Mark Millar, Carlos Ezquerra & Mick Austin Judge Dredd: Crusade (1995)
Grant Morrison is credited as co-writer of Crusade, but it feels a little like something he may have mumbled in the pub which Mark Millar expanded into a ten part story. A ship returns from deep space apparently with a message from God - which sounds like Morrison's sort of thing - and the rest is a pie fight amongst Judges of various futuristic nationalities as they scramble to the site of the ship's crash landing, each hoping to be first to hear the good news. The Japanese Judge ends up committing hari-kiri, the Irish Judge is already on the sauce when first we meet him, and the Indian guy is called Judge Bhaji; so yeah - my guess would be that this is mostly Mark Millar's doing. I'm ordinarily a fan, although when Millar's writing is bad, it's fucking awful. His version of Dredd mostly reads as though he's taking the piss, but Crusade and Frankenstein Division - the other story here - are mostly saved by gorgeous art. Mick Austin had moved on from drawing people with giant heads and his art was at this point approaching a painterly elegance suggestive of the classic sixties artists who drew for Eagle, TV21 and the like; and the late, great Carlos Ezquerra drew Frankenstein Division, so obviously it's amazing.
It's been a while since I read Judge Dredd, and I was a little taken aback by its singularity of purpose. Judge Dredd is the very opposite of anything which marketing executives would describe as character driven, which is why it works and has proven so enduring. Judge Dredd himself is essentially a massive fucking cunt, but a ruthlessly consistent one so we always know where we stand with him, which is a rare and admirable quality. The strip comprises Dredd punching the rest of the characters over and over, page after page, indiscriminately dishing out desserts both just and unjust whilst shouting, and so it's a lot like listening to a Ramones album in so much as that it's a Ramones album and there's not much joy to be had in arguing with it. At times it approaches Viz levels of absurdity, and the cynicism is of such density as to go into negative figures and come out the other side looking peculiarly sanguine. Considering that it's more or less 1984 with greater emphasis on leather and motorbikes, there's something strangely uplifting about Dredd.
Grant Morrison is credited as co-writer of Crusade, but it feels a little like something he may have mumbled in the pub which Mark Millar expanded into a ten part story. A ship returns from deep space apparently with a message from God - which sounds like Morrison's sort of thing - and the rest is a pie fight amongst Judges of various futuristic nationalities as they scramble to the site of the ship's crash landing, each hoping to be first to hear the good news. The Japanese Judge ends up committing hari-kiri, the Irish Judge is already on the sauce when first we meet him, and the Indian guy is called Judge Bhaji; so yeah - my guess would be that this is mostly Mark Millar's doing. I'm ordinarily a fan, although when Millar's writing is bad, it's fucking awful. His version of Dredd mostly reads as though he's taking the piss, but Crusade and Frankenstein Division - the other story here - are mostly saved by gorgeous art. Mick Austin had moved on from drawing people with giant heads and his art was at this point approaching a painterly elegance suggestive of the classic sixties artists who drew for Eagle, TV21 and the like; and the late, great Carlos Ezquerra drew Frankenstein Division, so obviously it's amazing.
It's been a while since I read Judge Dredd, and I was a little taken aback by its singularity of purpose. Judge Dredd is the very opposite of anything which marketing executives would describe as character driven, which is why it works and has proven so enduring. Judge Dredd himself is essentially a massive fucking cunt, but a ruthlessly consistent one so we always know where we stand with him, which is a rare and admirable quality. The strip comprises Dredd punching the rest of the characters over and over, page after page, indiscriminately dishing out desserts both just and unjust whilst shouting, and so it's a lot like listening to a Ramones album in so much as that it's a Ramones album and there's not much joy to be had in arguing with it. At times it approaches Viz levels of absurdity, and the cynicism is of such density as to go into negative figures and come out the other side looking peculiarly sanguine. Considering that it's more or less 1984 with greater emphasis on leather and motorbikes, there's something strangely uplifting about Dredd.
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