Some questions about the Judge Dredd universe

[JOE SOAP]

Empire covers are usually shite but we also got these -






With good and bad promo material few took much notice until Dredd left cinemas. Even with good marketing Dredd would probably have made $100 million max.

[Sandman1]

So the satire of American politics and culture is a fundamental attribute of the comics. Which comics have the most noticeable or/and best depiction of this attribute? Is it something that defines Dredd as a character?

[radiator]

Empire covers are usually shite

I think the design, chintzy fonts and layout of that 'Heroes of 2012' cover really does not present the image in a good light - there's something really awkward about the pose that - to me - makes him kinda look like an old man... But the subscriber cover was actually really cool. Classy. It's a shame they didn't put out more material like this:



I vividly remember all throughout the production of Dredd being really confused as to why they were actively keeping everything about the movie under wraps, but thinking "any minute now, they'll begin the media blitz".... "they're bound to release some really slick promotional art that will put the unfortunate leaked set photos into context and reassure everyone"... and it just kinda... never arrived. No character-specific posters, no teaser trailers, no premiere, very little social media prescence, just a couple of promotional bits that just kinda dribbled out in a very unceremonious way... I know they didn't have the marketing budget of a blockbuster, and Karl, bless him, clearly did the best he could humanly do, appearing on just about everything he could to promote the heck out of the movie, but it just kinda felt, to me, that the distributor perhaps didn't have much confidence in the film.

[Dash Decent]

I think the censorship rating did it no favours.  Yes it's Dredd and there should be action and shoot-outs etc but why limit the potential audience when they could've throttled back a tad and scooped a wider pool?  Once you've got everyone's interest, then you can push things in the sequel if you want to.

Ditto the 3D thing as noted.  I recall complaints at the time from people looking for the 2D version at the cinema, finding it "3D or nothing" and opting for nothing.

[Smith]

To back up a bit,nobody said Americans dont get satire.And we all liked Simpsons and South Park at one point,but thats just different from Judge Dredd style.
And I wouldnt say its anti-American.Its more anti-everyone in that sense.TBH,British Judges arent that better from their "cousins" here.
Yes,the movie didnt have the satire element,but like everyone said,it had other problems.

[Frank]

So the satire ... is a fundamental attribute of the comics

Is it satire? Nothing in Judge Dredd's A Modest Proposal.

During the eighties, the strip was written by a duo who say their natural mode was comedy, who combed newspapers for story ideas*, but I'm not sure poking fun at fat people or militarism by exaggerating them to ludicrous extremes makes (much of) a point.

The TB Grover era of fads and orangutan mayors only accounts for 7 years of the strip's history, and for most of the last thirty years Dredd's world has been pretty insular and self referential**.


* Eighties Dredd strips are a burlesque of UK tabloid culture in the same way Big Dave was - imagining what the world would be like if the shite those rags printed actually reflected reality. Dole culture, telly and the tax system figure large during the TB Grover years, and you can make a case for McGruder as a Thatcher analogue. Other than Citi-Def units being armed to the teeth, not much refers specifically to US culture.

** With stories like Origins, Tour of Duty and Day Of Chaos referring to and extrapolating from previous stories (The Cursed Earth, The Day The Law Died and The Apocalypse War, respectively), rather than events in the real world

[Smith]

And crazy militia/boy scout camps?

[Frank]

And crazy militia/boy scout camps?

Nobody ever describes DR & Quinch as satire: LINK

[Smith]

And crazy militia/boy scout camps?

Nobody ever describes DR & Quinch as satire: LINK

That was a bit different.It was just DR scheme to make quick money and terrorize some kids along the way.
JD takes a boy scout camp and frames it as a survivalist militia.Its an outlandish concept played straight,different from DR and Quich who play it for comedy.

[Frank]

Its an outlandish concept played straight

My copy of Camp Demento (1045-1046) must have extra pages!   LINKY - LINKY

[Smith]

As straight as anything else in the JD universe.Come on,competative eating is a popular sport.
But thats still satire,where DR and Quinch was a comedy.

[IndigoPrime]

Who knows how 2D would have affected things? Perhaps the ticket sales wouldn't have gone up in number, meaning a lower take. Or perhaps they would have, but only to the point of making the same amount of money, given that 3D costs more (or at least did at the time – we don't go to the flicks now we have mini-IP).

What's perhaps less defensible is the reported tiny number of 2D prints, killing stone dead any chance of a long tail. (IIRC, we did get a couple of them locally, but only for one week per cinema, and not at the same time.)

What's perhaps most crushing is the widespread critical acclaim meant broadly little in terms of take and some of the publications you'd have expected to have been more excited posted some surprisingly middling reviews.

[Dandontdare]

And crazy militia/boy scout camps?

Nobody ever describes DR & Quinch as satire: LINK

More relevant perhaps, wasn't there also a Dredd story about  a bus load of missing boy scouts in the Cursed Earth being raised by crazy gun-toting militia types?

[Smith]

And crazy militia/boy scout camps?

Nobody ever describes DR & Quinch as satire: LINK

More relevant perhaps, wasn't there also a Dredd story about  a bus load of missing boy scouts in the Cursed Earth being raised by crazy gun-toting militia types?

I thinks thats the one we are discussing,Camp Demento.

[Sandman1]

Is it satire? Nothing in Judge Dredd's A Modest Proposal.

I don't know, I've only read four Dredd comics.

During the eighties, the strip was written by a duo who say their natural mode was comedy, who combed newspapers for story ideas*, but I'm not sure poking fun at fat people or militarism by exaggerating them to ludicrous extremes makes (much of) a point.

The TB Grover era of fads and orangutan mayors only accounts for 7 years of the strip's history, and for most of the last thirty years Dredd's world has been pretty insular and self referential**.

So the comedy or the alleged satire falls flat and hasn't really been a prominent part of the comics during the last three decades?