The Niemand Tapes

[Link Prime]

This charade does not become us.

[Funt Solo]

Mornington Crescent.

[Colin YNWA]

Finally finsihed the rest of the intervierw and while I might bemoan the unravelling of what was a fun little bit of intrigue that's more than made up for by the news of how much stuff the now less mysterious Kenneth Niemand has lined up, including a Chimpsky solo stuff. FANTASTIC stuff. Very excited to see what the character does beyond the shackles of a Dredd tale.

When was the last time a character got their own series coming off a Dredd role? I guess we had Max Normal recently, but that wasn't a new character and had had stories before.

Also seem that MegaTropolis is getting traction too AND sounds like plenty of Dredd coming to.

Excellent stuff.

[Proudhuff]

Especially after the Gordon slip the other week.

Eh?

[TordelBack]

Initially wasn't too keen on the idea of solo Chimpsky, I think the Dredd strip itself benefits from periodic appearances of a popular recurring antagonist, and too often spinoffs dump good supporting characters into fairly mediocre stories (DeMarco, Francisco, Orlok, Hershey, Mean, Chopper, dare I say quite a lot of Anderson).

However, the difference here is that this is Niemand's character, and not a Wagner/Grant cast-off*, and as a non-murderous lawbreaker the number of times Noam can share a strip with Joe is very finite (it was getting, um, hairy there even the second time). I'd argue that the most enjoyable Dredd solo spinoffs are Jacob Sardini and Chopper (when written by Wagner), Marauder (written by Morrison) and early Anderson (written by Grant), so those are good precedents for Chimpsky (Millar's Janus is the exception that proves every rule, and I suppose the recent Dark Judges renaissance (remortance?) serves as the counter example).


*If Wagner is finished with a character, there's probably a good reason to leave them be.

[TordelBack]

Especially after the Gordon slip the other week.

Eh?

PJ referred to his collaborator on Chimpsky as Gordon on his livestream. But like I say, plenty of less bilious Gordons out there, maybe some of them write for computer games too.

[Proudhuff]

ah...

[GordonR]

Especially after the Gordon slip the other week.

Eh?

PJ referred to his collaborator on Chimpsky as Gordon on his livestream. But like I say, plenty of less bilious Gordons out there, maybe some of them write for computer games too.

PJ said no such thing, but never mind.

Kenneth N and I have the same video game writing agent, and have worked together on one and a bit games.  I imagine I'm one of the 1-2 2000AD writers he said he knew.  He also said another 2000AD writer came up with the name Noam Chimpsky. Can you guess who that might be?

There. Now you can stop pedanticising this to death.

[Colin YNWA]

It was Molch-r who said Gordon. And we nerd fans the pedanticising will never cease lovely shiny Gordon.

[TordelBack]

Ah,  sorry was confused, thought I remembered it from PJ's excellent Twitches - brain not what it was, not that it was ever much. And no, absolutely no chance of dialing back the pedantry, but it's all in good fun. Can't expect the readers of a comic with an alien editors to pass up silly speculation on a pseudononymous prodigy.

EDIT:

I think the reaction "this new guy is so good, he must be Rennie in disguise" was only ever a positive. But these interesting factoids assist, many thanks!

Edit: if I'm honest, I'm delighted that there is another name in the Dredd lineup, and not just a masked regular.

[Funt Solo]

My mental nerd cave is collapsing. Pseudo-Ken isn't Ken? Actor voice from interview is real "Ken"? Pedantic GR doesn't like our pedantry? Slarty var. Don't know what to believe. Is this keyboard real?

[Proudhuff]

[TordelBack]

Shit, must be true.

[Colin YNWA]

the chilling truth we have to face is - are we all real? Or are we creations of GRennie designed to come up with fanciful fan theories for him to rally against in charming fashion?

Are you real? Am I real?

[Richard]

I agree with everything Tordelback said.

I'm delighted to hear we're going to get six episodes of Niemand and Tom Foster on Dredd!