,  and Cooper's hardly the sort of artist to fill the backgrounds with Ken Reid-like easter eggs.

You forget that a comic script will have panel descriptions for the artist to follow! John's not stupid either, so would know that a 'heavy guard' didn't mean a 'fat judge'! It's a joke!

[mimikeke]

Bury my Knee - Dredd has a heart! Doherty art!

Just read this one based on the recs here....so good 

[TordelBack]

The bills she sends are to pay the costs of the bill she is sending! It all gets a bit weird when dead folk start turning up at her apartment.

Apparently she works for my bank now.

[TordelBack]

At the risk of summoning Logan, how about La Placa Rifa? Not a lot happens, but the Kennedy colour art is stunning, and it's a great thumbnail of the endless low-level juve-wars that constitute so much of the City's unpleasantness.

[JayzusB.Christ]

At the risk of summoning Logan, how about La Placa Rifa? Not a lot happens, but the Kennedy colour art is stunning, and it's a great thumbnail of the endless low-level juve-wars that constitute so much of the City's unpleasantness.

Yeah, it was brilliant.  Nice to see Dredd breaking the law, just a tiny bit, to make a point.

[Will Cooling]

The Return of Rico is the one that immediately sprang to mind for me.

Was just about to say that. Amazing how many ideas were crammed into it and the impact it continues to have on the script.

[Richmond Clements]

The Return of Rico is the one that immediately sprang to mind for me.

Was just about to say that. Amazing how many ideas were crammed into it and the impact it continues to have on the script.

Which is funny... Didn't Pat write it? That makes it Not Canon and merely filler apparently... ;-)

[SmallBlueThing]

I know it's been mentioned before, but I have to add another nod for 'In The Bath'. Hard to describe just how seminal this was for me (bath/ seminal, stop it). As an unexpected five minutes behind the visor of the ageing lawman it is still unsurpassed. And to this day, when I'm up to my neck in bubbles and am interrupted in any way, I quietly growl to myself "Not now Control, I'm in the bath...".

SBT