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Seems a bit ungrateful given all the great stuff we DO get (print edition of the complete 'Caballistics'!), but...

- Its weird that 'Ladykiller' hasn't been collected, given that every other PJ Maybe story has. How about this and 'The Son' in a Carlos Ezquerra tribute volume? Throw in that Dredd story with Johnny Alpha from Prog 2000, and it's perfect

- A colour reprint of JD Case Files vol. 11. I've been reading along with the Space Spinner guys, and the reproduction of those painted spreads... just won't do. 'Oz' in particular. I'll happily pay again!

- Savage Book 3. Looking increasingly hopeless, but you never know...

No rush: next year will be fine 

[Dredd]

Saw the thread was unbagged, and couldn't resist it...

This new run of stories makes me feel like a bit of a dick for complaining about the state of the Prog over on that other thread: it's amazing what a difference good Dredd and a bit of John Wagner make.

So it was disappointing that we only got two weeks of Judge Pin: but I was pleasantly surprised by Dredd this week. A good old-fashioned Mega-City slice-of-life one-off, where [spoiler]Dredd turns up and cubes everybody at the end[/spoiler]*. Nice! I'm not a huge fan of Paul Marshall's cartoony style (is this really the same guy who drew Firekind?), but for this kind of story it works pretty well.

Jaegir is always quality stuff, and this week is no different: wonderfully moody art, nice pacing. The sheer age of 2000AD enables Nu Earth to have the same legendary, historic feel for us, as it does for the characters, and gives this series real depth.

Sinister Dexter takes top spot for me, getting back to the ongoing story after a couple of fun one-offs. It's amazing how fresh this series still feels: Dan Abnett just keeps delivering! It's bringing out the best in Steve Yeowell too: his art seems re-energized to me after a period of being a bit bland.

"What's going on?" asks a character in Anderson this week. Good question: I have no idea, and not really interested enough to put more effort into figuring it out. But it's always nice to see David Roach in the Prog, although I think his stuff works better in black & white: on my iPad anyway, this is a bit too garish.

Great to have Strontium Dog back as a going concern, and I'm excited to see where this is going. This week, Johnny is in a Daily Mail readers' dream come true (where everything was perfect until the AU made them take in a bunch of immigrants), and we get some interestingly weird new villains. Seems like sacrilege to even say this: but does King Carlos seem to be phoning it in a bit here? Second rate Carlos still pretty good, though.

All in all, 4 out of 5. Good Prog.

* this is the least spoilery spoiler ever

Can't wait for this one. I missed out on the Hamlyn 'Doomsday' collections, and by my reckoning, we should get the whole thing here. Colin Wilson and Mike McMahon on high quality paper, and I seem to remember some nice Simon Davis art not in his usual style. And more Cam Kennedy!

Question is, what's the best way to present the 2000ad and Meg stories? In order of publication, even though that means mixing them up?  Or does it still make sense of you read one lot after the other? Can't remember well enough.

And can 'Volt Face' be squeezed in? This is the stuff I worry about...

First up, I'm far from being a prude: I enjoy creative swearing and violence as much as the next man: Tarantino, Scorsese, Garth Ennis (that guy has elevated swearing to a laugh-out-loud art form) - love it.

But looking at the letters page in Meg 372, mainly about (and supportive of) the bad language in, and general tone of, Realm of the Damned, I've got to disagree.

The tone of the editorial response is pretty much 'hey, aren't we cool?', and casually dismissive of anybody who has a problem with it (e.g. the 'Ban This Sick Filth!' headline for Stephen Watson's perfectly reasonable letter in Meg 370). They say it's not for everybody. It's also pointed out that the Meg comes in a bag.*

But this all spectacularly misses the point: we don't want to protect our children from 2000ad and Judge Dredd, we want them to read it.

Now, how much (cartoon) violence you're happy to expose children to is subjective, but something like Realm of the Damned... surely only a total cunt would let their kid read it?

And that's a problem.

Firstly, where is the future readership coming from? Do we want 2000ad and the Meg to die off with the middle aged people who grew up reading them? For an ongoing title, you need to keep bringing young readers on board - that's why you won't see any F-words or demons pissing blood in Batman or Captain America. For limited titles, go ahead - doesn't matter: the appropriate age group will pick them up.

Also, 2000ad / Dredd is a great way to fuel kids' imaginations: I firmly believe that picking up 2000ad at 12 years old changed my life (I remember the day vividly), and shapes the kind of things I read and watch for pleasure, to this day. And it's not like the stuff I was reading was juvenile or dumbed down: 80s 2000ad is some of the best comics ever written. Would Nemesis or Slaine or the Apocalypse War have been even better with some grittier language? That's what 2000ad does, brilliantly, so why stop doing it? **

Just to be clear, I'm not saying 'Ban This Sick Filth!' Realm could be published as a 'Goldtiger' format stand-alone, or a US format limited edition: no problem there.

But let's keep this stuff out of the main, ongoing titles.

Rant over! Interested in what other people think.

(I'd have put this in the Meg forum, but I guess sewer droids can't post in there...)



* To the bag argument, or if anybody feels the Meg should be for adults only, isn't there supposed to be an exciting cross-over Dredd event going on? OK, so the Meg side of it is turning out just to be another tale of fighting a bunch of generic bad guys in the Cursed Earth, that we've seen (perhaps literally?) a hundred times before: but that's not the point!

** Same problem with the Dredd movie, by the way: what is the bloody point of a Dredd film that a 14-year old can't watch? How is that representative of the strip? I don't think it's a co-incidence that the most 'adult' it ever tried to be - Heavy Metal Dredd - is also the most piss-poor. Something like Tour of Duty: now that is adult, and anybody can read it.

I reckon that the Wagner Dredds since DOC: Fallout (not including Dark Justice and Dead Zone), come to about 200 pages of high quality stuff. We need a collection badly. Wonder what the chances are?

And while I'm at it, how about Savage Vol 3? (Unless book 10 is planned to be the last, in which case I'll let you off)

(I realize this should be in the 'suggestions' forum, but there are very few places I'm allowed to post...)

Thanks!

The last time I tried this, I asked for a collected Button Man, and got it! So here goes...

Caballistics remains out of print, and even if you can track down copies, it's missing the last few episodes. Anybody know if there are any plans to rectify this heinous treatment of one of the best thrills of this century? Even a definite 'no' would free me up to settle for the incomplete digital version...

And while I'm at it, another Dredd volume collecting the best stuff since 'Day of Chaos: Fallout' would be nice. There's plenty of it!

(I know this should be in the 'Suggestions' forum, but for some reason I don't get 'new topic' and 'reply' buttons in there...)

Thanks!

I've been picking up a bunch of GNs to rebuild my collection, having been forced to ditch a lifetime's collection of progs recently. It's been great to catch up on some stuff I haven't read for years, but there are some gaps that badly need filling. So, on the offchance that somebody with influence is listening, here goes...

- Judge Dredd: The Gordon Rennie Collection. Reprinting the contemporary Wagner stories is obviously the right call, but Rennie has written some great stuff, and at this rate I could well be dead before the Case Files get round to it. Blood Trails, obviously, but there's plenty more to make up an excellent volume.

- Return to Armageddon. Just read Meltdown Man and it was a blast - pure nostalgia but, unusually, better than I remembered it from the time. RtA ran at about the same time, I think: good old-school thrills.

- Slaine and Dante early volumes (2 & 3) need reprinting. Or, we need follow-ups to the US editions of vol 1. What's going on with them? Nemesis vol 2 was promised but vanished. If I was a new reader, I'd be put off buying, say, the imminent Rogue Trooper vol 1, by the fact that it already seems unlikely to ever be continued...

- Complete Button Man, for the US market. 'From the writer of A History of Violence'. You know it makes sense! Same format and quality as that excellent Bad Company collection, would be nice.

- Speaking of the US market, I know I'm not the only person to get frustrated that America is being fed some of the worst ever Dredd stories just because they are by Morrison / Miller. I can understand the reasoning - but why not mix it up a bit? Put Crusade out if you must, with star names all over the cover, but why not sneak in a top-drawer Wagner story as back-up. Mandroid instead of Frankenstein Division - why not? Get them interested in the good stuff.

- More anthology editions, like the recent Terror Tales: that was a good idea. Clearly someone at Rebellion loves Massimo Belardinelli - and quite right too - so how about The Dead? Plus, say, Shadows and Tribal Memories. Nice package - Milligan's surely a big enough name to sell in the US.

That'll do for now. If somebody can just sort that lot out, I'll let you know if I think of anything else...