Judge Dredd: The Pit

by John Wagner, Carlos Ezquerra (Illustrator), Mark Harrison (Illustrator)

This is another epic saga featuring Britain's home-grown superhero Judge Dredd. When Judge Dredd is sent to take over as chief of Sector 01 in the isolated North-West Hab Zone, its an unwelcome posting for him and his new charges.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Crime

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1997

About the author

John Wagner is a comics writer who was born in Pennsylvania in 1949 and moved to Scotland as a boy. Alongside Pat Mills, Wagner was responsible for revitalising British boys' comics in the 1970s, and has continued to be a leading light in British comics ever since. He is best known for his work on 2000 AD, for which he created Judge Dredd. He is noted for his taut, violent thrillers and his black humour. Among his pseudonyms are The best known are John Howard, T.B. Grover, Mike Stott, Keef Ripley, Rick Clark and Brian Skuter. (Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Owen Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dirk Magg's audio adaptation of the seminal 1980 Judge Dredd story, made in the mid-nineties to coincide with the Stallone film, is a real curate's egg. Aside from making Hershey a prominent character (presumably because of Diane Lane's turn in the film) it's pretty much identical to the comic which means it maintains its strange manic dark humour as well as some of the more tonally eccentric characters. The cast therefore feel justified in mugging it up quite wildly and it can be deeply cringy to be heard listening to. Not to mention it's a British production so there are bad US accents aplenty, strange impressions and even a Jonathan Ross reference. It was the style at the time. So yes, an admirable attempt to straight-up adapt a Dredd classic for the audio format - but hampered by both the awkward tonal shifts of the original story and the cluttered 90s production.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is superb Judge Dredd. John Wagner's police procedural treatment of the Dredd franchise is just brilliant. He's always known how to handle the big guy even from the very early days but this series just hangs together so well it's a winner from the start. And the art... Oh.... My.... God!!!! How can such carnage be so beautiful? Grudd stuff.

[Justin Klinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, this was the audio edition I listened to, which I couldn't find on the Goodreads list. It's a story of Judge Dredd being placed in charge of a section that's full of low quality Judges and rampant corruption. Dredd's only got a limited amount of time to try and turn it around.

There are several characters with interesting stories, and if you like the dark humor and style of other Dredd stories, you'll know this one's going to please as well.

I didn't fee it was *AS* good as some of the other audio stuff lately, so I gave it 4 stars. I would give it 4 and a half if I could. It's going to be hard for them to "wow" me as much as they did with America and Halo Jones. If you haven't heard / read those two stories, find them as soon as you can !

This was still really good, and worth your time.

[StrictlySequential ArtNarrative · Rating 2 out of 5]

1990 = £5.50

Reprints from early Judge Dredd.

The other Bargain-Bin-6er risk was worth the time and small sum. I got my Britishisms in word and story with sum gud ol' Uhmericun (Tixis) ridnick roasting and a few utter outrageousness laughs!

HOWEVER, the b&w art (different person and style than the cover) is terrible to my sensibilities but I guess I'm pretty spoiled and getting more snobbish by the away-from-home tome*.


*I've known for months now why people get upturned noses once they've gotten really deep into the delicacies of France and in this case Belgium. The ones I've read in English started it but the untranslated pile I've yet enter into the database (ugggggh.) fixed the nostrils high!

[Mike Jozic · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is just chaos. Ridiculous overacting, not great casting, hyper-condensed storytelling, and just noise and nonsense. Not sure what limitations they had to make this but the overall end product is just a mess. Later Dredd productions are FAR superior to this.

[Van · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very different than I thought it would be, but loved it nonetheless.

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining read reminiscent of Assault on Precinct 13 and Serpico

[D.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was most likely my first Dredd book, and that almost entirely because of Bolland's lovely comic-art work. While he's not a Great Artist, he's one of these guys who takes the standard technique of comic drawing and just tightens it beautifully.
The stories herein are okay. Dredd stories are really not my sort of thing: too brainless, too brutal, too silly. But this book introduces Judge Death, and the horror fan in me can only drool a bit at the sweet design parodying the Mega-City judges' uniforms in him. This is taken to an entirely new level with the Judge Death book's introduction of the Dark Judges.
I can't recommend this to anyone with tastes above your standard witless comic fare, but if you can buy ten superbooks a week, then you can probably enjoy this pap.

[bluetyson]

isbn,original

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have much of anything to say about this one either.