Judge Anderson original art

Falling outside of the 1968-1978 remit of this site, but Judge Anderson almost made it within that bracket, and i'm dead pleased with it, so:

Been a fan of Dave Taylors work since his work on Dark Horse's "Tongue Lash" and knew he was going to be doing an Anderson tale for the Megazine from his previews on his Blog.
When it arrived it didn't disapoint - an old school Mega City tale involving sentinent buildings getting up and smushing stuff.
And the art was top notch. Dave is excellent at both inticate machinery and the female form and this strip showed both off brilliantly.
So, dead chuffed to get this page. I wanted this one in particular as the final panel is an excellent example of what i'm talking about - a stunning Anderson giving off loads of attitude in front of a very detailed city (the panel itself is relatively small but the amount of tight, tiny detail is astounding).

Action - 28th August 1976

Got this rather yellowing copy off eBay a couple of weeks ago and - yet again - its a case of "they did this for kids????"

From the off the tone is set with Steve McManus rolling out an anecdote of the Editor popping in and offering him a cigar. "Can't stand the things" replies our Steve, "But if you line me up a bit of crumpet..."

Hmmmm...

On to Dredger and some quite nice art - a change as by this point its usually gone right down the dumper. Its amazing how a complete, self-contained story can be done in just 3 pages but here we get a Chinese garden of death, a double cross, a shoot out in a Mall and a show down back in the garden.

Lovely art from Belardinelli, still unsuited to the rather dull story. For me a case of studying the art and ignoring the script.

Appalling art on Hookjaw and a very silly script - the big fella is stunned by a bomb blast, Mason and two others tie him up (while holding their breaths) but then he's woken up by bubbles rising from a lava fissure. Oh dear.

And pretty duff on Hellman, although the story's a good one.

Bit of a let-down issue.

"Aieeee!" Watch:

A 100% spot-on makes an apperance in Dredger, along with a rather protracted "Aaaiiieeee!" as the bad guy falls into the spike pit (must've been a long drop).

Two guys in one of Hellman's tanks buy it, one with a shortned ""Aieee!", the other with a longer "Aieeeeee!".