Not sure if it's me or the prog...

[13school]

When I first started reading Dredd (at the beginning of City of the Damned), for years I wished there was more continuity and backstory to Dredd - I wanted more stories about the Judges and how they worked rather than stories of Dredd fighting crime solo and dealing with wacky citizens.

Ironically, now that the kind of stories I wanted as a teenager have increasingly become the norm for Dredd (or at least, much more common than they were around progs 400-600), I wish Dredd would go back to dealing more with wacky citizens and fighting crime. For mine a large part of his appeal is that he's a (future) cop - dealing with regular (for MC1) crime needs to be something he returns to on a regular basis.

[Smith]

Random thought-I would like to see a bit more horror stories in the prog.

[JLC]

Having returned to the prog a couple years baclk I'm enjoying it but wish it would be more daring & more diverse. I think it relies a bit too much on nostalgia. There appears to be zero attempt at attracting new readers.

[Richard]

I don't see that. We've had new strips as well as old ones in the last two years. Hope For The Future, Counterfeit Girl, Brink for example.

[Steve Green]

Me neither.

The Order
The Alienist
Hope
Counterfeit Girl
Brass Sun
Brink
Helium
Kingmaker
Survival Geeks

Hardly zero, seems to be a wide spread to me.

[JLC]

Maybe. Counterfeit Girl is great . Maybe its me, I just find a lot of stories are of a certain type that I can read in a lot of other comics. Maybe its just that other comics are finally catching up with what 2000AD have been doing all along?

[Magnetica]

Yeah I don't get that either.

The new stories for me are very strong, some, beyond what I thought possible in as much as they are as good as the "classics".

For me the only problem is the gap between books.

[TordelBack]

Interesting to review my own reactions to those strips:

The Order - absolutely love it, surprised if anyone can point to a similar comic on the market.
The Alienist - haven't seen enough to judge, but it didn't wow me straight off.
Hope - very promising and lovely looking, if not wildly original
Counterfeit Girl - loved the art, story and particularly structure didn't do much for me
Brass Sun - stylish, engaging, enjoyed the change in direction in the last outing, which seems like a long time ago now.
Brink - just a top ,top thrill, gripping stuff: oh to be able to write like Dan Abnett.
Helium - lovely designs but just too samey, I'm afraid.
Kingmaker - deeply dubious until past the halfway point, but then fell for it completely. Aerial battles with dragons and elves with one-use wings, what can I say...
Survival Geeks - this one seems like an old staple at this point! I Iike it fine, art is spectacular.

Also newish:

Black Shuck - second series was much  better, still needs to find its feet
Aquila - didn't think the most recent Spanish story worked, but the previous Rome-based stuff was great.
Absalom - instant classic from the start, again not wildly original, but Best of Breed.
Ulysses Sweet (effectively new) - very entertaining, looks great too.

So that's some veey strong material - at least 5 classics, the rest rock-solid or not quite there yet for me. And that's ignoring the spinoff stuff like Hunted, Orlok and Deadworld.

[geronimo]

Ok, I'm going to say the unsayable, from the highly qualified position of having just returned to the GGC at the 40th anniversary.
Sorry to all who will be offended by this but here goes.......
The prog needs a new editor.(Runs for cover)
Matt has been there for 16 years and the signs are showing; the art, writing, attitude, social conscience and humour of the prog are all flat, they feel burnt out.
He's a good man, is well liked, but he needs a rest from the comic conveyor belt for a wee while just to recharge his batteries.
Nothing is too bad, but it is all a bit empty.
If I was King Tharg I'd give Garth Ennis (or some such standard of illumini) a call and offer him a chance to edit the prog for a couple of years with Matt as assistant editor.
But another thought is this......
Would the 10 year old me in 1977 have bought a comic entitled '1960AD'?
Of course not.

[The Adventurer]

If we were to get a new editor I'd much rather it be someone actually active with the product, with a passion for 2000 AD like Matt Smith has had during his tenure. Someone like Rob Williams, Ian Edgington, Michael Carroll, or Dan Abnett.

That said, Matt Smith has been 'my Tharg' throughout my time with 2000 AD. I honestly couldn't imagine anyone else running the show. I trust him empathetic to keep bringing the Thrills.

[TordelBack]

If I was King Tharg I'd give Garth Ennis (or some such standard of illumini) a call and offer him a chance to edit the prog for a couple of years with Matt as assistant editor.
But another thought is this......
Would the 10 year old me in 1977 have bought a comic entitled '1960AD'?

Geronimo makes his points in a reasonable manner, however much I disagree with them, but I doubt I'd be sticking with Garth Ennis' 3000AD for very long (and I like Ennis). I am however intrigued to know who Anagrammatic Tharg is going to have writing and drawing in his revitalised prog that Matt has, in his supposed burnt-out daze, missed.

If anyone is hoping for the comic to make its living from appealing to 10 year olds again,  I think they're going to be a disappointed. 

[Smith]

I rather think we need some new writers.I don't really hate any current one,I would just like to see something new,since lately I have this feeling Edgington is writing 90% of the prog.

[Colin YNWA]

 A fresh and deeper pool of writers would indeed be good and is always important to a comic like 2000ad (see below for clear evidence even that opening sentence is poppycock... which doesn't bode well for the rest this does it!)

The trouble is I'm sure if the talent was out there Tharg would have snapped it up. Tharg (and Matt) seem to be slowly grooming a few new(ish) writers to achieve this, but while there's been some promising stuff I do wonder where we'd be without Edginton, Dabnett and Rennie (without taking Wagner and Mills too much for granted!). I think Robbie's Morrison and Williams and Al Ewing moving away from the Prog to other shores, John Smith's already glacial pace slowing even more, has left a bit of a gap. Its happned before and the 'new' writers are getting there (christ I'm not even going to start looking up how long the 'new' writers having been in the Prog I susepct its been a loooonnnnggggg time).

So by 'new'* writers I'm thinking Mike Carroll (still largely Dredd - would love to see him stretch his wings to something of his own), Guy Adams, Eglington, Beeby, Baillie (have we lost him already?), Moore, Reppion and I'm sure others  haven't quite managed to produce a classic, established ongoing series yet. There's been strips that have returned but not truly established themselves.

The return Of Kek-W and Pete Milligan is surely helping but there is still work to be done. I'm sure it will be but in the meantime its not as if the Prog is short of great thrills, but strength in depth is always vital in an anthology (a point lost when you think about the number of writers involved in the first 'golden age!').

All that whittered around I don't think this lands at Matt Smith's feet, he's doing a stirling job. I also doubt very much there's a scenario where an estblished writer like Ennis, Williams or Dabnett will become Tharg's little helper, typically (or historically at least) it works the other way round doesn't it. You do the Tharg thing before establishing yourself as freelance and for me the thing 2000ad fans need to keep a careful eye on is Matt Smith's slowly developing writing credits. We don't want him getting ambitious on that front!

*By 'new' I think I mean the pool of writers joining in the last 5 (or 10 gulp) years who haven't yet got an ongoing semi regular series of their own, one that's lasted beyond 3 books.... now watch me be proved wrong!

[TordelBack]

Good points, Colin!

If something needs to change in the Command Module, it's adding a separate editorial chair for the Meg, but I'm guessing that title only exists at all because it's covered by Matt's salary.  I can't even imagine that man's workload; truly Tharg is a cruel master.

The general absence of Smith, Ewing, Morrison and Williams is keenly felt, much as losing A. Moore, G. Morrison and Milligan was decades ago, but I don't think there's anything particularly shallow about the current talent pool: and best of all, it lacks any murk-lurking crocodile whose name on a Credit Card inspires instant despair.  Perhaps rather too many of its members are occupied keeping Dredd and his spinoffs running, with Mills, Edginton, Rennie, Long and Abnett basically writing everything else. It's a particular thrill when someone new breaks out of the Future Shock/Dredd/Spinoff ghetto to give us a strip of their own (Adams' Hope, for example) but it doesn't seem to happen often enough. 

On another note, the Second Coming of Kek-W has been a highlight of the prog for me the last few years, I can't get enough of his stuff, and Dan Abnett has been doing his best work for what seems like ages now: everything he writes is essentially perfect. 

I too have wondered where Bailie has got to lately, he had a fantastic run of shorts, but have we had anything from him in the past year or more?  And that Worley chap needs to return to the weekly. 

[JamesC]

I think Matt does a cracking job. I really can't fault the prog  - it's been incredibly consistent for at least the past decade.
I think the only thing I would suggest is to get in some 'ideas men' - not necessarily great script writers but people who can come up with interesting ideas to be farmed out to other writers.
Pat Mills, Dan Abnett and Ian Edington are all great ideas people but they tend to write all of the strips themselves.
Maybe we need a new Gerry Finley-Day?