Musings on The Small House.

[Pete Wells]

Yep, when the (fantastic) writers are going in the same direction, it really is magical. I was great how other writers subtly sneaked in how Mega-City was getting colder during the run up to Enceladus. Small touches that meant a lot...

[TordelBack]

Yep,  the getting-colder thing is my favourite modern example of how I'd like to see the Dredd strip work.

The problem I have isn't so much that non-Wagner characters are ignored by other writers (Wasn't Maitland originally Al Ewing's creation? And Carroll regularly uses Rennie, Ennis and Dave Stone characters), it's that major events are. For example,  when Smiley was listing crises there was no mention of the fact that MC-1 was just recently the subject of a briefly-successful coup by Texas City - something that sounds right up Smiley's alley,  and that storyline ran for many months in both the Prog and Meg.

[CalHab]

Yes, the Texas City thing has apparently had zero ramifications on the city.

To be fair, this isn't a new phenomenon. Didn't all the kids of MC1 disappear in an Alan Grant Anderson story, and was completely ignored by everyone else?

[wedgeski]

Isn't the kind of collaboration we're looking for an *editorial* responsibility, rather than one for the writers? Or is that simply not how 2000AD operates?

[IndigoPrime]

2000 AD seems to have more freedom. I suspect that's mostly because strips tend to be written by a small number of writers throughout their entire history, or there's a kind of tag-team process in place, where someone takes over a strip. With Dredd, though, the universe is so sprawling that even when Wagner was writing a lot of it, there were plenty of contradictions. Now, it does feel like it needs a bit of a showrunner, although perhaps Rebellion thinks that would hem in other writers too much.

[TordelBack]

I'm sure that's exactly the concern. It can't be easy to keep coming up with fresh Dredd tales for 60+ episodes a year, and telling writers they have to do so within an overall arc or continuity scheme might make it even harder.

I don't think it has to be proscriptive so much as just slightly more coordinated: it might be nice to see Dredd refer to (for example) Sector Zero when he's been rooting out another secret judicial conspiracy at the very same time, or vice versa. Or have Giant pause to reflect on the fact that he's part of yet another of Dredd's secret resistance cells, and maybe it's not a great look on his resume.  Grud knows Matt Smith can't have many spare moments putting out 180 pages of original comic and who-knows how much reprinted content month, but I think having a slightly heavier editorial hand on Dredd in particular might be worth the extra effort.

[Magnetica]

How hard would it be to have writers meetings every so often where they put forward major plot points over the coming period and allow others to at least reference them in their stories (just like the Encladeus I've thing) and allow characters that given writers major on to appear in strips by the others so long as their use doesn't contradict their true motivations e.g. so and so is really a double agent working for the Sovs or Smiley? You could even have them doing stuff towards their real agenda in those stories, just being subtle about it.

Or is that just not how it works - I don't know as I 'm not a writer.

[TordelBack]

That's my problem too - I really don't know the mechanics of it all: how stories are pitched, approved, scheduled and edited. The brilliant coordination of the Trifecta strips was instigated by the writers involved, but presumably Matt had to move heaven and earth to actually deliver it. I wouldn't suggest anything on that scale, but it does indicate that mechanisms exist.

[broodblik]

I think that Dredd will definitely benefit out of show runner. I still do like it that we have different writers creating their own worlds within the bigger Dreddverse. Each writer should just make sure that the overall arc is kept in tack.

[Dark Jimbo]

I don't think it has to be proscriptive so much as just slightly more coordinated: it might be nice to see Dredd refer to (for example) Sector Zero when he's been rooting out another secret judicial conspiracy at the very same time, or vice versa.

I do think Sector Zero in particular was a real mistep. Even putting aside the fact I didn't think it was a particularly good story, the concept made less than no sense and was a paler imitation of both Trifecta's ninja-judges and Smiley's 'I have been secretly influencing and guiding the city' schtik.

The fact that 'ninja-judge story' has already become a shorthand for the problems of modern Dredd says it all, really!

[Magnetica]

I actually really like the Ninja Judge and Smiley story lines. I guess the issue was having another one almost the same.

I seem to recall a podcast with probably Rob Williams where he said something like the co-ordination required for Trifecta was really hard work.

Now we don't need it at that level i.e. 3 stories running simultaneously all needing to interlock. Just a bit of planning and consistancy. The earlier comment about needing to feel there are consequences to what happens is spot on.

[Frank]

Isn't the kind of collaboration we're looking for an *editorial* responsibility, rather than one for the writers?

Some readers want Trifecta every six months, but most commenting here only seem to think an occasional line of dialogue referencing previous events or suggesting a writer tweaks their story so it doesn't duplicate someone else's efforts is in order.

Those things seem more easily achieved by Tharg (or a writers' WhatsApp group) than quarterly strategy meetings where everything's set in stone and bringing in a showrunner who has to interfere to justify their paycheck.

[JamesC]

It all comes down to whether Tharg and/or the readers want things to feel like they're happening in the same world. People get all tied in knots over 'canon' but for me it's more about investment in the world. To take an example listed above - Alan Grant Anderson strips never felt like they were taking place in the same world as Dredd and, for me, that hurt the strip. Surely there can be some consenus over which big ideas are good and are worth investing in across Dredd-world strips. If all the kids in MC1 go missing, surely that's a pretty dramatic situation - I'm sure someone could have at least referenced it in an episode or two of Dredd.   

[IndigoPrime]

That's it. I couldn't give much of a shit about tangential crossovers, like Strontium Dog and Rogue Trooper in Dredd. (I recall Robin Low on the old alt.2000ad group and I having discussions about the wider continuity, and him somehow managing to even get Robo-Hunter into that mix – hi, Robin, if you're reading, you nutcase, you.) But with Judge Dredd strips, it does feel a bit weird when the strip doesn't even acknowledge city-wide events. This is perhaps even more overt these days, with the way Wagner steered the strip – away from the oddball antics of the old b+w days, and to a more grown-up and procedural affair. And I'd agree to some extent with the wider Dreddworld strips – it's useful and coherent when they align, although I will happily take Anderson and such on their own merits.

Frankly, that's the case with everything, to be honest. I'm not that bothered if MC-1 is invaded by flying doughnuts that off 50% of the citizens in a multi-part epic than another writer broadly ignores. The strip's still enjoyable and one of the finest achievements in modern comics when taken as a whole. But it does have that something extra that's so very rare in comics when it all ties together – a kind of coherence that makes the world seem that little bit more real, and despite its weirdness and futuristic nature able to hold that suspension of disbelief. (See also: the entire Hellboyverse, and Usage Yojimbo, for two examples.)

[TordelBack]

One of the things that continually surprises me when I do a Dredd re-read is that the start of one of the greatest long arcs of the strip, PSU and Edgar (eventually dovetailing with the deMarco and the Frendz storylines) , begins as a one-off 'aftermath' strip for one of the usually-ignored-by-and-ignoring-continuity epics, Inferno, itself ostensibly a sequel to the entire Democracy arc. That's the kind of link I'm after.

Incidentally, I really don't want to give the impression that I don't think The Small House is a very good story, and an important one. My concern is really that the rest of the strip treats it as such subsequently. I want the changes in relationships we see here to stick.