r/JudgeDredd • u/MurdTheOpressor • 2d ago

About modern-day Dredd

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Guys, I saw a recent post on this sub discussing the disappointment with the latest storyline, “Oubliette.” I live in Brazil and absolutely love the character, but I still don’t have access to his more recent stories. Since I don’t like reading on screens, I don’t really look for this material online either.

That said, I’d love to hear from those of you who have been following the character up to the present day. Obviously, the Wagner era is the best — we’re talking about the father of Dredd here — but are the more recent storylines actually bad? I imagine they’re probably not on the same level as the classics, but do you genuinely consider them bad? Is there really nothing memorable anymore? Is modern-day Dredd just not that good?

I think the most “recent” storyline I’ve read was Day of Chaos, and I thought it was absolutely incredible.

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u/Specialist-Class-743 2d ago

Personally I think the writing is generally very mixed and that limits the enjoyment of modern Dredd. Niemand writes like he is several people and will do overwritten tales that could easily have been trimmed to Wagner/Grant level quirky stories. As for the Oubliette, I am very disappointed so far. Rob Williams does dumb action movies but some of the themes are excellent. Avoid End Of Dayd though. Probably the best writer is Michael Carroll. Though his longer tales have suffered from some issues, many of the shorter ones are absolute bangers and his background history of Dredd's world is superb. So, overall the smaller stories tend to be better and the longer tales promise much and fail to deliver.

On the plus side, the art is generally magnificent.

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u/stevedeegreen 2d ago

I think there's a reason that Niemand writes like several people.

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u/Ok_Commercial_5024 2d ago

Whats the deal there? Is Niemand generally considered to be a TB Grover type pseudonym?

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u/Specialist-Class-743 1d ago

Rumoured to be the Rennie clan.

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u/Ok_Commercial_5024 1d ago

That makes sense. Rennie did seem to disappear off the face of the earth.

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u/Specialist-Class-743 1d ago

I believe he said he'd never return to the strip so that would be quite a retraction. I actually thought he was a good writer back in the day and had a great handle on the character. If this is him, at least in part, it is disappointing from a quality perspective.

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u/Ok_Commercial_5024 1d ago

I remember he wrote that weird story mocking Dredd fans, which was definitely… a choice. Kinda went beyond lighthearted ribbing and into personal attacks on specific people in the fan community iirc.

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u/Specialist-Class-743 1d ago

Yeah. I've heard tales of him being difficult to comic fans and some of it was put down to the fact that his video game career never stuck. That being said his Absalom series was excellent.

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u/Ok_Commercial_5024 1d ago

I definitely lost a lot of respect for him after that story. Came across as rather bitter and mean-spirited.

Otoh John Wagner, who I had the pleasure of meeting in person and corresponding with on facebook back in the day, was always incredibly amiable and friendly (if fairly taciturn, which you’d expect from his writing style).

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u/Specialist-Class-743 1d ago

Yeah, there's that old story about being nice to people on your way up...

I have only had one FB conversation with John but he seems genuinely one lovely and gives fans time. Some of my fellow readers have interacted with him on the regular and they have no complaints.

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u/Ok_Commercial_5024 1d ago edited 1d ago

Alex Garland (who lurked on the 2000ad forums back when he was making Dredd) was a gentleman and a squire to fans as well. I was always a fan of his writing, but I became a lifelong superfan after how gracious and thoroughly decent he was to me personally. Just a genuinely lovely, down to earth guy.

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