2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Jim_Campbell]

It's a great addition to the collection imo.

It's fascinating to me to see how many strips people were ambivalent towards in the Prog/Meg are hitting the mark in this collection. I'm not sure what to take away from that... I love the weekly/monthly anthology format, but it's definitely telling us... something that folks are finding strips that didn't get a lot of love in the serialised format to be worthwhile in a collected format.

[IndigoPrime]

The Meg being a monthly really doesn't help sometimes.

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

I've been giving this a bit of thought recently as well. To be honest- and I'm only speaking for me here, and don't expect any of you lot to feel the same- I think it's at least partly this:

Even aside from work and family responsibilities, my life is busy. I have particular interests- so I like to read a lot of books and comics, as well watching a lot of TV and movies. Already I've had to consciously cut several things out: I'm no longer even *thinking* about watching the TV Star Wars things, or DC Universe movie adaptations, for example. I'm way too behind on the Marvel shows, as well as everything else I'd like to watch. Creepshow on Shudder? American Horror Story/ies? The new Twilight Zone? Haven't been able to fit any of them in.

When the prog and the Meg turn up, I often find myself having yo rush them- as if they are just 'things to get through'. This isn't in any way good, and certainly isn't treating these things with due respect. I love the comics, I spend a lot of my time invested on them to one degree or another, but I can't even set aside an hour to enjoy them properly? Psh.

When I get a collected edition (like the recent Blunt one) for some reason, that inspires me to 'make time'. The Meg gets fitted in, in that twenty minutes before my wife gets home, or while I'm taking a break. The Blunt book got my undivided attention- I made time for it. So I properly enjoyed it, far more than I did when it was running in the comic.

I guess, the thing is, I need to slow down and prioritise. To approach things with the respect they deserve. Maybe it's a consequence of there being *so much* media to consume at the moment. If you've grown up like I have, it's the greatest golden age ever! But maybe i need to realise that I really can't read or watch it all.

SBT

[IndigoPrime]

Agreed. I have a burn-through mentality with magazines, which is unhelpful. I do that a bit less with 2000 AD, but there are elements of that. With a collection, I'm more likely to take time, but I also have a built pile that's grown to a quite silly level now. (I'm also, finally, "one in, one out" for collections. No more space in the shelves!)

[The Monarch]

i had that issue about two-three years ago when i stopped collecting all comics that wasn't the meg and the prog and the uk reprints of marvel stuff

then the pandemic happened and the marvel stuff dried up leaving just the meg and the prog

[sintec]

Missing the 1st series of both Returners and Blunt definitely didn't help in my case. There's a fair bit of character/world set up in both of those. Some better recaps would definitely help there.

I'd have to go back and read bits in the Meg but I also wonder if the way these are split up for serialisation is part of the issue. Classic era stories tended to have more self-contained episodes with their own beginning middle and end. Of course they also tended to repeat themselves a bit episode to episode which doesn't always read as nicely when collected. The monthly publication of the Meg maybe exacerbates this because without the cliff hanger ending it can be easy to forget where the various protaganoists have got to in the interim.

[Neil C]

According to National Title File (the newstrade's bible of what's due out when) the collection has been extended again, to 180 issues.

[IndigoPrime]

OK. If Armoured Gideon isn't in THIS extension, I shall have to write Matt Smith a STRONGLY WORDED LETTER*.


* Begging, pretty please, for an Armoured Gideon collection at some point, please and thank you.

[moly]

180 issues  is a big no from me no way is there 40 issues of quality stuff

[IndigoPrime]

So what would you do if you had another 40 issues? There can't be that much that hasn't been collected, beyond the odd series conclusion (Kingdom) and quite a lot of Dredd.

That said, if they did HC War of the Worlds and Scarlet Traces, I'd be all over that.

[moly]

Would it be economically viable to do another 40 issues at £9.99 for the publisher, it been that price since the Judge dredd collection started back in 2015

[Max Headroom]

If the big 180 news is correct, could we possibly have another 'The Order' book completing what has been published? Do the page numbers add up for another volume?

[Dark Jimbo]

Would it be economically viable to do another 40 issues at £9.99 for the publisher, it been that price since the Judge dredd collection started back in 2015

Wait, so... So you want them to charge you more?

[Tomontherun94]

My one wish is all of the 2012 movie Dredd stuff in 1 book. It would definitely be one of the larger books at 260-ish pages, especially if Trinity is collected, but it would be nice to have all those in one chunky volume.

[Tomontherun94]

Seeing as we've opened the floodgates for Starlord and Tornado material thanks to the Ro-Busters and Blackhawk books is there anything else from those titles aside from Stront that would be worth collecting?