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30-plus years on, those Sov Judge names continue to be Total Cringe.

But thank goodness he fixed a minor story logic glitch absolutely nobody cared about.

No shout-outs, especially involving me. Just concentrate on what you volunteered for:

Two voting topics, one for last year's Dredd stories, the other for last year's Megazine Dredd stories. Don't keep them going too long; results within a few weeks of the beginning.

You've already started over-dramatising all this, but we know you can get it done. Less telling is about it, more cracking on with it.

2) As for the voting system; don't you worry about that, as I have a lovely surprise that I'm cooking up especially for you that I think you would like...

Whatever it is.....please don't. Just stick to the voting system being used on the other polls.  That one seems to work.

You got the Meg poll result completely wrong when you did it last year. Further improvisation may be a bold move.

There's 50 weekly progs a year with Dredd stories in them, and 12-13 Megazines.

This isn't 'a problem'. It's just calendar arithmetic. You're inventing a problem where there's none.

Maybe just stick to what already works, with separate polls for the prog and Meg Dredd stories?  And remember how the 1st/2nd/3rd vote preference system works?

That helmetless, face-changed Dredd from the very early progs was based on some actor too, iirc? Can't remember who though, or find the image.

Rondo Hatton.

I notice you didn't mention Judge Dredd, a much more ambiguous example. Whilst it's obvious to me that John Wagner never intended Dredd to be a "hero" in the conventional sense, I can see why some have interpreted it as a pro-fascist strip. I think the people who have written Dredd over the years have sometimes taken it for granted that people would disagree with Mega-City One's authoritarian politics.

Yes. Thanks to social media, we now know there's a portion of fans who either don't realise Dredd isn't supposed to be a hero, or just don't care. The more authoritarian and reactionary he is, the happier they seem to be.

I love Boo Cook's style, though I think sometimes the scripts he's given don't match it in tone.

The Siku Christianity thing - well, you learn something new every day.  Lucky he wasn't given that Robin Goodfellow one to paint. Definite burn-in-hell material there.

Last I saw, he'd got into a very right-wing, Trump-supporting mode of Christian belief...

On the above, hence my earlier thinking that I didn't really consider this a template for Regened. Maybe some of the concepts might work, but mostly I felt like the stories had legs in and of themselves for 2000 AD. Probably not taking over the whole Prog, but one of them now and again running as a full series could be good.

Would deffo like to see more Indiana Easy.

Mate, it would basically just be the same story over and over again. (Kinda like the original Battle strip....)

I wrote it, and I don't see much mileage in it as a continuing story. And the suggestions about it being suitable for Regened are just bizarre.

Yes, it passed the 'longer than anyone' milestone about 10 years ago.

But, as I keep hearing online and on podcasts, their mismanagement really is running the comic into the ground.

It's almost like he very transparently has an axe to grind with 2000AD editorial not recognising his awesome scriptdroid skills.

So the problem is a throwaway joke ref in a Tharg story, where the comic reallly is edited by an alien?

Got it.

I liked this but it kicked off my inner pedant, a little nagging voice that kept saying that if Battle had been merged into 2000AD in 1982 then none of the featured strips would have made the cut.

My inner pedant chafed more at the Spielberg reference. Raiders of the Lost Ark came out in 1981.

And this What If merger happens in 1982 or 83.  The set-up Tharg story even begins 'Another 1982'.

Not sure what problem you're highlighting here.

Another successful example of what I have come to term 'The Chum & Switch" where Shark either overtly or (more likely) vaguely yet not so subtly implies an argument for one things (apparently in this instance deep state agents are paradropping into Maui to kidnap up to a thousand children to ensnare into indentured sex work) and when he gets push back dials it back to being apparently about an entirely different matter(s) and leans on a wobbly understanding of clauses and shady web links.

Must be a day ending in Y.

All very true.

However, his current descent into Poundshop QAnon drivel - "1000s of fictional children are missing, and all we want to talk about is a prominent conspiracy theorist sexual predator!" - is quite something.

Not sure I'd call him a right winger

Then you've not been paying attention.

Recent guests on his podcast include Republican presidential candidate crazies Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, right-wing crazy agitator Candace Owens and perennial right-wing snake oil salesman Jordan Peterson.

As far as I know, he doesn't host any similar figures from the left.

No matter where he was 10 years ago, he's now firmly entrenched in the GB News/conspiracy theory end of the spectrum, because, frankly, that's where the easy Scam Money is.

And, let's say, you were a devious and manipulative narcissist who knew you had done a bunch of nasty shit that was going to catch up with you one day? Well, that market comes ready with a mass of rubes and apologists who'll come charging out at the first mention of MeToo or 'cancel culture' to defend you.

I got mine today but not 2000 AD. Does it make any odds if I read the Meg before 2000 AD this time? The stories aren't linked, are they?

As far as I know, no — it's not like the zombie specials, where there was an overarching plot.

In the Meg, the Dredd story and Darke's Mob are linked; set in the same alt.continuity, with the Dredd setting up the other story.

In the prog, I think my Major Eazy story and Arthur Wyatt's Hellman of Hell Force share the same Evil Occult Nazi Organisation, but it's not a super-important detail.

But, no, there's no overarching story, unlike last year.