I read the first 3 Age of Reptiles minis by Ricardo Delgado via the Age of Reptiles Omnibus on hoopla. The first series was from '93-'94 (Age of Reptiles a.k.a. Tribal Warfare), the second from '96 (The Hunt) and the third from '09-'10 (The Journey). There is a fourth mini, not included in the omnibus. I had been slowly putting together this run over the last 5 years, but I was still missing at least 1 issue form every mini, so when I saw this on hoopla, decided to read it there.




It is phenomenal, a tour de force of visual storytelling about dinosaurs and early mammals of the pre-historic age. And it is all visual storytelling. There is no lettering in these comics. No dialogue, no captions, no sound effects. Just pure storytelling through the artwork. And what art work. There is a clear stylistic development that can be seen in the changes in the art style between 1996 and 2009, but it is mostly in the coloring and not the line art.

Here's a few sample pages...







The narrative just flows well visually, so it feels like a quick read, but you can also just take in each panel absorbing all the details, the composition, the linework, the coloring, the majesty of it, especially on some of the bigger panels, full page panels and two-page spreads, so it can also be a very long read, or as I did, read quickly while absorbed in the story, then go back and just make my way though it slowly digesting all the art and appreciating all the masterful visual storytelling techniques Delgado puts on display. I need to track down the issues of Ancient Egyptians (the 4th mini) I am missing so I can check out that last mini.

If you like dinosaurs, this is a must read. If you appreciate visual storytelling, this is also a don't miss masterclass on that.

-M

Here’s another classic Dredd page:






This page confused me a tad because I was under the impression that there weren’t any lawyers in Dredd’s world. I thought the whole point of judges was that there was no longer a need for lawyers, jurors and trials.

I can’t say I remember lawyers in any other Dredd strip.

Or, is it the case that there are lawyers only on Luna-1?

I've read a few Dredd stories, and as much as I've enjoyed them, the dissonant tone leaves me a little cold. Sometimes it wants to be savage satire, sometimes it wants to be taken seriously. Sometimes Megacity-1 is just a Fascist state, sometime citizens talks about their rights.

And as you pointed out, it's not clear how the legal system is supposed to work. They go from "The Law Is Absolute" to "If we Judges break the law, it's all right." And as long as the stories want to be a satire, that's fine with me because it shows the hypocrisy of power. A little less when they want us to see Dredd as a fully formed character that we should empathize with.

Then at the level of the story universe it is ridiculous that the Judges manage the maintenance of public order AND the eventual wars with the other City-States. There are logical reasons if in real life the Police and the Army are two distinct entities. And one of the most obvious is that you simply save time in training, as they are doing two separate jobs.

I'm not sure Dredd has ever been written as a "character that we should empathise with" (at least, not in the late 70s and 1980s stories that I'm familiar with).

Though he's definitely sometimes couched in action-hero trappings, the thing that a lot of people misunderstand about Dredd is that you're not really supposed to like him. He's a bully-boy fascist for a Police State and not really a very nice person. I mean, the eagle motif on his shoulder and helmet alone is adapted directly from Nazi iconography. That's your first big clue, right there!

At its heart, the Judge Dredd strip is a deft mix of anti-authoritarian fable and darkly punk-influenced satire of late 20th century culture and society -- particularly British culture and society. Plus, there's also lots of deliciously black humour in the comic too.

Dredd himself is a deceptively simple character who is written in a way that goes way beyond a simple anti-hero; he is a deeply unsympathetic character who the reader nevertheless finds himself either rooting for or enjoying his exploits, instead of disliking the character. That's quite a feat for a writer to pull off well.

I don't want to be snobby and say something like, "American readers don't really get Judge Dredd", as a comic reading friend of mine is prone to insist. That's too much of a generalisation and smacks of gatekeeping. However, it is true that the strip is quintessentially British -- in spite of its U.S. setting -- and completely rejects the usual tradition present in American comics of encouraging readers to place their faith or even themselves in the role of the superhero at the centre of the story. That simply doesn't apply to JD and I think that sometimes confuses American readers. It's truer to say that, more often than not, the strip taught us kids of the late 70s and 80s to not trust figures of authority.

As for "If we Judges break the law, it's all right", I can't say that I recall that ever being the case (again, just based on the pre-1990s JD comics that I'm familiar with). If a Judge breaks the law, he's likely looking at a long stretch of prison time on Titan and, as driver1980 points out, there is the SJS (Special Judicial Squad), who conduct internal affairs investigations when a Judge is suspected of wrongdoing.

We’ve mentioned early Dredd strips having contradictions, Dredd’s world not being fully formed, etc. Well, here’s a police lieutenant in one panel (I thought all cops had been abolished in Mega-City One):