Written by John Smith
Art by Steve Yeowell, Colin MacNeil and Jock
Cover by Greg Staples
DC Solicitation: The Vatican's finest supernatural investigator is back! Following his conversion to vampirism, Devlin has retired. But now that something terrible from his past is coming, he's back in action! Featuring never-before-seen art by red-hot artist Jock (THE LOSERS)!
On sale Feb 16 [2005] (delayed to March 9) o 7.375" x 10.1875" o FC, 240 pg. $19.95 US
This volume reprints: (presumed)
Chasing Herod, 8 episodes plus prologue, progs 1149-1157 (June to Aug. 1999). Story by John Smith, art by Steve Yeowell and D'Israeli.
Reign of Frogs, 9 episodes plus prologue, progs 1158-1167 (Aug. to Oct. 1999). Story by Smith, art by Yeowell and D'Israeli.
Sirius Rising, 8 episodes, progs 1168-1173 (Nov. to Dec. 1999). Story by Smith, art by Yeowell and D'Israeli (3 episodes in 1173).
Red Tide, 12 episodes and prologue, Judge Dredd Megazine 201-213 (Jan. to Dec. 2003) (pt 12 double-length). Story by John Smith, art by Colin MacNeil.
Commentary: For those who've come late to the character, Devlin Waugh is an adventurer in the Judge Dredd universe. He's an occult investigator, gay, witty, enormously strong and resourceful, who abuses steroids and is also a vampire.
The second DC collection of Devlin Waugh devotes most of its page count to a mammoth epic called "Sirius Rising," a tour-de-force which ran through three separately-titled stories over 25 weeks in 1999. This wonderfully moody story, which owes some small debt to The Maltese Falcon, introduces Devlin's remarkable mother and details how Devlin's vampirism was "outed" to the world, in a manner not entirely unlike that which befell George Michael in the late 1990s!
The book takes its name from the story "Red Tide," which appeared in the Judge Dredd Megazine in 2003. The monthly format did not do the story any favors; its manic battle against vampires would have worked better in weekly episodes, but it reads astonishingly well collected, and Colin MacNeil's artwork is fantastic. "Red Tide" was originally scheduled to be drawn by Jock, and some of his pages are collected here.
This will probably be the last Devlin collection for the forseeable future. The character has appeared in one further Dredd crossover (the first two are in Swimming in Blood, the first volume) and one single-episode story in the last twelve months, but while more stories are planned, it will probably take quite some time to build up the page count for another DC edition.