I Am The Law: The Judge Dredd Omnibus is the essential novel collection no true drokking fan of Judge Dredd should be without.

Compiling the first four Dredd novels from Black Flame (a publishing arm of BL Publishing, which is in turn owned by Games Workshop) into a 760 page treat, long-time readers of Dredd's pulpy home of 2000 AD and Mega-City newbies alike can pick this up and jump right in. No prior familiarity with the Dreddverse is required, citizens-- just a love for cynical, satirical, and often humorous pulp-style sci-fi set in my all-time fave dark future setting.

The Omnibus kicks off with Dredd vs. Death, which has Mega-City One's most effective Judge teaming up with Psi-Judge Anderson and ex-Judge DeMarco checking out a "death cult" and happening upon yet another comeback from most 2000 AD top-choice Dredd baddie: Judge Death. A great book filled with rip-roaring action and drama from Gordon Rennie, one of the best writers out there today. Excellent pacing, terrific dialogue. The only thing I could see non-Dreddites shying away from is the admittedly corny title. One particular item I've always enjoyed about the Judge Dredd strip (and related strips) in 2000 AD is how female characters (like Judges Hershey, DeMarco, Anderson, McGruder, Steel-- and that's just for starters) are handled in a non-stereotypical way. Rennie doesn't forget this and provides excellent story-work, making Anderson and DeMarco just as important as Dredd in the tale. Then there's Judge Death. Gotta love him. Mr. Rennie totally scores with this book... Which should have you slavering for what's next...

Bad Moon Rising by David Bishop, the man considered by many responsible for helping to yank 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine out of the crapper in the early 90's (as editor), provides an excellent follow-up to Rennie's previous work. Where Dredd vs. Death deals with a necro-calamity in Mega-City One, Bad Moon Rising sees our gruff protagonist up against nasty xenophobes bent on killin' some alien folk. Bishop handles everything very nicely in a "timely" fashion. The pacing is excellent and the characters well done. A fun thrill ride to be sure!

Black Atlantic is up next and once again Dredd is out to stop some crazy perps who have a a very lethal and destructive bio-weapon. This is a co-author effort with Simon Jowett and Peter J. Evans at the helm. Black Atlantic isn't anything that will win any awards, but these guy nail the terrific pacing set up by the previous 2 novels and have the requisite humour down pat.  Also this story helps explore the "Dreddverse" a bit more. Although I feel it's not as strong as the two previous books, Black Atlantic is good old fashioned pulpy fun that won't disapoint those of you who don't need time in the psycho-cubes.

Eclipse is brought to us by James Swallow and I hate to say it, but this book is the weakest of the lot. Not that it's a bad thing, as this is still pack full of non-stop thrill-power. Our favourite Judge is off to Luna-1 and has to cooperate with the judges there. And there's some twists and turns. A good output from Swallow, even if the otehr books are better. This was still a treat to read.

All in all? If you are a Dredd fan and don't have these first 4 Black Flame novels, then you NEED this omnibus. At $10.99 (USD) it's an almost criminally good deal. Seriously. Sure, there's some flaws... but what pulp-style fast-paced fiction doesn't have some minor flaws? All of the authors involved are strong and can present entertaining, action-packed stories to keep you glued to the toilet or any other fave spot you have picked out from reading. I really can't do this whole collection justice with this short review, but believe me when I say it's worth it!

If you aren't a fan of Judge Dredd; don't fret. I am confident that any drokking one of you out there milling about from day to day like everyone else can jump into this sardonic, nightmarish comedy-satire future-world that is the home to Judge Dredd and all of his associates. As I said at the beginning of this Nutshell Review: "No prior familiarity with the Dreddverse is required, citizens."

Now go buy this book.

Happy reading.

Steve's Intro Musings:

Wasted potential. That’s what I thought when I read through this first issue of "Grunts". It could have been so much better; from art, to story to dialogue. And considering the talent involved, I expected better, dammit. What a weeping shame.

Publisher: Arcana Studios

Writing: Shannon Eric Denton; Keith Giffen

Art: Matt Jacobs; Eric Spikes

Grunts is about a group of combat hardened American GIs in 1944 France (along the German border). After a couple of actions, they come across a nastily dispatched Allied bivouac and soon encounter the German attackers, who seem to be some sort of super soldiers or something. Undead maybe? I don’t know. My first thought was to compare Grunts to the excellent Fiends of the Eastern Front comic of 2000AD fame . Of course, this made me dislike Grunts even more, even though the two comics differ greatly, and I don’t even know if the German super soldiers that pop up in the end are monsters, vampires, undercover circus clowns, or what.
(Wow, think I should use the word "even" again? Yeesh!) 

The first thing that reached out and grabbed me in that “creepy visiting uncle” sort of way was the art. Dear god, if the artists were trying to capture feelings of disgust and horror, they certainly succeeded… but in the worst possible way. This is some of the most terrible illustration work I’ve seen in the last few years. Every page is chock full of scribbled characters and objects with some colour thrown in. The characters are either too simple in presentation, or if they are detailed they look like, well…, more complex scribbles. Its like “How to Fail Comic Book Art School 101” or something. The action is utterly forgettable except for the laughable results from it. Heads seem to explode a lot in WW2 with teeth and eyes flying everywhere. As a big fan of zombie comics, I can safely say that gore doesn’t bother me one bit; but somehow these art guys totally fuck it up. Does that make sense? No? Okay, the battle scenes in Grunts are almost cartoonish in delivery, and not in any way good. The violence in the old movie Wizards is more shocking and compelling. The “hardcore war” panels remind me of these guys I knew in junior high that would doodle their own death metal album covers. Man, they sucked, but at least it was better than the art in Grunts. I hate to hate on anyone that works hard in this industry to bring what they love to life, but I have to be honest here, folks. To be completely fair, there are moments where it looks like the artists have some good ideas. I like the cigar. The cigar a character smokes at one point looks terrific. I think that’s it. There may be some other decent moments, but I decided to block out the art as a whole from my memory. Sorry.

(I must say that I like the cover-work for Grunts, though) 

The only thing that saves this book in any way from having  "1"s as a  score all around  is the snore-fest of a writing job (oh yeah, enjoy the "2", guys). It could have been worse—it could have been an appalling hack-job. The dialogue is too cliché, even for me! How is this possible?! I love World War 2 fiction of all kinds and I’m used to all that GI-speak; yet I was made to suffer through some of the most contrived, boring crap I’ve read in ages. Now, it’s not completely dreadful, mind you; it just makes the impact of a well pitched roll of dry paper-towels… thrown separately, one at a time. If the art was better, this would be a better comic, probably (totally, actually). The plot is standard factory press “I likes the Wolfenstein ” weird WW2 stuff (things are carnage as per usual then—POW! WEIRD!), and that’s okay since I dig the Wolfenstein videogames. However, perhaps there was too much “factory pressing”. At the end, I didn’t give one iota of a shit about this book. That’s lame, because I normally love stories like this; as long as they aren’t written in this manner.

Grunts #1 was a disappointment on many, many levels. This is the part where I predictably say something like “…but we’ll see what #2 brings”, “maybe it will improve” and other Optimistic Steve™ bullshit. Not this time. I can’t allow myself to read more of this dreck. I already subjected myself to the first issue twice, should I torment myself with future instalments? No. No way, no how. If I want some good World War 2 comics I’ll go read stuff like Fiends of the Eastern Front, G.I. Combat and Battler Britton , thanks.

(Update! The same writing team has come out with another title, Common Foe, that's great! Now -that- is what I'm talking about. Hey, even the most talented writers out there have their bad days/titles... and it's all a matter of opinion, anyway... I'm sure there are those of you who will enjoy Grunts.) 

Publisher: Image Comics / Raw Studios

Writing: Thomas Jane and Steve Niles

Art: Lewis Larosa and Tim Bradstreet; Grant Goleash (colours); Jason Hanley (letters). 

I was really excited to read this because I had heard that Tom Jane (a great actor) and Tim Bradstreet were involved. I was also a bit leary that Steve Niles was writing it, too, as I feel he's a bit overrated (but not terrible... just overrated). Bad Planet is about this thing that crash lands on Earth and it unleashes alien death spiders by the millions or something. That's the whole issue. Just the build-up to the arrival of the death-spiders. Apparantly, according to the preview in the back of the issue, an escaped prisoner from another galaxy is gonna show up to help the humies kick those uninvited guest's ass. But did it have to take the ENTIRE first issue of people putzing around goin' "OMG NearEarthObject ZOMG!" and giving us what might pass for witty banter half the time (and I'm being generous here)? Seriously, it took the whole issue to do what most comics have done just fine with 5 pages. 10 at the most (for those "Tolstoy types"). Points lost on that one, guys. The writing and ideas still seem good, though. And the art... well, the art is quite nice. The aliens look -awesome-. It all has a very nice feel to it. The pages are thick, too, which I like. I'm curious to see what's coming up next... But, I have to say again: should it take 7 pages to explain why/how a couple aliens lose their cargo (the death spiders, I'm assuming... and there was only a handful of lines!)???? If issue #2 ever comes out, I'll still check it out. I have to say, though, that I think Tom Jane could have done fine on his own writing a few issues of this. I mean, I could have pounded out this first issue in under 30 minutes script-wise. See? Overrated. Sorry, Mr. Niles, but it's true in some cases. However, to be fair, this is just the first book. And it has my interest, so that's a plus! Points gained.