Judge Dredd Megazine Volume 4
The Megazine had been going for more than a decade by the time we got here, but it was still capable of delivering a surprise or two. This run in particular, the first volume to start under the ownership of Rebellion, was loaded with puzzling choices.
First, it changed size to a “prestige format” (?) that was taller and thinner than any seen before. This created an instant problem (which they MUST have realized up front), since all artwork created for the new page size would clash with reprints. The repercussions were instantly obvious by another strange decision…
The pages count went up and the cover price went with it, which was fine since the quality took a jump as well, but half of the content consisted of reprints from the early years of 2000AD. Back then, the pages were closer to a square format. That created HUGE empty margins above and below (like vertical letterboxing) that got filled up with banners (below left). You could see this experiment develop over subsequent issues when the art was cut apart or extended to fill that space (below right, extensions highlighted), which created obvious alterations.
This was the exact same tampering we witnessed when 2000AD reprints came to the US and ran into conflict with the more vertical shape of American comics, and it didn’t look good then, either.
Another odd thing was that the name Judge Dredd became conspicuously smaller on the cover. Now it was MEGAZINE. Each issue contained seven features, less than half of which featured Dredd or took place in his world. In other words, it was becoming another version of 2000AD. This wasn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t the original plan. The reprints were fine, but were definitely NOT related to Judge Dredd. Then they brought in Hellboy for a few issues, which was super weird. So the question that hung over the whole effort (for me) was why the Megazine was being diluted. Month after month, I saw no apparent answer.
On the other hand, this volume only last 18 issues (a year and a half) before the next big shift, which addressed some of these points. Meanwhile, the 7th feature was a text series by veteran editor David Bishop called Thrill Power Overload that delivered a candid, unvarnished history of 2000AD. It continued on past Volume 4 to end up in a collected book covering the first 30 years (published in 2007). A later edition (2017) extended it to 40.
