Judge Dredd Mega Collection - Preview

[Bat King]

I received a preview Pdf! Sorry no Pdf sales, just print.

I've written an article, may not tell you all much more than you already know. TV campaign starts 20th January.

Maybe buy ay least one extra Issue one & give it to a lapsed reader.

My article

[Tjm86]

Pleasantly surprised to see this on the doormat when I got in from work.  A pleasant evening's reading ahead.

Certainly well packaged so I can't fault Hachette for that.  Accompanying poster is the same as for Meg 300. I already have America from the last round of GN's and it is considerably smaller, smaller even than the Rebellion GN's.  The reproduction doesn't suffer much though.

The colour palette is darker than the previous edition.  Wouldn't say that the artwork suffers greatly for this either.  No major detail is lost as a result.

The extra content is where I would say this edition let itself down for me.  The selection of covers is more than the old edition offered.  The old edition included a potted history of the democracy movement that might have been useful to the new reader and perhaps could have been expanded to point to future stories that further develop some of the themes in this book.  The introduction by Matt Smith gives little of the background of the story and I found too brief to be much use in terms of exploring how it truly added to the Dredd canon.

The 'in detail' at the end places the Megazine within it's publishing historical context but again does not really add to the reader's appreciation of the story.  It's comment on the story and on Wagner's and Macneil's evolution is similarly brief.

The inclusion of additional stories about Beeny's early Justice Career are a definite plus, the other's not so much for me.  Snowstorm and Firepower are poorer relations that showcase the evolution of Macneil's work but bring little more.

The sketchbook pages are brief and might have benefited from some notes from Macneil on their evolution, perhaps with accompanying script pages to show the development.

Overall I was happy but not blown away.  It will be interesting to see how the series develops.

[Molch-R]

It's worth noting that the pagination remains the same throughout the series - so some will have lots of feature/extra content, others less so. For the first issue we concentrated on stuffing in plenty of comics showcasing Colin's glorious artwork (the Democracy stuff comes later so no sense repeating ourselves).

[Bat King]

I know a coule of lapsed readers that'l be intrigued by what comes after America (chronologically) with Judge Beeny.

[Tjm86]

For the first issue we concentrated on stuffing in plenty of comics showcasing Colin's glorious artwork (the Democracy stuff comes later so no sense repeating ourselves).

Fair enough, that said both Snowstorm and Firepower showed Colin at the same point in his development as an artist.  Considering where the story came from and has gone on to over the years it might have been an ideal opportunity to signpost coming attractions and give a sense of how it fits in to that particular narrative.

Hope you have no objection to a few personal observations.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I hadn't heard of this till I saw it in the train station yesterday. Jesus Wept! Both Americas and more in hardback for three euro and four cent? Don't mind if I do.

[Richard]

Does it include the Beeny story from Meg 300?

[Taryn Tailz]

Does it include the Beeny story from Meg 300?

Yes it does. 

[Richard]

Good show.