Dredd: Judge, Jury, Executioner

In fall of 2012, one of the most awaited films of recent years debuted to audiences all over the world. Following on seventeen years since the Sylvester Stallone-starrer Judge Dredd, which was a massive disappointment, audiences finally had a Judge Dredd movie which actually looked cool from all the promos and which seemed to correct the mistakes of the past. Sadly, nothing worked out as intended. Whereas the previous film had at least made back some of its money and more besides, the new one failed to recoup its investment in the first place, and the budget was even half of what it had been before.

No doubt, several mistakes were made with the new movie, and they all contributed to what was eventually a box office flop. But since then, Dredd has gained a significant cult following. Whereas the theatrical release was a flop affair, the DVD/Blu-ray sales were highly encouraging. Stores, whether physical or digital, were constantly out of product. This was unexpected and on some level, this helped change perspectives. Now, there are talks of a sequel happening at some point, which is quite significant in and of itself. I can only hope that there is a sequel, because I enjoyed the movie. I pretty much loved it. Watch it with my highest recommendation.

Comics Picks of The Week 11.12.2013

Looks like its going to be the month of busy weeks. The last two weeks I’ve read two graphic novels each along with all my regular monthlies and this past week proved to be no different. Both Detective Comics Volume 4 and The Flash Volume 4 proved to be exceedingly good and now I have two more series that I need to catch up on for the New 52. Tall order, but doable. And as regards the usual monthlies, there were comics across the board, in all sorts of ways: genres, publishers, characters, etc, etc. The year has slowly transformed over the months into a really solid year for comics overall.

I still haven’t made any dent in the pile of graphic novels I have to read, but I’m not too worried about any of it, to be honest. Already used to that phenomenon from my novel reading.

Anyway, here’s another edition of this new feature. Full reading list, as always, is available here and all my comics reviews are available here.

Best of 2013 Part 1

I did two “Best of the…” lists last year, one for the half-year from January to June, and the other for the half-year from July to December. The lists proved to be quite popular, and I was recently asked if I was going to be doing any more. To which I said yes. I like putting together lists like this. It gives me a chance to reflect a bit on all the good stuff I’ve been reading in novels and comics, or listening to in terms of audiobooks, audio dramas and so on.

You can check out my top-of-the-month lists on my Reading Awards page and this list is both an extension, and a continuation of what goes on there.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!

Advent Reviews Day 13: Judge Dredd #1 by Duane Swierczynski

This year has seen me become quite the fan of the Judge Dredd franchise, from the movie to the audio dramas. I have a novel omnibus sitting on my desk, and I just recently finished reading the first issue of the new Judge Dredd comics being released by IDW Publishing, who are one of my favourite comics publishers. Judge Dredd himself has turned into one of my favourite characters ever, because of his personality, his attitude, and the entire mythos that’s been built around him over all these years. Duane Swierczynski’s comics are just one more outlet for all that goodness.

Another Milestone, Holy Crap!

So yeah, this was a bit lowkey all of yesterday and today, but I just realised how much of a big deal this really is for me: my first ever interview is live at “A Fantastical Librarian”, run by my friend Mieneke van der Salm, one of the most voracious readers and on-point bloggers I know. I mean, seriously, I never thought that anybody would ever want to interview ME! Know what I mean? It’s a bit surreal at the moment. Hope you all enjoy the interview, where I talk about my inspiration behind blogging, my thoughts on negative reviews and the developing SFF scene in the Middle East.

Thanks once again to Mieneke for hosting me for her Blogger Query series, which has been a blast to read all through recent months. She also hosted a guest review by me today, Dreddline by James Swallow, which is a Judge Dredd audio drama from Big Finish.

*Rocking it out*

Advent Reviews Day 6: I Love Judge Dredd by Jonathan Morris

Welcome to Day 6 of Advent Reviews, where I bring to you a Judge Dredd audio drama this time. This is actually the second Judge Dredd audio drama review by me, the first was written two days ago for a guest spot on A Fantastical Librarian, where I was interviewed yesterday (my first interview!), and will be going up tomorrow (edit: slight snafu by me here, the review is already up here). The reason I’m mentioning is to skip the usual intro stuff I write, explaining how I got into a franchise like this. Suffice to say that I’m quite the fan of Judge Dredd and that these audios by Big Finish are just plain excellent overall.

Advent Calendar 2012

My apologies that this is going out so late, but the whole idea was a very spur of the moment thing so I couldn’t get this ready in time.  Just to recap, this page will link to all the Advent Reviews that go up this month, whether on this blog, on The Founding Fields, or to the guest spots I’ve arranged with some blogger friends. Enjoy, and let me know what you thought about all these stories! I would have made the whole thing snazzier, but can’t figure out how to do side-by-side content in WordPress! Click on the links to go to the reviews.

Best of the Best Part 1

Twitter has been buzzing lately with “best of the year so far” and “most anticipated lists”. Looks like everybody and their fictional cat is on the bandwagon. So I thought I’d do one too, a “best of the half-year” list that is. I mean why not, I’ve read so much good stuff this year that it all deserves recognition anyway. I already do a top-of-the-month list anyway, as you can see on the Reading Awards page, so this should be good fun either way.

Let’s see what makes the cut and which comes close then!