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Judge Dredd in Colour

Started by JoFox2108, 09 April, 2017, 03:42:10 PM

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JoFox2108

Hi,

I just wondered if some of you more experienced 2000AD fans could help me? 

I've been really getting into Dredd comics since 2012 when I saw the Karl Urban, Dredd, (which totally blew me away - the last film I loved as much as this was Star Wars when I was seven!)  Anyway, I have a mild form of autism and because of this I find reading black and white strips quite hard unless they use greyscale shading as well.  I just can't seem to 'read' the pictures without a lot of work - I frequently can't see what the picture is of - I've been told this is just the way my brain processes details.

So I've been trying to read as much historical Dredd as I can in colour.

I've got: 

  • Apocalypse War in the IDW reprint edition which was coloured,
  • All 3 Days of Chaos collected editions
  • Origins
  • Mechismo Mega Collection Edition,
  • America Mega Collection Edition and
  • Oz Mega Collection Edition - which was mostly black and white - so difficult.


I'm just not sure how to go about getting the rest?

My feeling is that I could either:

   (a) get the case files from 12 which goes colour half way through (as I understand it) or
   (b) buy up all the graphic novel editions which are coloured from the 2000AD shop 'Graphic Novels / More Dredd' section and then try to put them in order but I might miss the shorter stories which are not part of a longer narrative.

Then I could add any originally black and white stories coloured at IDW to the collection when they get printed?


So what would you guys do?
Thanks,
Jo
QuoteIt's all a deep end.

Tony Angelino

Hello there. Search out the Eagle Comics reprints.

These were US sized reprints of 2000AD material in the mid 1980s. They weren't reprinted in any specific order as far as I remember but all the early issues featured great covers by Bolland (and some by Mick McMahon).

you might get some duplication of material you already have but these are nice comics to have. Another comic called Quality took over after Eagle but ironically the quality of the reprints were nowhere as good.


Colin YNWA

Sounds like the Complete Case Files might be the way to go and volume 12 seems to the one to start with when most of the stuff will be clour. That way you're getting as much as possible in colour in a simple straightforward series. As you say you can go back as you are able to get older material as they are available coloured.

Its a shame you don't get on with black and white strips as they will keep cropping up and you'll miss a lot of good stuff, but if your autism prevents that there's not much to be done except as suggested getting the Eagle reprints (avoid the 'Quality' ones).

SIP

#3
The Eagle comics are absolutely the way to go to read most of the classics. As well as the standard numbered run there are also a few standalone series like "the early cases", "the judge child quest" and the "crime files". I would recommend that you do also pick up the quality comics run as though the covers take a dive in quality, you would be missing out on some dredd classics such as cry of the werewolf if you missed them and I think these would be the most cost effective method to get a load of the black and white Dredd run in colour.

After you have those, then picking up the coloured case files trades from number 12 is a great idea.

positronic

You don't have the IDW hardcover collection of The Dark Judges? It's in color and same size as (maybe about 1/2" shorter) The Apocalypse War. That's a keeper.

Rogue Judge

Everyone has had great recommendations already - I also suggest the Complete Case Files as the best way to read Dredd as you get the epics as well as many of the fantastic one offs in-between.

If you want more recent stuff, here is a list of  what I hear are some of the best Dredd stories in recent years that are collected in color:

•   Judge Dredd Tour of Duty: The backlash
•   Judge Dredd Tour of Duty: Mega-City Justice
•   Judge Dredd: Trifecta
•   Judge Dredd: Dark Justice
•   Judge Dredd: Dead Zone
•   Judge Dredd: Titan
•   Judge Dredd: Every Empire Falls

Smith

Well,some digital bootlegs of case files are composed of Eagle reprints and are thus mostly in color.Or so I hear.

positronic

Quote from: Rogue Judge on 09 April, 2017, 08:58:02 PM
Everyone has had great recommendations already - I also suggest the Complete Case Files as the best way to read Dredd as you get the epics as well as many of the fantastic one offs in-between.

If you want more recent stuff, here is a list of  what I hear are some of the best Dredd stories in recent years that are collected in color:

•   Judge Dredd Tour of Duty: The backlash
•   Judge Dredd Tour of Duty: Mega-City Justice
•   Judge Dredd: Trifecta
•   Judge Dredd: Dark Justice
•   Judge Dredd: Dead Zone
•   Judge Dredd: Titan
•   Judge Dredd: Every Empire Falls

Oo, good ones! I do have Dark Justice, that's really nice. Don't know how I forgot that one!

Rogue Judge

Yeah, Greg Staples artwork on Dark Justice is incredible, it is a must! Also, the Restricted Files # 1-4 are primarily color as well.

maryanddavid

These lists might be of help, as suggested the Eagle/Quality/Fleetway Quality might be of help. Most titles are in colour but not all.

http://www.mycomicshop.com/search?PubID=9231

http://www.mycomicshop.com/search?PubID=9221

http://www.mycomicshop.com/search?PubID=8891


positronic

#10
Quote from: Rogue Judge on 09 April, 2017, 09:31:54 PM
Yeah, Greg Staples artwork on Dark Justice is incredible, it is a must! Also, the Restricted Files # 1-4 are primarily color as well.

Excellent! I was thinking of ordering those anyway, but now they've move up the list considerably.

Since a few people mentioned the Eagle/Quality monthlies already, I have to wonder why more of those weren't given the same treatment as the Nemesis the Warlock: Termight Edition, which utilized the same coloring from the Eagle comics in a hardback reprint edition. Perhaps that might be something for IDW to handle, if Rebellion has no interest, since the American market has a greater bias against black and white comics.

Even though I'm not autistic, I can readily understand what JoFox2108 is referring to in trying to follow the black and white art. It's doable, but sometimes the amount of detail put in by the artist on linework makes it slower reading at-a-glance than if the art were colorized. You really shouldn't need to spend more than a second or three looking at it, it should just flow without the reader being conscious of it at all -- it varies greatly from one artist to the next, of course, and I think some artists might have a less 'realistic' and looser style which might contribute to that (or perhaps it might be me just not being that familiar with a particular artist's style). I recognize what he's saying because I had just recently read a few 2000 AD stories (can't recall which artist now) where that was more of an issue than it ought to have been. I think it might also have something to do with art reduction to fit into a collected edition format. It's less of a problem with most of the older stories, because they seem less "dense", artistically -- the graphic storytelling style just seems more direct and immediately apparent, and the panels on average are less "cluttered".

JoFox2108

Hi Everyone!

Wow - you guys are EXCELLENT!  Thanks so much for the advice.   :cool: 

I'm going to go for the case files as my main reading and then fill up as much as I can from the early stuff with Eagle Comic Reprints and any other coloured collected editions.  Many thanks to Tony Angelino, Colin YNWA, SIP and MaryandDavid for this idea.  I had no idea that these Eagle Comic reprints even existed.


Does anyone know if the case files will continue right up to the current 2000AD and Megazine stories eventually?  Also, have they got a new name now - Restricted Casefiles?



Quote from: Rogue Judge on 09 April, 2017, 08:58:02 PM

Everyone has had great recommendations already - I also suggest the Complete Case Files as the best way to read Dredd as you get the epics as well as many of the fantastic one offs in-between.

If you want more recent stuff, here is a list of  what I hear are some of the best Dredd stories in recent years that are collected in color:

•   Judge Dredd Tour of Duty: The backlash
•   Judge Dredd Tour of Duty: Mega-City Justice
•   Judge Dredd: Trifecta
•   Judge Dredd: Dark Justice
•   Judge Dredd: Dead Zone
•   Judge Dredd: Titan
•   Judge Dredd: Every Empire Falls


Thanks Rogue Judge!  Do you know if these stories will be collected in the case files too or would I need to get them seperately?



Quote from: positronic on 10 April, 2017, 06:31:33 AM

Even though I'm not autistic, I can readily understand what JoFox2108 is referring to in trying to follow the black and white art. It's doable, but sometimes the amount of detail put in by the artist on linework makes it slower reading at-a-glance than if the art were colorized. You really shouldn't need to spend more than a second or three looking at it, it should just flow without the reader being conscious of it at all -- it varies greatly from one artist to the next, of course, and I think some artists might have a less 'realistic' and looser style which might contribute to that (or perhaps it might be me just not being that familiar with a particular artist's style). I recognize what he's saying because I had just recently read a few 2000 AD stories (can't recall which artist now) where that was more of an issue than it ought to have been. I think it might also have something to do with art reduction to fit into a collected edition format. It's less of a problem with most of the older stories, because they seem less "dense", artistically -- the graphic storytelling style just seems more direct and immediately apparent, and the panels on average are less "cluttered".


Quote from: Colin YNWA on 09 April, 2017, 04:01:17 PM

Its a shame you don't get on with black and white strips as they will keep cropping up and you'll miss a lot of good stuff, but if your autism prevents that there's not much to be done except as suggested getting the Eagle reprints (avoid the 'Quality' ones).


Yeah, I know what you mean.  In the 2000AD 40th Anniversay Special I struggled with Ro-Busters - pure black and white art and very dense, but I could read this one with some effort.  Henry Flint's Zombo artwork was quite difficult too although the greyscale screentones really helped for me there.

I do keep trying with this stuff, because it pops up everywhere.  For instance, I just got 'The Kreeler Consipracy' - Strontium Dog.  Online it looked coloured but it has a coloured story first then black and white then coloured again.  Fortunately Esquerra's line work on the black and white one looks pretty readable.  He's got stronger lines picking out characters and isn't too heavy with the textures on these particular stories.  Sometimes when he goes overboard on the textures and doesn't strengthen the lines which define seperate objects I do find his style hard to read, which is a shame because he's a terrific artist!   Anyway, thanks guys!
QuoteIt's all a deep end.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: positronic on 10 April, 2017, 06:31:33 AMSince a few people mentioned the Eagle/Quality monthlies already, I have to wonder why more of those weren't given the same treatment as the Nemesis the Warlock: Termight Edition, which utilized the same coloring from the Eagle comics in a hardback reprint edition.
Probably due to the nature of how they were created. Nemesis was a special case, with the original artist doing a lot of work on the US takes on the strip. More often, the US reprints had decidedly inferior editing, hacking out panels, and in later comics sometimes omitting even entire pages, including the endings to stories. Essentially, most of them were done on the cheap (which, ironically, might make them suitable for IDW, judging by its US classics Transformers disaster), rather than with love and care.

QuoteEven though I'm not autistic, I can readily understand what JoFox2108 is referring to in trying to follow the black and white art.
Beyond people with certain conditions that make following a specific kind of media tricky, I suspect a lot of this comes down to the language of comics – and that language changing. I grew up with pulp British fare. Almost nothing was coloured. 2000 AD would have its centre spread, and things like The Beano would have a spot colour for some strips, but that was it. US comics, by comparison, were in colour throughout my lifetime – although I'm not sure how much easier some were to follow, given the semi-random and low-quality nature of the colouring jobs. 2000 AD of course switched gears dramatically when painted art came in, although plenty of sub-Bisley clones meant you got a lot of hard-to-follow murky brown crud until artists properly learned to grapple with colour. (You then got crazy digital stuff a few years later, before that too settled down.)

Quote from: JoFox2108 on 10 April, 2017, 11:51:35 AMDoes anyone know if the case files will continue right up to the current 2000AD and Megazine stories eventually?  Also, have they got a new name now - Restricted Casefiles?
There's no way of knowing how long the Case Files will run for. I suspect Rebellion will keep printing them as long as they keep selling. I can't imagine they'd ever 'catch' the comics, unless the comics vanished, though. The Restricted Files are simply the branding for the strips that didn't appear in 2000 AD and the Megazine – in other words, they're compilations of 2000 AD summer/winter specials, Dredd specials, and annuals. To my mind, the second and third books are some of the best Dredd around. They do, however, mix up colour and b+w, so you might want to take a look at them in a comic store before buying.

QuoteThanks Rogue Judge!  Do you know if these stories will be collected in the case files too or would I need to get them separately?
There's no reason to think those strips won't end up in the Case Files eventually, although they will in the main be some years off. (An alternate means of grabbing some of these might be Hachette's partworks series, which for hardbacks are dirt cheap. You of course don't get spine art or even an indication of what's in the book, but the actual volumes are on the whole really lovely. You can cherry pick volumes from the company's main website. Be mindful that certain series can be split between multiple volumes, and these may not be released in chronological order.

Dandontdare

Quote from: JoFox2108 on 10 April, 2017, 11:51:35 AM
Does anyone know if the case files will continue right up to the current 2000AD and Megazine stories eventually?  Also, have they got a new name now - Restricted Casefiles?

The CFs will catch up eventually, but it's going to take quite a few years to get there at the current publication schedule. The Restricted Files are a different thing - whilst the Casefiles collect all the prog and Meg stories, the Restricted files collect all the odds and ends - stories from the annuals, summer specials etc. I can't remember off-hand how much is colour and how much is black and white.

positronic

#14
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 10 April, 2017, 12:16:51 PM
Quote from: positronic on 10 April, 2017, 06:31:33 AMSince a few people mentioned the Eagle/Quality monthlies already, I have to wonder why more of those weren't given the same treatment as the Nemesis the Warlock: Termight Edition, which utilized the same coloring from the Eagle comics in a hardback reprint edition.
Probably due to the nature of how they were created. Nemesis was a special case, with the original artist doing a lot of work on the US takes on the strip. More often, the US reprints had decidedly inferior editing, hacking out panels, and in later comics sometimes omitting even entire pages, including the endings to stories. Essentially, most of them were done on the cheap (which, ironically, might make them suitable for IDW, judging by its US classics Transformers disaster), rather than with love and care.

I'm not quite sure if this is what you had in mind, but are you referring to the latter-1980s period when Quality Comics (which in a way began as a spinoff of Dez Skinn's WARRIOR magazine) was handed off to the production services of Sal Quartuccio Productions in the U.S.?  I can remember as far back as when that happened, and the Quality Comics' drop in just about everything (coloring, paper, cover designs, cover art even) just took an absolute nosedive. It felt ironic, since I'd thought the earlier ones (wait, Eagle's production was handled by Titan Books, wasn't it...?) were much better.