Judge Dredd will not be mocked. Oh no, sister. When one enterprising citizen with too much on his weddin’-bands splatters the lawman of the future with a custard pie, it becomes a citywide craze, the established norm across MC-1. Because that’s the way it’s gonna be. Such was the way of things in Progs 322 through 375. I’ve read a couple of these collected retro editions, and though I could always appreciate, on an academic level, the imagination and verve on display, it never went much further than that; these were thirty year old children’s comics, good ones but still…
Which brings us to the big, pink form of Case files 07. You look so good reading this thing as you walk down the street, maybe accessorizing your big pink book of comics with some bitchin’ bright green converse and an Edwardian smoking jacket. I’m just saying. Cover issues aside however, 07 is actually not that far away from the straight pleasures of contemporary Dredd outings. For me, it marks the point where nostalgia becomes genuine entertainment.
We kick things off with the riotously OTT Cry of the Werewolf, a full blooded retro romp that sees ‘severe mutation’ werewolves rise up from the undercity and, y’know, blend into the surroundings with subtle dignity. It gives the inner nerd a thrill to guess what a young reader’s reaction would have been when the man himself gets infected and turns into one of the beasts in a cartoonishly memorable horror sequence. This leads into a fiendishly horrible (and damn funny) little vignette called The Weather Man. I don’t want to ruin this short but sweet little terror for you if you’ve no experience of it; you owe it to yourself to go into it with no foreknowledge. Needless to say, the laugh count is almost as high as the body count, which is not inconsiderable.
More divine silliness next, and with the inimitable Carlos Ezquerra giving it that “definitive” Dredd look, Requiem For a Heavyweight delves into the rather hit and miss concept of the fatties, and damned if what emerges is not only funny but poignant; the relationship between naïve Abdominal Arnie Stodgman and his competitive eating trainer Bruno shouldn’t get to you so much but it just does.
Then, we have the masterpiece, the highlight of the book. The Graveyard Shift is a Dredd epic with no linear story thread. The concept is ingenious in its simplicity; it is one night on the crime ridden streets of the Mega City, following the Judges in their duties from late afternoon to early morning, encountering perps of all shapes and sizes. Highlights arrive thick and fast, a deluge of classic moments; the random tough guy who threatens to start eating people; the host of suicidal ‘leapers’ who present an unacceptable health risk; the ‘boinger’ who goes for a joyride in a giant bouncing bubble; the visceral ‘bite fight’ where serrated toothed bruisers try to tear each others’ throats out for a paying audience; the anatomy of a block war (with the cutest damn baby being rescued from a hundred story drop) and the serial killer who collects hands. Hands, man. The Graveyard Shift is funny, sad and exciting; often all three at once, and if you’ve never read it, or have forgotten it, now’s the time.
Other nearly-lost-gems manifest themselves in the form of fables of dinosaurs being released from a future zoo, delinquents commandeering construction equipment, the birth of the Snork phenomenon, and one of my personal favourites, Portrait of a Politician; witness for yourself the high octane political thriller depicting one Orang-utan (Dave) and his destiny as Mayor of Mega City One.
For all the value of the larger stories, tight little vignettes such as Suspect (an interrogation), Pieromania (remember those pies?) and Are You Tired of Being Mugged are as an important a part of the Dredd experience as they are today. Also as true back then as it is today is the classic mix of trademark fatalism, whether cynical or humane, and comic storytelling at its most efficient and fundamental level.
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