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Mega City Zero (IDW)

Started by JOE SOAP, 11 July, 2015, 06:53:55 PM

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JOE SOAP

Quote from: blackmocco on 08 August, 2016, 10:25:54 PM
But once again, Murphy didn't arrive fully formed as Robocop. He had a sympathetic backstory that enabled you to empathize with what he had become.

Aye, Dredd has no equivalent when it comes to RoboCop stomping through his old home while images of his wife and son flash before him as video memories - "He's ain't heavy, he's my brother" is Dredd's closest match and we know how they did that in 1995.


blackmocco

Quote from: Butch on 08 August, 2016, 10:54:08 PM
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 08 August, 2016, 10:34:02 PM
if Dredd is niche in America he's in every other country too.

Yeah, it's not as if everyone at primary school was eating out of Dredd lunch boxes*.

You can see why so many people have wasted millions trying to turn Dredd into a thing though. It looks like a billion dollar idea, even if the fan base is only large enough to sustain one of those low budget horror films that are just night vision footage of things moving slightly in bedrooms.


* Burdis probably was

Low budget horror films that usually end up doing a killing at the US box office, it must be noted.
"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
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BPP

I thought it was more interesting that the IDW Dredd atm has three inconsistant personalities  - two of which are not that far from a 2000AD Dredd. 'MC1 Dredd' is pretty on the money Prog Dredd, right down to the prog continuity references. The main 'Grasslands' Dredd is very Tales of the Dead Man and so not that out of character given he's 'been' in the grasslands over a year. Its not great and the writing has many vague inconsistant moments that may seem 'out of character' but overall the tone is there.

The other one is just straight up James Stokoe Rogue Trooper (http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/tumblr_m7ipjofLjQ1qf1pjzo1_1280-540x834.jpg) and it even looks odd in the comic. It comes across as just straight up bad writing, especially when it happens a second time by the same trigger (stranger in a strange land scenarios).

Have no idea if this Dredd is a success (you can see reasons why it wouldn't be regardless of the personality of Dredd - this is straight up an ODD comic on many levels) but it does seem an oddly familar Dredd given the authors statements reported above.

Part of the reason Dredd wont work in the States by now is just the bad rep. The old movie, the 'failed' new movie, the terrible Quality reprints, the translation of page sizes.... these micro-factors of reputation keep the massees away.

The Dredd V A V P comic atm is a good idea - if AvP fans read it and think 'thats a good character' its likely to draw more of them to check out more Dredd. Sadly IDW's main title dosen't seem too likely to capitalise on that. Imagine if you gave those AvP readers the Wagner / Diggle / Flint 'Dredd v Aliens' and then something like Titan.. they'd be hooked. If they check out 'the old man and the sea' vs anthropomorphic chickens on social media story its not clear they'll connect.
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

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blackmocco

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 08 August, 2016, 10:59:29 PM
Quote from: blackmocco on 08 August, 2016, 10:25:54 PM
But once again, Murphy didn't arrive fully formed as Robocop. He had a sympathetic backstory that enabled you to empathize with what he had become.

Aye, Dredd has no equivalent when it comes to RoboCop stomping through his old home while images of his wife and son flash before him as video memories - "He's ain't heavy, he's my brother" is Dredd's closest match and we know how they did that in 1995.

The 2012 version got the idea right, I think. Namely, make Dredd the anchor of the movie and pair him up with a sympathetic and relatable character an audience can relate to. But as much as I love the movie, it's a pretty bleak and mostly humorless tone. For one thing, that's going to put a mainstream audience off. Hard to see the likes of The Stupid Gun, for example, working in that version. Wasn't Doug Jones' idea for a Dredd movie to have a camera crew follow Dredd around for a day in MC1 showing off the insanity of the city? See, that's a fucking awesome idea that doesn't involve Dredd having a dreaded character arc.
"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
www.BLACKMOCCO.blogspot.com

JOE SOAP

Quote from: blackmocco on 08 August, 2016, 11:21:07 PM
Wasn't Doug Jones' idea for a Dredd movie to have a camera crew follow Dredd around for a day in MC1 showing off the insanity of the city? See, that's a fucking awesome idea that doesn't involve Dredd having a dreaded character arc.


That was it - Dredd as Dan Francisco*. A found-footage film + cops film was released the same time as Dredd in 2012 - End of watch - and no doubt Dredd would've "ripped-it-off" the same way it did The Raid.


*Shankar swiped the idea for his "bootleg" Venom short'

JOE SOAP

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 08 August, 2016, 11:32:11 PM
Quote from: blackmocco on 08 August, 2016, 11:21:07 PM
Wasn't Doug Jones' idea for a Dredd movie to have a camera crew follow Dredd around for a day in MC1 showing off the insanity of the city? See, that's a fucking awesome idea that doesn't involve Dredd having a dreaded character arc.


That was it - Dredd as Dan Francisco*. A found-footage + cops film was released the same time as Dredd in 2012 - End of watch - and no doubt Dredd would've "ripped-it-off" the same way it did The Raid.


*Shankar swiped the idea for his "bootleg" Venom short'

I, Cosh

Quote from: Colin_YNWA on 08 August, 2016, 09:14:35 PM
I have no idea why Dredd hasn't broken the US market in a big but I'm sure its for more subtle reasons than the silly cliched perception of US comics being trotted out here. You could just as well ask why hasn't Corto Maltese made it big in the UK, probably 'cos he doesn't run around eating cow pie and causing mischief in a stripy jumper.
Well said. The sneering insinuation that, unlike the cultured aesthetes on here, Yanks are just too thick to get Dredd becomes pretty wearing after a while.
We never really die.

sheridan

Quote from: Butch on 08 August, 2016, 07:36:25 PM
I realise I'm just displaying my ignorance about current trends in US titles, but that's your cue to tell me what American nerds go buck wild for these days - apart from the words FIRST ISSUE on the cover, which seems to account for most of the top twenty:

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2016/2016-06.html
A bit unfair to make that statement in the month that DC are relaunching its entire monthly line.  Fairer to look at the previous few months instead (there are a number of first issues, usually of mini-series, but not as many as in June).

JOE SOAP

Quote from: The Cosh on 09 August, 2016, 09:49:39 AM
Well said. The sneering insinuation that, unlike the cultured aesthetes on here, Yanks are just too thick to get Dredd becomes pretty wearing after a while.

Especially when they never had a problem getting the complexities of Watchmen, V for Vendetta or Miracleman and ended up being the publishers of all 3 significant works.


I, Cosh

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 09 August, 2016, 01:28:35 PM
Quote from: The Cosh on 09 August, 2016, 09:49:39 AM
Well said. The sneering insinuation that, unlike the cultured aesthetes on here, Yanks are just too thick to get Dredd becomes pretty wearing after a while.
Especially when they never had a problem getting the complexities of Watchmen, V for Vendetta or Miracleman and ended up being the publishers of all 3 significant works.
Well, I was thinking more of Catch 22 and Gravity's Rainbow but those are all good examples too.
We never really die.

Dash Decent

Quote from: Butch on 08 August, 2016, 09:45:24 PM
Outside of the Dredd-as-bastard glory days of 1987-1990, all you need to do to make Dredd the straightforward good guy of most stories is chop off the final panel, where he makes a dickish joke about the perp smelling awful because he's shot off their nose.

"My perp's got no pancreas!"
"How does he secrete zymogens into his duodenum?"
"Terrible!"
- By Appointment -
Hero to Michael Carroll

"... rank amateurism and bad jokes." - JohnW.

Super Mario

I thought Wolk's Dredd by way of Futurama story was great. *shrugs*

Frank

Quote from: The Cosh on 09 August, 2016, 01:44:44 PM
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 09 August, 2016, 01:28:35 PM
Quote from: The Cosh on 09 August, 2016, 09:49:39 AM
The sneering insinuation that, unlike the cultured aesthetes on here, Yanks are just too thick to get Dredd becomes pretty wearing after a while.

Especially when they never had a problem getting the complexities of Watchmen, V for Vendetta or Miracleman and ended up being the publishers of all 3 significant works.

Well, I was thinking more of Catch 22 and Gravity's Rainbow but those are all good examples too.

Issue #34, where Slothrop came home to find Jamf had murdered Katje and hidden her body in the refrigerator, is the best. I prefer Roger Mexico in the old yellow and blue costume.

If US readers don't like Dredd because they're thick, most of Europe must be eating glue at the back of the class as well. The French read comics in industrial quantities, but 2000ad books are about as popular there as Marine Le Pen's sex tape.

2000ad fans use Robusters as a palette cleanser between re-readings of Proust, but my question about what aspects of Dredd chime with current US reader tastes was a genuine inquiry, rather than an attempt to summon The Pub Landlord.

No takers on that score?



blackmocco

Quote from: Butch on 09 August, 2016, 05:52:54 PM
my question about what aspects of Dredd chime with current US reader tastes was a genuine inquiry, rather than an attempt to summon The Pub Landlord.

No takers on that score?

After two movies and various attempts at a new comic line from various publishers- we just don't know seems to be the consensus.
"...and it was here in this blighted place, he learned to live again."

www.BLACKMOCCO.com
www.BLACKMOCCO.blogspot.com

Fungus

Quote from: Butch on 09 August, 2016, 05:52:54 PM
2000ad fans use Robusters as a palette cleanser between re-readings of Proust

Made me snort  :)   

(Not that type of palate, though)

As to the lack of purchase of Dredd in the US, I dunno. Definitely not intelligence, but perhaps the saturation coverage of superheroes and US product means they needn't look further afield for yet more? The scale of the US does weird things to their sense of perspective and global interests (possibly US boarders will claim otherwise).

My other thought about IDW's woeful Dredd is that if TB Grover wrote the thing it'd fly, that's it's just script quality. But Wagner/Grant wrote Legends... in the 90's and though I have the issues I can't remember how they read (and it's highly probable I never did get around to read them).