Dredd is the 2012 violent futuristic movie based on the violent futuristic comic strip running in the British science fiction anthology 2000 AD. The dystopian Judge Dredd feature was created by John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra using a heavy dose of satire to poke at state-sponsored authoritarianism. The comics fall into the ‘Grim Meathook Future’ vision of mankind’s tomorrows where mankind has peaked and is devolving into something else. Judges are the only instrument of the law, being empowered to instantly convict, sentence and execute offenders.

Dredd is an awesome little B-movie with a large budget and it’s fun for at least three reasons.

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Velvet, a new series by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting, is an exceptional Cold War thriller that deconstructs the secret agent genre. The art by Steve Epting and Elizabeth Breitweiser is slick, atmospheric and perfectly suited to the story which follows Velvet Templeton, a secretary in a fictional spy agency in 1970s London. When their top agent is murdered, Velvet asks a couple of questions about the investigation and soon becomes a target. A retired operative herself, she avoids the spies on her trail as she digs into the original murder case. Complete with a game of Bacarat and vintage champagne and a mercenary with a heart of gold, Velvet is fan service for the genre reader.

That said, the first story arc sets the scene for upcoming adventures and the unraveling of the big mystery. There are a lot of solid character moments and cliffhangers. But the first trade cuts off without a satisfying end, leaving a vaguely unsettled feeling. The first trade paperback was a story without a proper end. 

That nit pick aside, Velvet is solid spy craft.

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On Friday afternoon, the nice folks here at Cape Television took time off to go see the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. As I was sitting in the air-conditioned lobby of the Alamo Drafthouse, I texted a high school pal and told him I’d be seeing a film on opening weekend. His answer was short.

"Who is this? Really?"

The tic mark next to the Capitol City Comic Con had been on my calendar for months. Last weekend it rolled into Austin like a carnival, so I left the Cape Television bunker and drove down to the Palmer Center to see some old pals. The convention is a new one and I wanted to go to the first show. In most entertainment fields, the smart money wants to be the first to be second. In this case, if the turn out is good for the initial show, the positive chatter will spread and the next one will be much easier to get together.

People like a party.

As I was working on assembling the contents for the store here at Cape Television, I came across a curious fact. It’s hard to find a reasonably priced Wonder Woman trade paperback that’s more than a couple of years old. I’d like to stock those older comic stories, but most are out of print and over-priced. Comics should be accessible.