When I returned from my "1972 girl-driven hiatus from comic books" in the early 1980s, I'd expected the landscape to be "different", but not as radically different as I found it to be!
Gold Key (as a brand) was gone, replaced by Whitman which was an anemic shadow of Western Publishing's past glories! They didn't even publish on a regular schedule!
Charlton was on its last gasp, and not publishing anything that interested me anyway!
DC was still solid (with Batman leading the way, closely followed by Superman) and would continue to increase in my esteem as the eighties wore on!
I made the wondrous discovery of one of those newfangled "comic book shops" quite by accident in New York's Greenwich Village and became reacquainted with some dear old friends! These were two of the very first comics I ever purchased from one of those shops - Whitman and DC, of course!
But, with the lesser quality and unreliable release schedule of Whitman and my slow ramping up with DC, beyond Batman and Superman titles, I had my eyes open for something different -- and if there ever was a time for "something different", the '80s with its wildfire spreading of new publishers and titles, was it!
Working in "The Village" as I did at the time, I had access to several different comic shops in lunch-hour-walking-distance and took full advantage of it!
One of the best of that era was on the corner of Broadway (yes, THE Broadway) and (I believe) 12th Street. It was called "Forbidden Planet"...
...No, not THAT "Forbidden Planet"! This shop was some sort of (for lack of a better word) "extension" of a shop (or chain?) in England and, at the time, carried the widest variety of EVERYTHING! They might even still be in that neighborhood, though in a much smaller (and less extensively stocked) location. At least they were the last Pre-COVID times I regularly frequented The Village.
It was at Forbidden Planet that I made my first long-term commitment to a non-DC, non-Whitman title... JUDGE DREDD!
JUDGE DREDD began in issue #2 of the British newspaper-like comic book 2000 AD (March, 1977)... making it one of the few comics where #2 is probably worth MORE than issue #1!
First published in America in 1983 by an outfit calling itself Eagle Comics, Judge Dredd might not have truly taken America by storm, but remains one of the most successful British comic imports to this day.
The COVERS of the Eagle Comics were eye-catching in an over-the-top way, depicting Dredd obsessively and often violently enforcing The Law in outlandishly humorous ways!
But it was THIS ONE, JUDGE DREDD #7, that finally pushed me beyond just looking curiously at the covers and buying issues #1-7 in one glorious Forbidden Planet purchase!
I mean, how could it NOT?!
I was hooked somewhere between issues #1 and #2, long before reaching #7! In fact, sometime in the late '90s, I made a "TOP TEN" list of my favorite comic book stories and THIS wonderfully ambitious Judge Dredd story was the only Non-Disney, Non-DC story to make the cut!
So, I'll split the honors for Cover Number Seven between JUDGE DREDD #1 and #7 and give an overall award to EAGLE COMICS for bringing the character across the pond!
Be here tomorrow for... who knows what! Judge Dredd insists that you do!
And you DO NOT want to upset him!
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