The joint winners of the 33rd said competition - Messrs Skullmo and eamon1961 - have put their heads together and come up with this festive charmer for your yuletide delectation.
Our competition theme this time is: 'twas the Prog before Christmas.
And the kicker is: submissions should preferably be in the form of poems.
Boo-yah - you weren't expecting that, were you!? Mwa ha ha ha. (Power? Getting to me? Never!)
Extra credit for polysyllabic rhyme and for brevity. Closing date: let's say four weeks from now. 23:59 on Christmas Eve. We'll vote over Christmas - ho ho ho!
Getting in early with a slice of Dickensiana.
A Grudmas Carol
A ghost stalks the streets of mega city one,
Her appearance fills my heart with dread.
She wears the marks of her former rank
And chains all around her bearded head.
As I tossed and turned in bed last night
She glided through my chamber door.
She told me I would be visited by three ghosts
First a spirit of mega-city from days before
Within the hour the phantom appeared
A blue skinned Judge with ghastly fangs
He told me tales from our city's past
Of whacky wobots and crazy punk rock gangs.
Of how we chased the flying surfers
And rescued creatures from an alien zoo.
The city was mostly black and white
But, oh, the things we used to do.
Then that blue ghost left me
As so many others have done before,
But soon I heard a fearsome knocking,
A ghostly rapping at my chamber door.
The second spirit of the night
Was gaunt and scarred and tall.
He showed me plague and apocalypse wars
And we watched the mega blocks fall.
I stood in the ruins of the here and now
Missiles flew and the bodies piled up high.
Chaos reigned over everything
And dark clouds filled the sky.
The last spirit I feared the most,
A cloaked figure who did not need to knock.
He showed me the city yet to be,
And delivered a future shock.
I saw the shape of things to come
As we learned how to live without him.
The city's defender no longer there,
A future dark and grim.
"Spirits!" I cried, "I've seen enough.
I know what we must do.
I'll make sure this Grudmas counts.
I will see this through."
And so I don my Chief Judge's shield
And I rise up from my bed.
To save my city I will tell the five
We have to clone Judge Dredd.
(Yes, I know there are already clones about ;) )
Here's my entry for the 2010 Christmas thread :lol:
I'll come up with another over the next few days too ;)
(http://i857.photobucket.com/albums/ab132/shutendogi/dredd-navidad-poema-2.jpg)
Hello all: just to let you know, I'm changing the closing date of the competition!! It will now be midnight on Sunday 22nd December.
So get rhymin'.
everybody too busy wrapping for any rapping?
too much good timing for any rhyming?
Bugger! I didn't notice the change in closing date. I've just finished mine... Here is is anyway and I don't expect it to be included in the voting.
To the tune of 'Ding! Dong! Merrily on High'
Judge Dredd, Anderson and I
Were walking through the city.
Judge Dredd looked up at the sky.
And said it was a pity.
Gruddamn! "The sky it is on fire!"
Cassie looked me in the eye.
"Joe has lost his mind now!
Those aren't flames up in the sky,
They look like flying brown cows!
Gruddamn! It could be Father Christmas!"
Santa came down to the ground.
He gave us all some gifts then.
Joe gave him twenty years to serve
And an extra ten for smuggling.
Gruddamn! And I said "Happy New Year!"
Thankew!
OK, so poetry is not the Forum's thing... (Oddly enough, when we had a limerick competition, we were inundated...)
Anyhoo: would you like me to set up a voting thread or are you happy to just cast your votes on here? Once we've resolved this one, I really will have to hand over the comp to someone else though (I'll do my best to actually enter though!)...
Not really enough entries to vote. Why don't we just start a new theme for they new year?
If needs be I can take over my old role as Short Story Comp Dictator.
I have what I feel is a good idea to reboot the comp: "Tales of the Citi-Def". Anything goes, just involve...well, the Citi-Def. Let me know if you need me to carry this on, Lady Fest.
I just read these - they were all great!
Quote from: locustsofdeath! on 06 January, 2014, 01:19:49 AM
If needs be I can take over my old role as Short Story Comp Dictator.
I have what I feel is a good idea to reboot the comp: "Tales of the Citi-Def". Anything goes, just involve...well, the Citi-Def. Let me know if you need me to carry this on, Lady Fest.
LOCUSTS!!!!! Welcome back to the Comp page! We missed you :-)
And yes please.... Bluemeanie has also offered to help out, so it'd be great if you could look after it between you. You might want to check with the rest of the thread if they're happy for you to bring a theme or would prefer a random selection from this month's entries to pick something, but otherwise, it's over to you :-)
I think the 'Tales of...' Idea is a good idea but, personally, would prefer a different 'last word' each month...
Tales of the Citi-Def: The Girl from 14B
We are a tight unit, the Monty James Citi-Def. Not like those drokkers from Sue Hill block. We have the right training, the right kit, and we have a code. We're the good guys who do the right thing, and didn't go in for the petty squabbles that wrecked other units on chaos day.
The Hall of Justice gave us just one Jay and one cadet. We worked through the block floor by floor and on each level the Judge read the riot act, or the warning to the furious as old Miller called it. Then we started our sweep: terminating the sick, testing the healthy, and tipping the bodies over the balconies into the catch nets. It was rough.
We were on level 27 and Judge Straub had stopped us for a 5 minute break. I heard Miller call out "Hey, Miss. You shouldn't be out here".
I turned around and saw a young girl of about 12 wearing pyjamas. The hallway was filled with blood, smoke and broken glass. It was not a safe place for a child to be wandering around barefoot. Miller moved towards her with his hands open and empty. As he stepped in front of me I lost sight of her.
Miller stopped, "Huh! Where did she go?" The corridor was empty again. We checked the corners and the stairwells but found nothing. Straub pulled us back on track, "Can't waste time looking for one child. We've got a job to do."
Two floors up and she was there again, standing and pointing silently upwards. Straub waved his gun and told her to stay where she was, but then the light must have tricked me or some smoke covered her because she just faded from view.
It was on level 30 that we finally tracked her down. She was standing outside the door to 14B, and for the first and only time she spoke, "He's behind the door. He knows you are coming. He's so angry."
And then she was gone again. The Jay spoke briefly to his cadet and they used a shaped charge which hurled the door back into the apartment. Straub was fast but the red eye was still a handful, the cornered ones always were. I managed to grab the guy from behind and then the Cadet finished the job with a single shot..
Amidst the wreckage were the signs that a happy family had once lived here. We found the wife in one bedroom, and in the other the little girl. The crazed red eye had killed them both.
"That's her." I said. Straub reckoned we were just confusing one child with another but all the MJs knew the truth.
We still see her from time to time. A glimpse in the corner of an eye, a fleeting reflection in a window. She doesn't mean us any harm, in fact she's a sort of mascot now, but not one that we like to talk about.
I don't know what is going on anymore :(
Nice one but I don't think we've started yet! :lol:
Yeah, I jumped the gun. Hopefully one of the competition droids will start a new thread.
Quote from: eamonn1961 on 14 January, 2014, 07:54:24 PM
Yeah, I jumped the gun. Hopefully one of the competition droids will start a new thread.
You're just kicking [someone] in the pants. If a new thread isn't started soon, I'll go ahead and get one going. Nice first entry, btw :D.
We need a prize for encouragement. Would the Dredd prose book publishers do it? Maybe a second prize for a random voter as well to encourage that as well?
Publication in the Megazine! That should be the prize :D
I agree! The 'problem' as far as the story comp goes is that it's not 'immediate' like the art comp! I thought a 2000adshop voucher would be cool but publication is even better...
It's not being published, I know, but I've got a 'Day of Chaos: Endgame' TPB signed by Mr Willsher that I'll happily donate as a prize...
I emailed the big bosses and have secured prizes, one for the winner and one for a voter, as it needs to be encouraged.
Tales From Citi def seems like a good shout, so I have gone ahead and started it off, and am happy to oversee the voting thread etc.