Posted in: Comics | Tagged: 2000ad, Comics, entertainment, hachette, judge dredd

Judge Dredd Goes Partwork

Published Thu, 04 Sep 2014 08:00:30 -0500

Last updated Tue, 27 Dec 2022 16:09:32 -0600

The British, and regular non-British readers of this site, should be familiar with the concept of the "partwork". A large body of work, chopped up into bite sized portions, serialised as a magazine and sold through British newsagents. How to build a ship in a bottle, the history of the Romans, a guide to Star Trek, fly fishing, any subject is a possible target for a partwork. Usually beginning in January, when people are full of New Year's Resolutions, sales usually atrophy and the publisher's main concern is to switch as many readers on to a subscription model, this locking them in for the duration of the partwork. If not, the publication could just cease half way through and you are left with half a model Roman Villa and you didn't even get to the sexy bits in the magazine.

A few years ago, something changed. And Eaglemoss discovered a far larger audience for it's Marvel lead figurines. They were a roaring success in US comic stores and, after fighting US customs over the legality of toys made of lead, they found a place in every comic store, lasting far longer than originally planned, spinning ff into a DC line, a chess line and more. Hachette began to produce Marvel hardcover graphic novels as part of a line that is still going – especially since due to licensing deals they don't have to pay any creator royalties. The partwork had found a new business model.

Well, now it's time for a British comics character to seize a bit of that action. Hachette are publishing the complete partworks of Judge Dredd, being serialised right now as The Mega Collection.