Books: Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 06

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Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 06
Written by John Wagner and Alan Grant
Art by Ron Smith, John Cooper, Steve Dillon, Carlos Ezquerra and Jose Casanovas
2006



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/


I only started reading Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 06 (or as I've taken to thinking of it: "the orange one") because I've read the other ones and it seemed like I had some sort of duty to - I dunno - complete the set or whatever (gotta catch them all!).

Of course my main motivation for starting the whole looking at the Complete Case Files books in the first place is because of the Dredd movie that came out in the summer (and - yeah - still my favourite film I've seen that's been released this year - take that Dark Knight Rises / The Raid / Looper / The Avengers / Skyfall / Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol etc etc etc [1]) and since I saw it and vented out (well - most of) my inner-most thoughts and feelings (most particularly in Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 03) about the whole thing: well - I figured that there wasn't much left to say.

In addition to that - The Onion's AV Club published a thing of the biggest cinematic flops of the year [2] and although Dredd wasn't at number 1 (that dubious honour went to The Oogieloves In The Big Balloon Adventure (Box office: $1 million / Budget: $20 million)) it did manage to come in third (Box office: $28 million / Budget: $50 million): and just typing that kinda breaks my heart: especially when I think of all the cruddy films that came out this year (I'm looking at you again Dark Knight Rises). Oh well. Maybe by the time we get to the 22nd Century the Dredd film will have got the love it deserves: still - there goes all hope for a sequel I guess [3]. Which just kinda meant that - yeah - I wasn't in much of a rush to go and revisit the sights and sounds of Mega City: too many memories. Plus (well) - three collections in (not to mention all the Dredd I've read in the past) - I just kinda assumed that there wasn't much more for John Wagner and Alan Grant to show me.

So: when I started reading the orange one - it was more an obligation than out of sense of fun: which might explain why I ended up having such a great time (low expectations win again!). In fact - for the first third or so [4] I think this might be my favourite Dredd book of all (I mean - maybe if I ever get around to rereading it - that could change - but typing it down: it doesn't feel like I'm lying [5]). I was taking a few notes when I was reading it (so I could remember all the good parts to write them down here) and at one point I wrote down "Ok Computer" because - ok here we go (let me try and explain this right): there's this kinda sense I got of creative minds just kinda hitting this perfect flow of ideas and creativity (or whatever you wanna call it): like listening to an album (it doesn't have to be Ok Computer - I mean: it could be anything: choose your favourite band and take it from there) of a band that's just in peak physical form: making everything seem sorta - I dunno - effortless (yeah? Does that make sense?). Or - to go with an example from cinema - it's like when Pixar came out with - say - Ratatouille (you don't like Ratatouille? Well - then you're wrong and you don't know anything): I mean - all the films that came out before that were amazing: and watching  Ratatouille (for the first time) - I kept waiting for them to - I dunno - mess up or let it slip - but instead it just keeps going and getting better and better and better. That (for me) was what it was like reading The Complete Case Files 06.

At this point I guess I could tell you all the ideas and stories containing within: but instead (because I don't want to ruin it for you): I'll just give you some quotes (devoid of context) to give you some idea of what to expect: "Forward the fat!" "What about the other judges who came here?" "They got wrestled." "Jim Grubb's reign as major will soon be forgotten. But his last words will live for ever." "Remember Larry, any prize you can't remember, you will be forced to eat." "Bacteria soup followed by tender maggot steaks." and (my favourite [6]): "Don't want Christmas! Want flesh!"

The only thing I would say - is that you should definitely read Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 05 before you start reading this on: seeing how (much more so than the other books) 06 acts as a big sequel to the horrors of the Apocalypse War. In fact - in pretty much every story there's a reference here or there underpinning everything - all leading up to (and one of my favourite moments in the book) the sight of the Apocalypse Monument ("Peace to All") which has to be seen to be believed (just - trust me on this: it's great) - I mean - I guess a kid would look at it and not think twice - but looking at it with older eyes: it's like something from George Orwell and/or Chris Morris.

Actually - now that I've said that: that's actually a good description of the whole book. I mean everyone tends to think that Dredd is just an action hero (and he does work well as that yeah I know) - but it's all the grim and dirty funny stuff where he really kinda excels (and I can understand a bit more now those old school 2000AD fans who were left disappointed by the Dredd film: it did sacrifice the twisted Mega City strangeness for making things a little more steam-lined and easy to get to grips with: like if they made a Brass Eye film and just made it about a current affairs team or something...). Because - yeah: the effects of radiation poisoning played for laughs, punchlines of innocent people being killed "for the good of the city" and  things like that. Speaking as someone that doesn't have a patriotic bone in his whole body: it still kinda makes me feel proud to English.

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[1] In fact - if it wasn't for Dredd I would probably would have been put off totally from going to watch films at the cinema completely. As it is: well - I'm not in that much of a rush to go back. For me: there's very little worse than going to see a disappointing film at the cinema: it's kinda feels like being robbed: where not only have they taken your money - but your time and the kinda - I dunno - your potential enjoyment as well or something (yeah: #firstworldproblems I know...).

[2] See: The list of the year's biggest flops is here, and it's probably not all that surprising. 

[3] And the fact that we live in a word where we're not going to get a Dredd sequel - but there probably will be another Tron film is almost enough to make me give hope altogether. (In fact - yes. I'm giving up. Do Nicorette make some kind of patches I could get? I could just stick them on my arms and readjust to a life spent in calm acceptance of everything bad that ever happens: that sounds like it would be nice).

[4] It does lose some of it's momentum when it starts (literally) digging up old characters and running through some of the more familiar motions: but then that's almost understandable seeing how Mean Machine Angel is (probably) one of the best Judge Dredd characters - like - ever ("How would you like a face full of 4?")

[5] That's how morals work right? If you feel bad when you're doing it - then it's bad. And if it feels good - then it's good (yeah - that sounds about right...). 

[6] That's spoken - obviously - in the voice of Zorg.

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Links: Dredd Reckoning Review.

Further reading: Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 03, Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 05, Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 07.

All comments welcome.

Books: Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 05

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Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 05
Written by John Wagner and Alan Grant
Art by Brian Bolland, John Cooper, Steve Dillon, Carlos Ezquerra, Ian Gibson, Mike McMahon, Barry Mitchell, Ron Smith and Colin Wilson
2006



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/


"Day 1. Today my new life began. At 9.45 this A.M. I broke into my block Citi-Def armoury and equipped myself with a variety of useful weapons. From this day on I have resolved to kill anyone who gets on my nerves."

That's a nice way to start and - well - just in case you didn't know it's an excellent summation of what the world of Judge Dredd is like: it's violent, mean and (if you've got the right sort of evil-infused funny bone) it's pretty damn funny too. And I guess the thing that's always struck me about Judge Dredd (and the thing that I'll do my best to try and explain here) is that he's just not like all the other varieties of tough guy future cop lawmen blah blah blah: opening up to the first page of this collection ("The Problem With Sonny Bono" [1]) and greeted by the sight of Dredd sitting on his lawmaster - gun already in hand was that there's something here that's special and unique and I don't know quite what: and that something is that Judge Dredd: all the way down to his very mean-ass core: is a total punk (which I guess is somewhat ironic seeing how he was partially based on Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry whose first response to finding out that someone was a punk would be to get them to make this day and then - well: blow them away). I not just Dredd - but the whole of Mega City One and the rest of the future world he inhabits: it's a punk's idea of what the world has in store for us: It's the craziness that seeps from every pore and the non-stop "Block Wars" and that the anyone with a kind heart gets squashed beneath the wheels of progress without a second thought: One of the best examples of this happens in a story at the start of this collection that features Uncle Ump - a kindly old man who's like a cross between Colonel Sanders and Uncle Sam only with a much sweeter nature than both combined - who makes the mistake of inventing the world's most delicious candy that is so yummy that it becomes instantaneously addictive to anyone who tries it. Normally this would make him someone rich beyond their wildest dreams - but the danger to civil order is so great that  the Judges put him on a rocket and send him out into space where - well - his final fate isn't pretty: but he's barely mourned before the story is moving forward and there's new all sorts of new stuff to deal with. Because - well - you want me quote some Sex Pistol lyrics? Fine: "We're the flowers in the dustbin. We're the poison in your human machine. We're the future, your future. There is no future in England's dreaming. No future for you, no future for me. No future, no future for you." So - yeah: it's not exactly utopian.

Whenever people talk about 2000AD [2] (which I should really try and stop spelling as one word - but - huh - "2000 AD" just doesn't look right for some reason) and how it came into being it's always Star Wars that gets mentioned. I think it's something the publishers saw that science-fiction was having a bit of a resurgence and they decided to hop on to the bandwagon with some futuristic comic fun: a bit of Dan Dare and some dinosaurs and maybe we can make some money - that sort of thing (and of course the obligatory mention of: hey - let's call it "2000AD" because what the hell: it'll never last that long - right?): and then Star Wars comes along and sales sky-rocketed and it became a British institution. Yay. But - for me at least - the year of 1977 (when 2000AD was launched) is famous for two different reasons: yes one of those reasons is to do with a young Aryan-looking lad with a magic glowing stick fighting space Nazis but the other reason was punk rock [3]. 

And that's the reason why Judge Dredd (like I've already said) is not like other future cops and Mega City One is not like other future cities: it's not all Blade Runner style flying cars and throngs of people (although to be far - it does have lots of those) and he's not a world-weary hero trying desperately to hold on to whatever small scrap of humanity he has left: Judge Dredd has no humanity (at least there's no sign of it in this collection) and you know what? That's just the way he likes it. Because like the cliché of a supehero being born when one small batch of chemicals gets contaminated by somesort of radioactive isotope (or whatever): Dredd is the mean tough lawgiver archetype infected with the radiation of the period he was created in: and that radiation was Johnny Rotten and people with safety pins pinned through their noses. And just look at him: I mean it's not as if other boys-action comic book characters are particularly elegant in the costumes they wear: I mean like I've already said several times on here how Batman just looks kinda silly with that cape and those sticky out pointy ears and we've all heard the snide remarks that have been made about the whole "pants over the trousers" look that superheroes like to rock: but Dredd kinda takes things to a whole new level. I mean back when I was a kid I used to like drawing pictures of stuff and characters from books that I had lying around and let me tell you - Dredd has all this tricksy stuff that can be a real pain in the bum to try and get right: there's the helmet sure - but there's also the badge, the big pad on one shoulder, the eagle on the other, the belt, the kneepads and the big boots. I remember reading somewhere once that the reason that superheroes always wear their distinctive skin-tight costumes is because when the comics used to come out in black and white they looked like their were naked and something about Freud and dreams of flying standing for other stuff and blah blah blah - point being (there's a point?): you'd never confuse Dredd with a naked person: he's all about the clothes and the hardware: the gun and the bike and all the rest of that sort of ornamental stuff. And come on: chains and shoulder pads and tight fitting leather as an official uniform? The only way that could make things more obvious is if he wore a T-Shirt that said "I Hate Pink Floyd." [5]

I get it that if you've never read Judge Dredd then it just seems like he's a cookie-cutter hard man who likes to shoot things and book perps: but the reason he's stuck around is because he's not a hero: he's more a conglomeration of all your worst excesses of law enforcement wrapped up into one tidy package. I mean: it's great fun to watch him go around and bash in people's heads: but every reader knows that things would be very different if you were the one living in the Mega City - because if you saw Dredd coming for you - you wouldn't want to greet him with open arms like he was your saviour - nah - the first and only thing you'd want to do would be to run.

But: of course all this yakking doesn't really tell you much about what's in this particular collection so let's quit the preamble and get down to it: the first bunch of stories in this are these self-contained little bite-sized things called "Mega Rackets" that are just "I wonder what ____ would be like in the future?" I mean - maybe if you've never read again Dredd before they'd be more entertaining: but for those of us who are already well used to all the future stuff it's a little bit by-the-numbers.

Then comes "Judge Death Lives!" which - shockingly - is only 5 parts long [6]: and yet manages to fit so much in - it feels a little bit like astronaut food: all your nutritional story and entertainments values compressed into one easy-to-swallow tablet. For those looking for a taster of why Judge Death is such a well-loved Judge Dredd character then there are much worse places to start - not only do you get a healthy dose of the alien super-fiend and his quotable-catchphrases ("The crime is life, the sentence is death!" etc) but you also get the first appearance of his "Three Killin' Cousins" who are each masterworks of iconic design (love the double-page spread of the four of them standing in a row like shop window dummies that almost just seems like showing off it's like the page is saying: check out how totally amazing these guys look!) and (perhaps most importantly) that most famous of all Judge Dredd panels: "Gaze into the fist of Dredd!" (just typing it gives me shivers).

But - and this is a testament to just how weighty things get - while anywhere else Judge Death Lives would be the main attraction - in this collection it's just a small appetizer before the ten course meal that is the bombastic epic: The Apocalypse War.

Now: I've read a lot of Judge Dredd back when I was kid and so most of the stuff (including the Judge Death stuff) I didn't even need to read. I just had to look at the first page and the whole story would come flooding back like a form of muscle-memory: I mean - this stuff is imprinted in a deep level of my brain that probably won't shift until the day I die. But The Apocalypse War - well - I'd never managed to get my hands on a collected version so to me it just had this mythical status as "best Dredd epic" ever and the one mega-story that all the ones that came after didn't come close to matching (sorry Necropolis, Judgement Day and (ha!) The Doomsday Scenario [7]). So finally getting to the point where I could actually read it. Well - let's just say that expectations were high.

Thankfully I wasn't let down.

I mean... I'm not sure how exactly to write down how The Apocalypse War affected me but I will say that by the end I was a little shell-shocked just kinda sitting there feeling a little dazed and gazing up into nothing going: "wow." (Is this hyping things up a little bit too much? Sorry). I mean on one hand it does seem like a little bit of a grind to have to slowly make your way through the stories at the first half of the book that are all just business-as-usual type typical day kinda stuff: but it really pays off in the long run because the grounding in the mundane nature of Mega City life makes the impact of nuclear war hit all the harder. I mean - it's not as if nuclear war needs help in making a spectacle: but you know it's like if you were watching Eastenders and it's all about hanging around the Queen Vic and who slept with who and all that and then - one day - they're all carrying kalashnikovs and eating the bodies of the dead because there's no more food left: it's more hardcore because you have such a good sense of what life was like before the war.

Also: I just love the way it builds. The beginnings of it are all just so comparatively humble and small-scale and even tho I knew what happened (thanks to The A to Z to Judge Dredd) I was still shocked when things started falling into place and the way that kept ramping things up until - well - they're blowing apart whole planets with nuclear missiles [8]. On the wikipedia page for The Apocalypse War (I wanted to see if I could find the exact reference but didn't have any luck - oh well) it says that one of the main impetuses for the storyline was that John Wagner and Alan Grant both felt that Mega City One had gotten too big and so they wanted to do something to bring it down to a more manageable size - the upshot of this for the reader (well - for me anyhow) is a sense of destruction and carnage that I don't think I've ever seen anywhere else in a comic (or - well - anywhere really [9]): in fact the best way I can think to describe it is - it's like you're a kid and you've just spent ages and ages and ages building up a big little city-thing out of lego (or whatever) - well The Apocalypse War is like your little brother or sister marching into the room and wantonly smashing their way through the whole thing with a manic grin on their face: that's the level of horror we're talking about here (I know I know - you might want to have a nice calming cup of tea standing by ready for when you're done).

But yeah: you wanna know what Judge Dredd is about - why he's awesome, why people keep trying to making films with him, why he's a British institution: you couldn't go much wrong with this collection.

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[1] As drawn by Ian Gibson (even tho for some reason the credits on the page says it's by "Emberton"(?): I dunno maybe that was his pen-name or something?)

[2] And just in case there's some newbies who've only just joined us at the back: 2000AD is the weekly science-fiction anthology series that Judge Dredd appears in (well - at least until the 1990 when the Judge Dredd: The Megazine first appeared). But that's why ever part of of a Judge Dredd story comes in little 5 or 6 page chunks. (and seeing how Britain's other favourite science-fictional mainstay Doctor Who also (used to) come out in distinct "to be continued" parts - maybe there's some part of the national psyche that gets off on our entertainment being withholding? Or - I dunno - maybe it's just a hungover from rationing and that if people get everything that they wanted right away then they would just explode or something...

[3] Like it says on the wikipedia page for 1997 in music: "Perhaps most important is the beginning of what has become known as the punk rock explosion. 1977 was the year of formation of The Avengers, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Crass, Discharge, Fear, The Flesh Eaters, The Germs, The Misfits, 999, The Pagans, Plasmatics, VOM, The Weirdos, and X.1977 also saw the release of several pivotal albums in the development of punk music. Widely-acknowledged as masterpieces and among the earliest first full-length purely punk albums, The Clash by The Clash, The Damned's Damned, Damned, Damned, the Dead Boys' Young, Loud and Snotty, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers' L.A.M.F., The Jam's In the City, the Ramones' Rocket to Russia, Richard Hell & the Voidoids' Blank Generation, the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, Television's Marquee Moon, and Wire's Pink Flag are usually considered their respective masterpieces, and kick-started punk music as the musical genre it eventually became". [4] 

[4] Pretty sure that I've already linked to Baaaddad's Cliched Memories of Punk somewhere on here before - but what the hey: here you go again.

[5] And if you're looking to trash some of your illusions that check out this Guardian Interview: "John Lydon: I don't hate Pink Floyd: Contrary to his infamous T-shirt slogan, the punk-rock patriarch is such a fan of the prog-rock royals that he came close to accepting an invitation to perform live with them." (sigh).

[6] Which apparently is down to the fact that Brian Bolland (who's way more known now for drawing the covers to things like Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and (urg) Fables) takes such a long time to finish his (frankly gorgeous-looking) artwork.

[7] The Doomsday Scenario is a story that came out back when I was reading 2000AD and The Judge Dredd Megazine and the build-up was so big and the let-down so huge and left me so disappointed that it's pretty much the reason why I decided to give up reading 2000AD and The Judge Dredd Megazine (and also: because - you know - comics are for kids and who wants to still be reading them when they're an adult and stuff? Ha).

[8] It's like the end of the criminally under-rated Terminator 3: only more so.

[9] Yeah there's Terminator 3 mentioned above - but goes the poetic route and shows you the destruction from space so it's hard to get a real sense of the horror. I guess that scene in T2 is more what I'm talking about - Sarah Conner rattling the fence at the playground (you all know the bit I mean - right?).

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 Links: Dredd Reckoning Review, Geek Syndicate Review.

Further reading: Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Saga, Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 06, Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 07, Judge Anderson: Satan, The Batman/Judge Dredd Files.

All comments welcome.

Books: Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 07

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Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 07
Writers: John Wagner, Alan Grant
Artists: Jim Baikie, Steve Dillon, Brett Ewins, Carlos Ezquerra, Ian Gibson, Cam Kennedy, Kim Raymond, Ron Smith
2007



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/


Back when I was young one of my favourite books was The A to Z to Judge Dredd ("from Aaron Aardvark to Zachary Zziiz!") - apparently released to coincide with what is now the first Judge Dredd film - it was a cornucopia [1] of Mega City One facts and titbits that told you everything you ever needed to know - from the names of famous Judges (from the top of my head: Judge Giant, Judge Anderson, Judge Hershey, Judge McGruder (that's the one with the beard), oh  - and Judge Caligula (ha - he was great)), to the locations (Grand Hall of Justice, Resyk, Brit-Cit!), to the trends and crazes (Boinging! And Uncle Ump's Umpty Candy "The sweet that was too good to eat!") and the random characters (Chopper - of course, James Fenemore Snork, Tweak!, Mrs Gunderson, PJ Maybe). What I loved most about it was how all the entries connected up with each other (looking back now I realise that in some respects it was the spiritual forebearer to this blog) and how - even tho it was all fictional - it seemed like it could be real because the level of detail was dizzying: it was a fully worked out Universe that contained a multitude of stories [2] [3]. 

I mean yeah - I also used to buy 2000AD and The Judge Dredd Megazine (plus I managed to scrounge a few back issues (sorry - "progs") here and there): plus I had a few collected editions too (published by Titan - they were called Judge Dredd 1, Judge Dredd 2, Judge Dredd 3 etc - but they weren't actually sequential in the stuff they contained - in fact they were more a wild hodge podge than anything else - like someone had just selected their favourite stories and jammed them all together willy nilly) - so I knew my Dredds and could tell you what all the six settings on Dredd's lawgiver was [4] - but I think it was more the world that I loved than the actual stories themselves - so much so - that it was more that I read the stories just so that I could get a sense of the world that it could only capture in small ammounts - like a cup of water can only ever give you a small part of the sea (ooooh - poetic!). 

So - credentials shown - apart from putting up a thing about the Batman/Judge Dredd Files book - why have I only got around to writing about Old Stoney face now? Well - what with my pernickety nature - I think in the past what I really wanted to do was put up a mega post that collected ALL the Judge Dredd: Complete Cases Files books so that it was all neated stacked up in the same place (and oh man - when I was a kid I used to wish that someone who make a Complete Case Files back (or whatever you want to call it) but assumed that the powers-that-be had somesort of vested interest in making sure that - I dunno - making sure that I couldn't read every Judge Dredd story ever - damn them). But (oh the irony) Islington currently doesn't have the complete set of the Complete Case Files (so far just 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and - strangely - 17 [5]) and - well - I didn't want to embrass anyone by writing about something that had so many missing parts. So - yes - what with the movie coming up - I thought I that I would treat each collection separately and just write about them one individually and - hell - seeing as I was going wild - not even bother to review them in order (I know! I was as shocked as you). 

When I was writing the Batman/Judge Dredd Files post - I said something about how Dredd stories where best when he wasn't the main attraction - but rather was used as a way to explore or understand or - hell - just laugh at - the incorrigible exploits of the various denizens [6] of Mega City One [7]. Which lead me to thinking about the difference between American and British hero pin-ups. In America - with all it's Batmans and Supermans and Spidermans (and that's just the comic books - I could talk films and books and find another 100 examples easy)  - character is key. And if you're telling a story about a hero most of the time you're dealing with their struggles and trails and - eventually (somewhere at the end of the story) - their victories and triumphs and you're telling it all from the perspective inside their heads (like - think any Frank Miller story ever - especially The Dark Knight Returns) because - you know - America is all about it's individuals and all about one person going up against the system and blah blah blah. In England on the other hand - a lot of the time we prefer our heroes to have their interior lives closed off and generally be a little bit unknowable - and in the stories they appear in - the point of it isn't so much whether or not they can summon up somesort of Nietzschen Will to Power (or whatever): but rather how many crazy ideas and bonkers concepts the author can throw into the mix - I thinking of particularly: Dr Who, Sherlock Holmes and - yeah - Judge Dredd [8] [9]. 

But let's stop all this preamble and get to The Complete Case Files 07. What was it like? How good it is? It it worth reading? And all that stuff.

Judge Dredd was one of the first comics that I think I ever read and - as sad as this is to say - looking at the names of the artists within was kinda like looking over the names of old friends (or - if they're artists that I didn't like that much - like looking over the names of people that I went to school with) and so there was a nice nostaglic glow that rushed in as soon as I started reading through these - coupled with the fact - that there were a few stories scattered throughout that I haven't read before (so to continue the school metaphor - it was liking revisiting your old playgrounds and then discovering parts of it that you had never come across before - which I'll tell you: is a nice feeling to have). 

There's no big epics in this collection - no wars or giant battles with extra-dimensional villains - it's all relatively small-scale stuff - a-day-in-the-life type things rather than once-in-a-lifetime stuff which made it a lot easier to acclimatize myself back into how the Big Meg works. So there's a story with werewolves (which - yeah - was a little bit meh) even if it did feature some pretty tasty Steve Dillon artwork (that's the guy who did Preacher): with a whole bunch of strong black and whites and a nice hefty sense of objects (especially the way he draws the Lawmaster), there's a tale called Bob & Carol & Ted & Ringo that's just like Free Willy - if the little boy was a robot and the whale was four dinosaurs [11]. And in fact the thing that comes through the clearest is how elastic the Judge Dredd concept is - you can do horror (The Haunting of Sector House 9), social commentary (The Wreckers) and even sports drama (Requiem for a Heavyweight - which is pretty conventional in the story it tells with lots of familar beats and cliches - yet manages to be wildly entertaining through the fact that instead of telling a story about boxers - it's about fatties (and that's not me being mean - that's the Judge Dredd technical term for them) - plus you know bonus points from the fact that it's done by Carlos Ezquerra who is basically THE Dredd artist (he was the co-creator along with John Wagner)). The only real limits are the fact that each part is only five or six pages long and there's always a gotta be some fights or random destructions (because - hey - the target audience is and always will be teenage boys). But beyond all that there's nice little turns of phrase: "Stow the silver bullets - Bike Cannon!" "Hailstones as big as your stupid heads!" and lots of big ideas (and in Rumble in the Jungle: big machinery) and - the idea that I keep - circling around - the sense of Mega City One as being a real place.

Which brings us to the reason that I choose this particular volume as the first book I wanted to talk about: The Graveyard Shift.
 
Now - I realise that everyone has their favourite Judge Dredd stories and let's face it - there's a lot to choose from (with everything from The Cursed Earth to Necropolis, from America to the Apocalypse War, from The Pit to The Judge Child) but me - the best distillation of everything that is great about Judge Dredd is in the 7 episode mini-epic of The Graveyard Shift. Not only is it the best introduction to the world of Judge Dredd I can think of but it's also the most no-nonsense: it's just Judge Dredd on patrol on one the worst nights of the year - there's no big villain, no big event, no special mission - just a man doing his job and calmy accepting a whole mess of strange and fantastical - erm - stuff. And - obviously - because it's Dredd: imposing the law. From the opening lines ("Night falls on Mega-City One, towering future city in the 22nd Century. On watching bays high above the neon streets, keen-eyed Judges take up position. There will be trouble tonight, there is always trouble on The Graveyard Shift!") to the taut dialogue ("Dredd here. Responding."), the barrage of facts and statistics (""There are now 24 A.R.V.s, 139 Serious Assaults, 5 Murders, 0.09 Classifiable Riots and 230 Traffic Offences every minute.") to the constast use of crazy future lingo ("A.R.V., Meat Wagons, Cubes, 299, Juve Rumbles, Vid-ins, H-Wagons, Rad-Winds, Catch-Wagons, Boingers, Stumm Gas, Conapts, S&S, 59Cs, Citi-Defs, Pat-Wagons, Pedways") it all just feels so realistic and immersive and serious (even in the face of the absurd) [12]. Plus it also has one of the best Judge Dredd action-movie style dialogues (which is up there - for me - with the much more famous: "Gaze into the fist of Dredd!" [13]: Dredd outside on his bike on his radio: "Dredd to Control! Got a robbery in progress, Jeta Sports on Winston. No Assistance Required." Radio chirps back: "Message logged. Catch Wagon on it's way." Interior shot: Dredd's outline visible through the glass: "You creeps! You got 10 second to come out with your hands empty!" The creeps inside turn and look: "Holy Moley! It's Dredd!" They fire back: "BDAMM! PTOWW! BLAM!" Dredd get's on his radio again: "Control - better make that a meat wagon." "What's the body count Dredd?" Close up of Dredd's mouth: "I'll let you know." (cue: ACTION MUSIC). All this praise in despite of the fact that the art is Ron Smith who've never been a particular favourite of mine (I wish I knew how to describe his style - but there's something about his juttering lines and the way his shapes bend (or something) that just leaves me completely cold - and yet for some reason - he always ends up drawing some of the best Dredd stories - including Citizen Snork and Portrait of a Politician - both included here). I mean - it's not the best thing ever - and I don't want to build it up too much - and I think the fact that I first read it when I was just a kid has a lot to do with how much I revere it - but damn it - if I was going to make a Judge Dredd movie - it's the story I would use as a template (Hello? Hollywood? Can you hear me? Why aren't you returning my phone calls?).  

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[1] My - that's a nice word. "Cornucopia." Mmmmmmm

[2] And if that idea sounds appealing then may I recommend a short story called: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges (which is in three different collections: The Garden of Forking Paths, Fictions and Labyrinths). And if you want any more incentive - let me say that Borges is like the M.C. Escher of short stories and reading him will make your life more full in ways you can't quite understand yet. So yeah.

[3] Also: I thought that by now someone who would have had updated The A to Z and made a comprensive Judge Dredd wiki - but all there is this which (at the time of writing) only has 41 measy pages. Rubbish.

[4] Really? You wanna know? Well ok then: Standard Execution, Heat Seeker, Ricochet, Incendiary, Armour Piercing and High-Explosive (in Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg voice: "My favourite").

[5] If you really really really want to help us get the missing books from the series (or if there are any other books you want to read that Islington doesn't currently have in stock) then you should know that you can try and order some copies on this handy little online reservation form.

[6] "Denizens" - another tasty little word.

[7] And if you want a small glimpse of the scale of world-building this series has achieved then have a look at this wikipedia entry for Mega City One (placed  #1 on The Architects Journal list of "comic book cities."!)

[8] And let's just take a minute to reflect uponhow damn peculiar it is that one of England's most famous comic book heroes is an American Policeman. I mean - yeah - a futuristic American Policeman - but still. This from a country that has always had a little bit of a faught relationship with it's authority figures (best recent example: these amazon reviews on the Olympic Mascots Wenlock Policeman Figurine) and seeing how most heroes in our country (Robin Hood) and others (well - all the Batmans and Supermans and Spidermans) tend to operate outside the law - I guess it's just a tesatament to England's perverse sense of the absurd or something (woo - go us).

[9] And just to continue the thought a little further and give one last example: when my girlfriend first saw the cover of this book (and it's oh-so-fetching-shade of pink) she made a comment about how I was always reading books about robots. Of course - being a mean awful boy - I then proceeded to mock her mercilessly for thinking that Judge Dredd was a robot (because - obviously - me knowing so much more about Judge Dredd puts me at a higher social standing than her obviously). And yeah - comparing Judge Dredd - England's version of American's future lawman (and - duh - not a robot) with Robocop - America's version of America's [10] future lawman (who - well - if you want to get technical about it - name aside - also isn't exactly a robot (definition: "A machine resembling a human being and able to replicate certain human movements and functions") but is more strictly speaking a cyborg (definition: "A person whose physical abilities become superhuman by mechanical elements built into the body." and - oh god - I've wasted my life learning the differences between the two and then writing about it in a review of a bloody Judge Dredd comic on the frigging internet - but whatever - let's carry on) - but then I guess Cybocop doesn't have the same ring to it). Point being - in terms of an emotional investment - in the type of stories they tell you're going to end up caring a lot more about Alex Murphy (if we're just talking about the first film - because let's face it - the sequels sucked) then you ever would about Joe Dredd (who's been going for over 30 frigging years).

[10] And - yes - I realise that Paul Verhoeven (the guy who directed Robocop - and also Total Recall and Starship Troopers - so you know - respect is due) is Dutch - but there is a reason that you get 1,220,000 results when you google "American Jesus Robocop" so shut up ok?

[11] Oh - and speaking of Free Willy - if you fancy getting bummed out about something then please read this.

[12] And if you like that kind of crazy-obsessive science-fiction world building then you really should check out Alan Moore's Halo Jones (link below).

[13] See here if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

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Links: Dredd Reckoning Review, 2000AD Review Interview with Alan Grant, Rob Williams and Al Ewing.

Further reading: Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Saga, Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 05, Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 06, Judge Anderson: Satan, The Batman/Judge Dredd Files, The Complete Future Shocks, D.R. and Quinch, Skizz, The Ballad of Halo Jones.

All comments welcome.

Books: Battlefields

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Battlefields
Vol 1: Night Witches
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Russell Braun
2009



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Battlefields
Vol 2: Dear Billy
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Peter Snejbjerg
2009



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Battlefields
Vol 3: Tankies
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Carlos Esquerra
2009



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Battlefields
Vol 4: Happy Valley
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by PJ Holden and Garry Leach
2010



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Battlefields
Vol 5: The Firefly and His Majesty
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Carlos Esquerra
2010



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Battlefields
Vol 6: Motherland
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Russ Braun
2011



Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Garth Ennis shows off his mature, softer side in these series of stories from the Second World War - "softness" obviously being a relative term when dealing with bloody death and murder. With writing full of interesting historical details (the Russian female bomber pilots of Night Witches), snappy character work (Sergeant Stiles in Tankies) and big emotional hooks (the sweeping romance in Dear Billy). With little of the juvenile high-jinks of his other books - this shows that when he puts away the gross-out humour and broad crazy slapstick - guy knows how to write a story that will make you care. With each volume telling a stand-alone unconnected story (apart from Vol 5: The Firefly and His Majesty which is a sequel to Vol 3: Tankies and Vol 6: Motherland which is a sequel to Vol 1: Night Witches) you can pick it up from any point: and they're all very much worth reading.

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Links: Newsarama Garth Ennis Interview.

Further reading: War Stories, The Shadow, Alan's War, Last Day in Vietnam, 303, Arrowsmith: So Smart in Their Fine Uniforms.

Profiles: Garth Ennis.

All comments welcome.

Books: Just a Pilgrim

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Just a Pilgrim
Written by Garth Ennis
Art by Carlos Ezquerra
2009




Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/

Grim post apocalyptic wild western madness. "The way My Dad tells it There used to be men called SYNTISTS who said a time wood come when the sun wood start to die." Follow a small group of survivors as they make their way across the desolate sea-bed with a man they know only as "The Pilgrim" to keep them safe from pirates. According to Ennis the inspiration for the series came when Preacher was ending and he "wanted to push the idea of the classic Western or action anti-hero a little bit more than I normally would..." The result is like something you'd find in classic 2000AD: bizarre situations and pitch-black humour. "Let's eat."

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Links: PopMatters Review, Newsarama Garth Ennis Interview .

Further reading: Judge Dredd: The Cursed Earth Saga, Bloody Mary, Crossed, The Walking Dead, Preacher, Old Man Logan, Wasteland, Nikolia Dante: The Romanov Dynasty, Sweet Tooth, Orc Stain, Prophet.

Profiles: Garth Ennis.

All comments welcome.