Brendan McCarthy (1) (1955–)

A great collection of Alan Moore's early work for 200AD. Mostly very short and sharp stories from the Future Shock thread. Normally with a sting in the tail. Also includes Time Twisters and Abelard Snazz which is mental fun.

This second volume of collected Judge Dredd strips from the pages of 2000 AD is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it includes "The Cursed Earth" cycle, possibly the greatest adventure in the history of the character. "The Cursed Earth" features spectacular artwork from the amazing Mike McMahon, and a Pat Mills script that is almost as good. Unfortunately, the rest of the contents of this volume represents mediocre work at best, both in terms of lackluster artwork and story lines that are either show more just plain dull ("The DNA Man") or bloated and tedious ("The Day The Law Died"). Still, Mike McMahon's work on "The Cursed Earth" is truly something to behold... show less

This volume reprints Oz, as well as a few other short stories (including an early Democracy storyline). Oz isn't my favourite of the long stories and the long, long race section is a bit tedious by the end.

This edition has some problems. It's a thick volume, so quite a lot gets lost in the gutter, making some dialogue unreadable. At this stage 2000AD was printing Dredd with the first two pages in colour, but these have been printed in greyscale here. Quite a lot of detail gets lost in the show more process. Subsequent volumes switch to full-colour printing on better quality paper. show less

Early Alan Moore. The Future Shocks themselves are of mixed quality with a few standouts, but I found the real gems to be in the Time Twisters also included in the collection. The use of time as a plot device has seldom been used to better effect.