#FILE Megazine

[brooklynmuseum]

“The very word ‘submission’ contains the paradox of wanting and not wanting,” William S. Burroughs wrote in the introduction of Jimmy DeSana’s 1980 book Submission. 

For the photogragraphic series featured in the publication, made between 1977 and 1978, DeSana built on 101 Nudes (1972) and his work for File Megazine by creating theatrical and often comic photographs that push the limits of respectability and explore domestic confinement, consumer affluence, and social conformity. He was also mocking the recent trend of S-M scenarios in fashion photography and advertisements.  

He titled many of the images after the objects depicted in them—Toilet, Coffee Table, Television, Shoes, Shower—rather than sex acts or the names of the individuals shown, who are always anonymous and often wearing masks. This strategy not only protected the identity of his models, many of whom were friends, but also contrasted with his better-known portrait work during this period, which he did to make money. Many of the photographs comically equate practices of everyday life and consumerism (washing dishes, taking a shower, driving a car) with forms of bondage and discipline.

In exploring S-M through an aesthetic and performative lens, DeSana joined a long history of twentieth-century avant-gardes that engaged with these practices in order to compel debate on freedom of expression and power.

📷 Jimmy DeSana (American, 1949–1990). Toilet, 1977–78. Gelatin silver print, 9 9/16 × 6 3/4 in. (24.3 × 17.1 cm). Courtesy of the Jimmy DeSana Trust and P·P·O·W Gallery, New York. © Estate of Jimmy DeSana. (Photo: Allen Phillips)

[leonardcohenofficial]

marina abramović and ulay for FILE megazine, 1979

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Thought to look up what Complete Case Files Judge Dredd: America was in, and it turns out it's none of them? Which is weird since other Megazines have been published in it and the completely case filed are supposed to be, well, complete. Ig we just get to go read it now given it came out in '90 and we're on '94 now publishing wise but we're a little disappointed. I mean, they put the fucking Batman crossover in, but not what's supposed to be one of their greatest stories in the setting?

[levisgeekstuff]

Judge Dredd

Recent verscheen bij de jonge Uitgeverij Dekwerk het eerste deel van 'De Kronieken van Judge Dredd'. Ik vind dit alvast een geweldig initiatief! En ook de perfecte gelegenheid om eens te kijken wat er dusver al van Judge Dredd verschenen is in Nederland en België:

Dendros

In 1982 maakten we in de Lage Landen voor het eerst kennis met Judge Dredd en de Megasteden. Uitgeverij Dendros bracht toen 2 mooie albums op de markt op Europees formaat. Daarin werden verhalen uit de Judge Dredd Annuals van 1981 en 1982 vertaald. Helaas bleef het bij 2 delen. 

De verhalen in die twee albums waren eerder in 1982 ook al in magazinevorm verschenen in ‘Campus’. Daarin werden verschillende strips uit het Britse 2000 AD uitgeprobeerd. 

Juniorpress

Niet veel later nam Juniorpress het roer over. Zij probeerden het met de Amerikaanse Judge Dredd serie van Eagle Comics, hoewel dat eigenlijk gewoon herdrukken waren van de originele Britse strips uit 2000 AD. Het prachtige artwork van Brian Bolland zorgde er mee voor dat de serie ook bij ons een cultstatus kreeg. Na 7 nummers was het rijk helaas wel uit. 

Arboris

Een andere reeks die best wel een cultstatus had, was ‘Verhalen uit de Megasteden’ bij Arboris. Begin jaren ‘90 was Judge Dredd in het Verenigd Koninkrijk zo populair geworden dat hij niet enkel verscheen in 2000 AD, maar ook een eigen ‘Judge Dredd Megazine’ kreeg. Die dienden als basis voor de albums van Arboris op Europees formaat. De reeks brak echt door bij het grote publiek met het 3e album. Daarin verscheen de vertaling van de eerste Batman/Judge Dredd cross-over. Een knap verhaal met vooral ook heerlijk (én gruwelijk!) teken- en schilderwerk door Simon Bisley. Later zouden in de reeks ‘Verhalen uit de Megasteden’ nog 3 cross-overs met Batman volgen, afgewisseld met solo-verhalen uit verschillende Dredd uitgaven.  

Nog interessant om mee te geven is dat de uitgaven van Dendros, het magazine Campus én uitgeverij Arboris eigenlijk allemaal door dezelfde persoon zijn verzorgd: Hans van den Boom uit Haarlem. In 1982 begon hij, toen als prille dertiger, met eigen publicaties. Als liefhebber van Engelse en Amerikaanse underground strips probeerde hij zulke uitgaven dus uit in Nederland en België. De namen van de uitgeverijen zijn knipogen naar zijn eigen naam: Dendros is Grieks voor boom, Arboris is Latijn voor 'van de boom'.

RW Lion

De Batman/Judge Dredd cross-overs kregen jaren later trouwens nog een mooie bundeling in hardcover door RW Lion.

Dark Dragon Books

In 2018 nam Dark Dragon Books de vertaling op zich van de Amerikaanse IDW serie uit 2012. Het bleef echter bij de eerste verhaallijn, uitgegeven in 2 albums én een hardcover versie.

Dekwerk

En nu is er dus 'De kronieken van Judge Dredd' bij uitgeverij Dekwerk. Zij brengen een Nederlandstalige bewerking van 'The complete case files', waarin alle Dredd verhalen chronologisch gebracht worden. Dit is écht het oer-Dredd materiaal in rauwe zwart-wit tekeningen.

[downthetubes]

Catching up on new titles from 2000AD and Rebellion, as Judge Dredd Megazine celebrates 30th Anniversary

Catching up on new titles from 2000AD and Rebellion, as Judge Dredd Megazine celebrates 30th Anniversary

Judge Dredd Megazine Issue 424

There are thrills a-plenty to come over the next few weeks and months from Rebellion. We’re only weeks away from 2000AD’s next “jumping-on issue”, Prog 2200, which will be another bumper 48-pager. Plus, there’s the release of Judge Dredd MegazineIssue 424, to look forward to, which marks the title’s 30th anniversary. With that and other books and Specials on the…

[thisiscomics]

Not only do Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon get a block named after them, it seems that said block was decorated in late 20th century Preacher style as well. While this seems a greater honour than many get in this future, there’s something very Big Meg about us seeing these fittings after they have been ripped out of the block they belonged to and put up elsewhere. At least ‘picked up cheap’ suggests that the portrait of Jesse Custer wasn’t stolen from its old home, so there’s that at least. And it is Mega City One, so that could actually mean ‘picked up cheap from the guy that stole the actual wall from Ennis Dillon Conapts in attempt to make a few creds’. You can never tell...

From “Judge Dredd: J.D. Megson: A Near-Death Experience” by John Wagner, Henry Flint, Trevor Hairsine & Tom Frame, in Judge Dredd Megazine 3.63, reprinted in Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 31

[thecomicon]

Previewing 'Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 37' - Putting The Law In Order Once More

Previewing ‘Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files 37’ – Putting The Law In Order Once More

Featuring tales written by John Wagner, Gordon Rennie, and the final Garth Ennis Dredd, alongside art from Carlos Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy, and John Burns, Volume 37 of The Complete Case Files is out on 22nd July. (more…)

[judgeanon]

So, i know this is a little werid but do you count America as a Dredd comic because i heard some rumor's that it's not in the Case files. Though i could be wrong

The rumor is right! America is technically not a Dredd comic, as it was a spinoff published in the first issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine:

Therefore, it’s not part of the main Dredd series anymore than Anderson: Psi-Division or Chopper’s solo series are. And so it’s not in the Case Files, but rather, collected as its own book.

[brooklynmuseum]

In the second half of the 1970s, Jimmy DeSana chronicled and helped canonize early aspects of what would become known as the New Wave and No Wave scenes in New York and beyond. 

He coedited the Fall 1977 issue of File magazine with his friends Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips. Together with the Toronto-based collective General Idea, who published the artist magazine, they evoked and poked fun at the do-it-yourself aesthetic of punk through their writing, photographs, and graphic design.

DeSana produced many of the photographs that appear in the issue, including portraits of musical acts Blondie, Richard Hell, Mars, the Talking Heads, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Rather than attempting to capture likenesses, DeSana intentionally obscured or transformed his sitters’ appearances through lighting and exaggerated posing. Like emerging cultural theories at the time, DeSana’s photographs called attention to the artificiality of the image and the performance of identity. #JimmyDeSanaBkM

📷 General Idea, FILE Megazine, Vol. 3 No. 4, Fall 1977. Courtesy of Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons. © Reprinted with permission of General Idea. (Photo: David Vu)

[worldfoodbooks]

NEW IN THE BOOKSHOP: FILE VOL.4 NO.2 FALL 1979 : "TRANSGRESSIONS" (1979) • FILE Megazine (published 1972–1989) was a quarterly, then irregularly published art and culture magazine, written, edited and published primarily by members of General Idea (AA Bronson, Felix Partz, Jorge Zontal). • The visual design and identity of FILE Megazine was a deliberate appropriation of LIFE Magazine. FILE's initial logo was the white block letters on red rectangle of the LIFE logo, with the letters re-arranged. This corresponded with the group's desire that the magazine be a “parasite within the world of magazine distribution”. The familiarity of the format would entice a broad range of unsuspecting readers outside the art- or mail-art worlds (including LIFE readers) to pick it up from newsstands. Initially the magazine served a dual purpose. It was a record and site of activity for the international mail/correspondence-art movement - the first mail-art project in magazine format. It was also the mouthpiece of General Idea, with editorials for each issue written by the group, elaborating on the group's core conceptual principles. The writing style of these editorials is noteworthy for its heavily ironic use of language, a parody of advertising copy, laced with double-entendres. Over the years the focus of FILE Megazine broadened to include the wider arts, culture and entertainment world, as General Idea's founders moved increasingly among the New York downtown circles of the 70s and 80s. • This "TRANSGRESSIONS" issue (edited by General Idea and Rodney Werden) includes Kathy Acker, Guy Hocquenghem, David Byrne, Jean Genet, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Colin Campbell, Francesco Clemente, The Clichettes, Robert Mapplethorpe, Martha and the Muffins, and others. Features the famous Nazi Milk Glass cover by General Idea. • More details on our website. One copy. • #worldfoodbooks #FILE #GeneralIdea #aabronson #felixpartz #jorgezontal #robertmapplethorpe #kathyacker #guyhocquenghem #jeangenet #1979 (at WORLD FOOD BOOKS)

[uscmegazine-blog]

Greetings, friends! The MEGAZINE is opening submissions for its fifth volume, Volume 4!!!

Submissions will close in a little over two weeks, on

Friday, April 27, 2018

In honor of the changing seasons, this volume's theme is:

SPRING

Your submission can play with that theme in whatever way you want! (And if you've got something you want to share that has nothing to do with the theme, go for it.)

Reminder that anyone can submit: student, ex-student, non-student, etc.

Please send your submission to uscmegazine@gmail.com formatted as either:

A) 1 or more black-and-white png's of size 1275x1650. (Template here.) 

B) A txt file. (If you care particularly about the way your text is formatted, please use submission type A.)

ADDITIONALLY, PLEASE SIGN UP FOR THE MAILING LIST.

Eventually all MEGAZINE communications will be coming through this list, so if this zine is your kind of thing, don't forget to do this!

FAQs

What is the MEGAZINE?

The MEGAZINE is a small publication made to give members of the USC Games community (or really just whoever) a space to be creative and critical in whatever ways they want. It aims to provide a casual, no-pressure environment that still promotes thoughtfulness or even non-thoughtfulness. Whatever! The MEGAZINE is ultimately what YOU make it! The MEGAZINE is a pizza! 

Is it... games related?

Not explicitly! Depends on who submits what!

Where can I read past MEGAZINES?

RIGHT HERE.

Should I join the mailing list?

YES.

TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ :(

Megazine submissions are open till FRIDAY 4/27, theme is SPRING, mailing list is HERE.

Thanks for reading,THE MEGAZINE TEAM

uscmegazine@gmail.com

uscmegazine.tumblr.com

[impactcomicscbr]

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[downthetubes]

Ho! Ho! Ho! The new 2000AD is here, to spread post lockdown cheer - and the Megazine is in on that, too!

Ho! Ho! Ho! The new 2000AD is here, to spread post lockdown cheer – and the Megazine is in on that, too!

2000AD Prog 2210 is on sale today – what better reason to head to your now re-opened Local Comic Shop and give it your support? But, if that isn’t enough, then the Misty Winter Special is on sale too, with a superb cover from Simon Davies. A smashing treat!

Talking of covers – check out the “festive” look to the next issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine (Issue 427), on sale 16th December. Nick…

[judgeanon]

A SHORT HISTORY OF FEMALE JUDGES IN JUDGE DREDD FROM 2012 TO 2015

Seemingly satisfied with having thoroughly destroyed Mega-City One and making Dredd horribly responsible for and uncharacteristically powerless during all of it, John Wagner let go of the reins of 2000AD’s flagship character after “Day of Chaos”, leaving the strip in the hands of a new crop of writers who’d waste no time in staking their territory. First with an absolute tour de force of storytelling, and later with epics of their own, filled with supporting casts either handpicked or created by themselves, these writers have carved their own place in the strip by exploring the themes and characters most interesting to each other.

Speaking of characters, the most important development of this era as far as this series is concerned is the return of Judge Hershey to the Chief Judge’s seat. Ostensibly brought back to form an interim administration while the city gets back on its feet, Hershey would end up staying far longer than anticipated, mostly on account of there being nobody else willing and able to take on the monumental responsibility. Least of all, Dredd himself. More on that… right away, actually.

(Previous posts: 1979 to 1982 - 1982 to 1986 - 1986 to 1990 - 1990 to 1993 - 1993 to 1995 - 1995 to 1998 - 1998 to 2001 - 2001 to 2004 - 2004 to 2007 - 2007 to 2009 - 2009 to 2012. Cover art by Cliff Robinson)

We hit the ground running with “Bullet to King Four”, by Al Ewing and Henry Flint (prog 1803, October 2012) a prologue to the year’s first epic. Back in the driver’s seat of a city dangling from a cliff, Chief Judge Hershey is already hard at work. During an interim council meeting that includes Dredd, Judge Stalker and new Wally Squad acting chief Judge Folger (Judge Hollister is mentioned as being MIA, her cover blown during Chaos Day), she reveals her plan to merge Justice Dept’s various units into larger divisions as a way to consolidate their beleaguered forces. She also introduces, to Dredd’s immediate disgust, a new head of Undercover Division and obvious source of future trouble: Judge Carolyn Bachmann.

Bachmann had been introduced in a Megazine story set during Tour of Duty called “The Family Man” by Ewing and Leigh Gallagher (Megs 312-313, July 2011), where she was hinted to be the secret head of Justice Dept’s Black Ops Division, introduced years ago in Si Spurrier’s “Dominoes.” An incredibly shrewd, cunning and manipulative woman, Bachmann clashed with Dredd over unsanctioned killings in the mutant townships, but he was ultimately unable to gather enough evidence to go after her in any official way. In fact, during “Bullet…”, Hershey directly references having heard Dredd’s accusations, but stands by her decision to keep Bachmann around. And then we get three of the most savage panels in the history of the strip:

Oof.

Clearly, the good old days of the Dredd/Hershey team are over. Or at least on life support. There’s definitely a lot to be said about Hershey’s words here, starting from the fact that she’s unequivocally, absolutely, 100% right. Dredd has proven, again and again, that he has extremely little patience or desire to deal with the logistical consequences of his decisions. The clearest example of this is back during “Mutants in Mega-City One”, when Dredd arm-twisted his way through the entire Council of Five, but then grew tired with all the politicking he himself started and left them to deliberate it on their own. It was Hershey’s cunning and willingness to stay the course that saved the repeal then.

And then there’s the resignation thing. This is something that Hershey’s not only had to deal with twice (first in “Total War”, then in “Mutants...”), but she was also there when Dredd did resign and eventually came back, during McGruder’s second term. She knows, arguably better than anyone alive, that Dredd is a judge and could never be anything else. What’s interesting is that this time, she doesn’t hesitate to call his bluff. While before, Hershey would’ve been more open to cooperation and second opinions, now she’s stuck doing triage for a half-dead city. And the last thing she needs is Dredd’s constant small picture problems meddling with her attempts at saving what’s left of the big picture, a responsibility that Dredd is staunchly reluctant to take as long as there’s someone else available to do it.

But although Hershey is right in her assessment of Dredd’s mindset, Dredd is likewise right in his assessment of Bachmann’s intentions. In fact, it’s even suggested at the story’s end that Hershey and Bachmann might be working together, which, given Hershey’s penchant for secret operations during her first reign, isn’t entirely unfounded from an in-universe perspective. Par for the strip’s course, nobody is entirely right. But despite the particulars of the story, the key element of “Bullet…” is how it has come to define Dredd and Hershey’s relationship for the last six-odd years.

Following such a strong start, we have “Asleep”, by Rob Williams and Mark Harrison (progs 1804-1805, idem), about a sov sleeper agent being reactivated by accident and gunning for the Chief Judge. The end result is an unabashed Hershey-in-peril scene, complete with her staring down the barrel of a gun on her knees and Dredd saving her life with some quick talking. So bit of a disappointment after the previous story, but hopefully it won’t become a trend or anything. Also of note: yet another redesigned female med-judge.

Then we get to the first epic of this new post-Wagner era, “Trifecta”. Which, in my opinion, is one of the strongest and smartest uses of 2000AD’s anthology format in storytelling since “The Dead Man”. Even in collected form it’s still not quite as interesting as it was reading it in the progs, and that’s because it is formed by three different series by three different creative teams that all started independently, and were only revealed to be different parts of a same story one third into it. Now, because I’m a stickler for the self-imposed rules of this series of articles (and certainly not because I’m a lazy bastard), I’ll focus only on the Dredd portion of it: “The Cold Deck”, by the returning team of Ewing and Flint (progs 1806-1811, October-November ‘12).

The story starts with the news that Judge Folger has been found dead in rather grisly circumstances, and to make matters worse, she’d also taken an important file from Wally Squad’s computers and erased all copies before dying -- a file so top secret, nobody knows what it is. Dredd suspects Bachmann, and Buell, former head of the SJS, agrees, further suggesting that she’ll use the scandal to prompt a reorganization, strengthen her position and eventually become Chief Judge herself. Which of course, doesn’t sit well with Dredd at all.

We’re also introduced to Judge Estrella, Bachmann’s partner in crime. A psi-judge, she spends most of the story mentally spying on Dredd on her boss’ behalf. Bachmann is not one to leave anything to chance.

Dredd tracks the file down but intentionally fails to stop it from being sold to someone off-world, where it’s revealed to be a list of every Wally Squad judge in operation. For this, Hershey summons Dredd to her office in an episode that picks right up where “Bullet...” left off, in more ways than one. Opening with Hershey having a flashback to the final pages of “The Judge Child Quest” during a budget meeting with Judge Maitland (who’s also hinted at being part of the epic’s underlying plot), she’s left alone with Dredd. The chapter, set almost entirely from Hershey’s perspective, is an exceptionally sharp bit of writing that segues flawlessly from plot to character development and then right back to plot with notable ease, comfortably aided by Flint peppering the pages with tight close-ups that convey a feeling of claustrophobic closeness between the two judges.

On one hand, we find out that Hershey was fully aware of Bachmann’s underhanded tactics, having made good use of her advice in the past, and wanted her in the Council as a way to get her out in the open and hopefully find something more solid to arrest her for. For the sake of the city, Hershey is willing to give an ambitious spymaster just enough rope to hang herself with, while Dredd would prefer to just hang her himself. But now, both Dredd and Hershey find themselves playing different games but not trusting each other enough to let the other in on them.

And on a deeper level, we get to see the differences between Hershey and Dredd’s conceptions of what it means to be Chief Judge, which is where the flashback comes in. After all, it was Dredd who refused to bring Krysler back to Mega-City One, espousing the notion that the Chief Judge had to be incorruptible. Hershey notes that Dredd idolizes the position of Chief, often leading him to stand in harsh judgment of the men and women who have taken it in the past. Indulging in a bit of armchair psychology, I feel like a lot of it has to do with Dredd’s relationship with the closest he had to a biological father: Judge Fargo, the first and best Chief Judge, against which all others have to be compared. And even if Fargo proved to be more human than it seemed, his myth and Dredd’s indoctrination have created an impossible set of standards in the latter’s mind that nobody else is able to live up to.

But Dredd has never been Chief Judge. Hershey has. Twice. If Dredd knows what the position should be, Hershey knows what it is. And she has no qualms in admitting that it comes with a hefty amount of compromise, subterfuge and even corruption. She laments the loss of her ideals, some of which we’ve been first-hand witnesses to over the years, but still proves to have the good of the city as her ultimate goal at all times. In fact, her attempt at ousting Bachmann is likened to her “victory” over Judge Edgar during her first reign. But in an even more personal level that has very little to do with the current situation, Hershey is shown to be wounded by Dredd’s lack of trust in her, when she trusted him enough to be kicked out of office for him. Dredd’s narrow focus on his vision of what the Chief Judge and the city should be makes him willfully blind to the compromises needed to fulfill it and to the sacrifices others make for believing in him. And Hershey, who has already given everything save her life for him once, is officially through taking his stomm.

And on a personal (for me) note, having such an exceedingly layered, compelling relationship between two estranged former friends without any romantic tension at all is one of the reasons I absolutely love Judge Dredd.

Things escalate pretty quickly after that. Bachmann is forced to execute her plan sooner than expected due to the Wally Squad list being a fake used to lure her out and ruin her scheme to create a shiny new Mega-City reserved for indoctrinated citizens with the assistance of an insane shark-headed (that’s not an euphemism, he literally has a shark’s head) business mogul. Her black ops troops start taking over the Hall of Justice, and she herself beats up and guns Dredd down, but he’s promptly saved by Maitland, who also kills Estrella in the process. This all sets up the stage for the last episode of the epic, the titular “Trifecta”, by Al Ewing, Simon Spurrier, Rob Williams and drawn (gorgeously) by Carl Critchlow (prog 1812, December 2012). 

With all the conspiracy and most of the character bits out of the way, the conclusion is a very two-fisted action affair that includes an honest-to-grud flashback cameo by Chief McGruder of all people, a hilariously uncomfortable one-panel reunion between Dredd and Galen DeMarco (who’d been featured in Spurrier’s portion of the story), and one of the all-time greatest Hershey panels:

So with Dredd finally fessing up to knowing about Bachmann’s plans and Hershey admitting that she underestimated their scope, all that’s left is dealing with the mastermind herself. Like any good final boss, Bachmann proceeds to beat the crap out of everyone, including lobbing a stun grenade at Hershey to get her down on all fours which is awkwardly similar to the end of “Sleeper” up there. But in the end, she gets killed from behind by Judge Smiley, a more-secret-than-secret black ops judge who’d been brought in as a countermeasure by Judge Griffin after Cal’s reign, to prevent something like that from ever happening again. Hershey is understandably upset to learn there’s been a presumed-dead spy living in the walls of the Chief Judge’s office for the last 20 years, and berates him for not coming out for any other previous crisis and Dredd for not trusting her. So although the day is saved, it wasn’t without damage, both inside and out.

To Dredd’s credit, however, he’s not a bastard to everyone in this story.

What’s especially notable about “The Cold Deck” is the sheer breadth of roles in display for its female characters. The antagonist, the main side protagonist, the sidekick, the antagonist’s sidekick, even the catalyst for the story itself are all female, plus a handful of background judges in the final chapter. In many ways, this story is the end result of all the past years of development for female judges in the strip. Women encompass all possible roles, from minor to major, from incidental to fully developed, and on both sides of the conflict. By comparison, the other two parts of the story have either no female characters (”Saudade”) or only DeMarco in a very secondary role (”Jokers to the Right”). Meanwhile, the many female characters in "The Cold Deck” are all established characters with different degrees of development, none of which were created for this story except for Estrella. And while it can be argued that it’s astonishingly easy to introduce new characters in Dredd, the fact that a major storyline can encompass such a wide variety of female characters in an organic way still speaks volumes of the people behind it.

After such a whopper story we get a chance to catch our breaths with a Judge Hughes doing sidekick duties in prog 1818’s “Witch’s Promise”, by Alan Grant and David Roach (February 2013) and then it’s right back into the fray with 1820-1822’s “Wolves”, by Michael Caroll and Andrew Currie (idem). The story concerns Dredd and Hershey’s efforts to stop a wave of violence against sov-born citizens after Chaos Day. When things come to a head, Hershey orders all citizens with roots in East-Meg to be taken to a massive internment camp, and then repatriated by the sov block in exchange for much needed food rations, a plan that Dredd is adamantly against. When the citizens refuse to be moved, Dredd proposes relocating them to Mega-City Two instead.

So we can see how Ewing’s character development threads have been picked up by Carroll: Dredd’s increasingly humanistic streak clashes with Hershey’s cold, pragmatic worldview, and in the end it’s Dredd who suggests the solution. At times it reads like a modernized version of much, much older stories where Dredd suggests a straightforward solution to a complicated situation (“Bob’s Law”, anyone?) but I’d argue that the wider context upon which it happens and the decision to let these problems become longer plotlines instead of isolated incidents all conspire to create some annoying quibbles, at least for me. But more on that later.

The story continues in “Cypher”, by Carroll and Iñaki Miranda (1824-1825, March ‘13), where Hershey and Dredd have a meeting with a soviet envoy and his bodyguard, Judge Caterina Pax, to discuss their reneging on the deal. The meeting is almost immediately broken up by a sniper who wounds Hershey and is driven off by Dredd and Pax. With the sov judge’s assistance, Dredd manages to kill the sniper, who turns out to be a cyborg hired by the envoy to kill Hershey for not quite clear reasons, and Pax expresses her desire to defect to MC-1, netting us our first new recurring female judge of this period.

Speaking of new recurring female judges, Psi-Judge Hamida returns in “Suicide Watch”, written by Gordon Rennie and Emma Beeby, and drawn by Paul Davidson (1826-1829, April ‘13). The first Dredd story written by a woman, it features Hamida having a bit of an Anderson/Corey moment, hallucinating a chat with her dead imam over halal hot dogs and feeling the weight of all the dead citizens killed by the Chaos Bug. She links up with Dredd after having a psi-flash, and together they go on the hunt for a potential suicide cult. But things get complicated when Hamida reveals that there’s a jinn -- a supernatural entity who erases people from existence and history behind it, and then even more complicated when Dredd finds out Hamida has been a suicide risk herself since Chaos Day. Ultimately, Hamida perseveres and beats the jinn, saving both Dredd and the day in a rare case of Dredd playing sidekick.

Carroll returns with PJ Holden in tow for “The Forsaken” (1830-1835, June ‘13) which features no less than five female cadet judges, each one with full names and in one case a big secret. Lori Cassano, Madison Echavez, Cheryl Tanuma, Angela Sorvino and Jessica Paris are all part of a group of cadets left for dead after Chaos Day who, feeling abandoned by Justice Dept., made a run for it. The story is told mostly in flashback as Dolman and Dredd track each surviving member, some of which are terribly wounded, and eventually manage to find Paris, who is then revealed to be a clone from Fargo’s DNA strain, effectively making her a female Dredd. Dolman brings her back to the city, with the added complication that she’s carrying the child of one of the other survivors of the incident.

The main hook of “The Forsaken” is getting to see a group of would-be judges giving in to absolute despair, their training falling apart under the strain of an extreme situation and how they form bonds and relationships between each other. While we’ve seen female judges “give in” to their humanity more than once, it rarely comes accompanied by dereliction of duty, and this one has it en masse. Unfortunately, far as I know neither Paris nor her child have appeared again so far, so we’ve yet to see what a fully-fledged female Dredd can look like.

Up next, a Judge Lawadski meets a gory end in Rob Williams and Trevor Hairsine’s “Skulls” (1836, idem) and we check in on Judge Beeny in John Wagner and Dave Taylor’s “Wastelands” (1837-1841, July ‘13). She only makes two short cameos in here, but we find out that she’s been taking a page from Dredd’s book and keeping busy to stop herself from brooding. Interestingly enough, Dredd suggests that she take a break, noting that she’s “going to have to deal with it sometime” and that, if she really wants to change things, she’s going to have to do it “from the inside.” 

That last comment in particular is interesting, as it sets up a plotline that Wagner will eventually bring to the Megazine while also staying true to Dredd’s characterization. Dredd, like Beeny, wants Justice Dept to change, but he remains reticent to go in and do it himself. And now that Hershey’s been compromised, he’s putting all his chips on Beeny, making sure that she doesn’t burn herself or become too attached to the streets. Dredd even sugars her up a little, off-handedly noting that she’s one of their best judges. Of course, Wagner being Wagner, this is all conveyed in about eight panels and less than twelve lines of dialogue, all book-ending a completely unrelated plot. In other words, a grand study in character development economy.

Carl Critchlow comes back to art duties in the Rob Williams-written “Scavengers” (1842-1843, August ’13), which sees Dredd travel underwater to the submerged ruins of Bachmann’s new Mega-City. The story features a Judge Chen who sacrifices herself in a fight against a giant mutated squid in order to keep the mission a secret and also a rather handsome Chief Judge Hershey appearance. We have a Judge Bova in Wagner and Ben Willsher’s “Bender” (1845-1849, September ’13) and Judge Pax returns as one of the stars of Michael Carroll and Paul Davidson’s “New Tricks” (1850-1854, October ’13). After an in-depth screening, she has been allowed to join judges from several other Mega-Cities (including the son of Irish judge Joyce, from “Emerald Isle”) as part of a transfer program to pad out the city’s drained forces.

Pax is shown to be exceedingly competent from the get-go, and the story is even narrated entirely from her journals, through which we learn, among other things, that Dredd seems to have taken a slight shine to her. The main plot involves a Judge Gwendolyn Kilgore, who’s returned from taking the Long Walk into the Undercity to ask for help in taking down a mythical Troggie gang boss called the Goblin King. Fairly standard action strip fare, mostly used to showcase Pax’s skills and to introduce Joyce. But it is certainly interesting to read the former’s thoughts on Dredd and MC-1 in general.

Hershey comes back for another round of workplace awkwardness in “Prey”, by TC Eglington and Karl Richardson (1855-1857, November ’13), although she seems to have grown accustomed enough to crack jokes about it. And that leaves us right at the doorstep of the first of a three-part epic by Rob Williams and Henry Flint: “Titan”.

This first part, which ran from progs 1862 to 1869 (January-February, 2014), kicks off with the news that all contact has been lost with the judges’ penal colony in the eponymous moon of Titan. Without an army to bring any possible rebellions to heel and unwilling to destroy the whole colony before getting all the facts, Hershey sends Dredd and a team of space marines to Titan to recon the place and see what’s going on in there. But after a seriously messed up landing and a couple of betrayals, Dredd finds himself alone and at the mercy of the masterminds behind the convicts’ uprising: former Chief Judge Sinfield, and former Wally Squad Judge Aimee Nixon.

Nixon, of course, was one of the main characters of Williams’ own Low Life serial. An undercover judge on the edge, she eventually quit the department and joined the Hondo City Yakuza in a bid to save her sector from a gang war, but was brought back by her partner, Dirty Frank, and put in an iso-cube for a debriefing, her intel supposedly keeping her safe from Titan. But after Chaos Day, her and several others were shipped there anyway, breaking their deal and leaving her even more embittered and vengeful. Her appearance here is quite the surprise, but makes sense considering the creative team. As Williams’ time became more focused on the main Dredd strip, more characters from Low Life would begin appearing there in guest spots. We’d already seen a hint of that in the last epic.

Back in the plot, once she realizes who she’s got in her hands, Nixon begins negotiating with Hershey. Unlike the last revolt (“Inferno”, all the way back in part four of our retrospective) the inmates here only want to be given Titan as an independent colony. But meanwhile, Nixon has also begun torturing Dredd, trying to break him down to make the man underneath the stoneyface come to the light in hope that his desire for revenge will overcome his loyalty to the law. It’s all a bit “The Killing Joke”, as Nixon seems intent on proving that every judge, even the toughest of them all, hides a human being inside, full of human desires and emotions -- just like she had.

But ultimately, Dredd proves to be too tough a nut to crack, and even when the only survivor of the marines sabotages the colony and Aimee and co are forced to evacuate towards Enceladus, Dredd still refuses to destroy their escape ships, ruining Aimee’s plan to destroy him by making him break the law. The former judges escape, Dredd survives to fight another day, and everything works out alright… for now. Overall, “Titan” is a fairly intense start that goes to some surprising places, but it also does rely a bit too much on a foregone conclusion, which is Dredd not choosing revenge. It’s also pretty funny that this makes it two epics in a row that include a scene of a female judge antagonist arguing with Hershey over a monitor. Wonder if that will be the real trend?

Also of note: Flint seems to have some trouble keeping Hershey’s eye color consistent, since they were blue back in “The Cold Deck.” Or maybe she just has a box of contacts.

We take a breather with a Judge Sisulu side-kicking it up in “Squirm!” (Carroll and Nick Dyer, 1870-1872, February ’14) and then we’re back with Williams and Flint for prog 1873’s “Fit” (March ’14). An epilogue to “Titan”, the story has Hershey send Gerhart, an SJS judge with an axe to grind who was with Dredd during the ill-fated mission, to check on Dredd for any lasting side effects of his experience on the colony. The most interesting part of this one-off for our subject is the very last page, where Gerhart notes that, owing to her history with Dredd, Hershey is ultimately ready to follow him anywhere despite this ongoing cold war between them, which zeroes in on a particular wrinkle in their relationship. For all their mutual posturing and disagreements, ultimately both Dredd and Hershey are fueled by a strong sense of duty towards the city. But while Hershey is worried by its continued day-to-day survival, Dredd is increasingly driven by his vision of a fairer, more human society. In an overly simplified nutshell, Hershey cares about the city, but Dredd cares more about the citizens. And despite her barely being present in it, the next story is one of the strongest examples of this seemingly irreparable schism.

Running in progs 1874-1878 (April ‘14), “Mega-City Confidential” marks the return of John Wagner to the strip, accompanied by Colin MacNeil. A delightfully bleak conspiracy procedural, it ends with the reveal that Justice Department has been taking advantage of the post-Chaos Day rebuilding projects to install covert surveillance equipment in millions of homes, accumulating information that is then parsed by human operators to seek out any signs of criminal activity that may necessitate a not-so-random house search. But when one of those operators escapes and turns whistleblower, Dredd is forced to defend the secrecy of a project he himself had grave misgivings about, calling it “a rare mistake” from Hershey. And once the secret is out, public outcry forces Justice Dept to roll the project back, but not before jailing the operator and probably having the journalist responsible for the leak murdered. Light reading, this ain’t.

That sounds familiar. Also, while not named, this might be Judge Stalker.

On its own, the story works as evidence of Dredd’s growing disgust with the dehumanization inherent to the judicial system, and his own discomfort as a cog within a machinery that seems increasingly prone to falling into these excesses. As such, Hershey’s error of judgment is mostly an afterthought, but I do find it’s interesting to put it within context. The Chaos Bug attack, for example, relied heavily on privacy and subterfuge, so it’s easy to see why Hershey, who’s trying to keep a dying city alive, would be tempted to go forward with something -- anything that could prevent something like that from happening again. It’s a steep change from when Hershey was considered the most liberal of all the candidates for Chief Judge, but makes sense given her own personal development and the circumstances of her return to the position. As she’s grown older and her situation direr, she seems much more open to sacrificing the liberties she used to champion for the sake of keeping people alive. So in a way, her character development has taken on a polar opposite route to Dredd’s.

Wagner stays a little longer for “Shooters Night” (art by John McRea, 1879-1882, May ‘14), which nets us an unnamed female judge and a small Hershey cameo at the end. Then Carroll returns with Nick Percival for “Traumatown” (1883-1887, June ‘14), a story about Dredd being haunted by a near-dead Psi’s vengeful spirit that features a veritable cavalcade of female judges: Pax and Hershey guest star alongside new Psi-Judge Lewis, and there’s even a funny little cameo by a Judge Parkhouse, clearly named after long-time 2000AD letterer and unsung heroine Annie Parkhouse. After that blowout, we get a small med-judge appearance in 1890-1891’s “Student Bodies” (Wagner and Boo Cook, July ‘14) and a new crisis for Dredd and Hershey in “Cascade” (Carroll and Paul Marshall, 1894-1899, August-September ‘14) as the Lawlords, a race of brutal alien overseers whom Dredd had already faced in a previous story, attempt to take over the city. The story features a Judge Reyer who dies trying to stop the attack early on, and unfortunately, Hershey’s role in it is mostly just glowering a lot while Dredd saves the day as usual.

Up next we have the return of Judge Beeny in Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s “Block Judge” (1900-1909, September-November ’14), where she assists Dredd in bringing a troublesome block to heel. But although it’s great to check on her progress as a judge, there isn’t much character development to be found here, and it’d seem Beeny is on the track to becoming another Dredd sidekick template. Wagner, however, has bigger plans for her, although as mentioned before, the big turn will happen in the Megazine.

The story also has a couple of guest appearances from Hershey, as Dredd for once acts very tactfully around her, asking for her help in keeping a couple of crime lords locked up for incredibly petty crimes until they can uncover more evidence. As usual, a common enemy does seem to unite them well enough, although Hershey can’t resist calling Dredd out a little on his criticisms. But for a moment, the old team is back together, with Hershey making sure Dredd is able to do his job as effectively as possible.

Another nameless female judge shows up in Alec Worley and Leigh Gallagher’s “End of the Road” (1911, December ’14) and the year closes with a return appearance by Judge Lewis in Carroll and Karl Richardson’s “The Ghost of Christmas Present” (prog 2015, idem). And if things sound like they’re finally settling down a little, don’t worry, because our last stop of this post features the biggest return of them all...

“Dark Justice” (progs 2015-1921, January-March 2015) was famously born out of artist Greg Staples’ desire to paint a classic Dark Judges story. And although John Wagner had admitted to basically having run out of ideas for them, he was happy to go back in after seeing Staples’ test sketches. The end result is a visually stunning mini-epic with an otherwise fairly standard plot, as Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson team-up to hunt down Judge Death and his pals onboard a deep space colony ship. Not much to say character-wise about this one, as both Dredd and Anderson seem to revert back to their early 80s action hero selves, filling the story with wisecracks and one-liners as they batter the fearsome foursome. Anderson does get to shine pretty brightly on this one, pulling Judge Fire’s spirit out of Dredd’s mind and revealing that her past experiences with Judge Death have allowed her to develop a slight immunity to his powers. In the end, the superfiends are ejected and left drifting in space while our heroes await a rescue, and there’s not really much else to say.

One thing that is noteworthy is that Staples used model and cosplayer Lauren Integra Fairbrook as his model for Anderson in “Dark Justice”. Which makes sense, considering she’s the official Anderson model for Planet Replicas and has featured in the Judge Minty and Strontium Dog: Search/Destroy fan shorts. In fact, there’s even a reference to an “Lauren Integra Cosplay Ground” in “Mask of Anarchy”, a previous Dredd story.

And as an extra bit of trivia, Planet Replicas’ official Dredd model is… Greg Staples himself.

In our next episode: two epics! Two thousand progs! And... The End?

[michaelajane-gothwitch]

Continuing to add to my Dredd Collection as I keep reading through them. I am reading Vol 11 of case files, but so far have collected all up to case files 25. I understand case files 39 due out soon. Still a few to go. Now looking for the elusive & so far unavailable Judge Dredd Restricted Files Vol 3! . . #dredd #judgedredd #joedredd #judgejoedredd #2000adcomic #2000ad #2000adfans #rebellion #completecasefiles #dreddfiles #judgedreddfans #dreddcollector #judgedreddcompletecasefiles #karlurbandredd #megacityone #megazine #books #bookreader #hardbackedbooks #realbooks #reading (at Darlington, Co Durham) https://www.instagram.com/p/CauguD0rRva/?utm_medium=tumblr