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Prog 2043 - Signs of the Times

Started by Colin YNWA, 05 August, 2017, 01:49:33 PM

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Frank

Quote from: TordelBack on 10 August, 2017, 05:43:44 PM
... you have to wonder if that rejuvenation was more than bone-deep.

Dredd's like Steed in The New Avengers; standing off to one side, occasionally commenting on the action, while younger, sexier characters handle the rough and tumble.

I used to think this sidelining of Dredd, focusing on their own characters, was due to young(er) writers being intimidated by and deferring to John Wagner. Now I think it's probably more a case of Dredd just not being the sort of character they find interesting to write. *

I really don't hate Paradox Vega - she's a fun character who allows Michael Carroll to write in the amiable, absurd comic register that suits him best - but bumbling, stumbling, Do-nothing Dredd (being told what to do and needing saved by SJS Judge Gerhardt or Vega) is an embarrassment.

Maybe the Dreddless Tales From Megacity One, is the way to go with the main strip.


* It's unfair to stifle the creativity of writers who would never in a million years come up with a character like Dredd (or write the kind of story that suits him best) by saddling them with this awkward, impenetrable legacy character.

This isn't about the talented Michael Carroll - Dredd's a passenger in most post-Day Of Chaos stories. Dredd's marginal to a Wagner story like Bender, but that's because - like The Midnight Surfer and Requiem For A Heavyweight -  he's hardly in it. When Dredd does appear in that story, he isn't falling over and needing to be saved.
.

Richard

That's a very good point.

However Michael Carroll is also capable of writing good Dredd stories as well. Carousel being one obvious example, and also that one where some perps find him in a sleep machine and are so scared of him that they handcuff themselves before he wakes up. If only they were all like that.

Pat Mills says in his book that his experience of editing boys' comics taught him that characters who actively make the action happen are popular, and those who are passive are not. Dredd is not supposed to be the sort of person who stands around while the story happens around him.

norton canes

Cover: Sorry, not having a pop at Jake Lynch's incredible pencil work, but that plethora of signs make it a bit of a mess. The logo disappears completely! I prefer this draft version, far clearer.

Dredd: Some interesting discussion on this thread about the roles of Dredd and Vega. Personally I'm OK with a bit of role inversion now and again so it's cool to see Dredd playing the stooge for once. Yes I can understand the criticism that Vega's a bit full-on AWESOME but we also know that in the world of Dredd a gruesome fate is seldom far away (and don't forget that last time Vega got too cocky, Dredd shot her in the leg). Anyway the story is absolutely singing along so I'm not inclined to begrudge it a few indulgences.

(Plus, Vega is the first new recurring character to appear in Dredd since I got back on board with 2000 AD at Christmas, so it's good to see her)

The Alienist: Good, very Sapphire and Steel. Liked the sudden appearance of the [spoiler]lorry[/spoiler] on the new page. Could maybe be written with a touch more black humour?

Greysuit: Extraordinary.

Grey Area: Good stuff again, it doesn't bother me too much that the premise is such a thinly-disguised parody of the current global immigration crisis - it's only a template, there are enough personal touches to carry the stories on their own merits.   

Hunted: Er... and that's it? Underwhelming. Kind of hoping 'THE END' means 'THE END' and that Rennie, Holden et al will move on and give us the top thrills we know they can deliver.


Hope replacing Hunted next prog should make for three exceptional strips (with the current Dredd story and Grey Area), the nicely-developing Alienist and... the never un-interesting Greysuit. Optimism reigns!

TordelBack

Should clarify that I have no problem with Vega - she's fun, and Marshall draws her with real verve here. It's Dredd's easy tolerance of a Cursed Earth rapscallion I find difficult - not that he doesn't have form in this regard, just that it's been a while since Spikes, Fergee, Henry Ford and even the Foul Smelling Bearded Snake Woman.  When you see Dredd issuing just a mild reprimand to Beeny, Logan and Roake in 'Elusive', grudgingly accepting Harvey's abilitues, or taking time to tolerate Vienna's tea habit, it's a big deal.  Taking a back seat to thus'un seems to have come relatively easy.

Frank

Quote from: TordelBack on 11 August, 2017, 01:09:05 PM
Should clarify that I have no problem with Vega ...

Me neither; love the brick and the enormous puppy. Carroll's a fine writer, Vega's a fun character, and this is a well written story*.

Richard's Pat Mills quote concisely summarises my frustration with the way all modern Dredd writers** tend to tag Dredd onto the stories they want to tell alongside the kind of characters they want to write as a sort of plus one.


* I think last week's all-talk episode was unnecessary, but killing your darlings is harder than it sounds.

I mentioned Williams and Titan in my previous post specifically because I greatly admire the writer and that story in particular. Dredd's still a passenger in that story, though.

TordelBack

Yup, passive Dredd is a pet hate of mine too.  "In the old days", you'd have plenty of stories where Dredd only appeared in the first or last panels, issuing a warning (by way of introduction) or handing out cube time (by way of bitter conclusion) to people who the reader had got to know but that he'd only just briefly encountered, and that was fine.  I'd actually offer Carroll's 'Lion's Den' story as a good modern example, letting Joyce and Armitage get on with it to good effect; as opposed to the preceding 'Blood of Emeralds', where Joe seems to be a WAG on Joyce's tour of the Ould Sod. 

And this isn't really a Carroll thing, it's more general: nowadays Dredd often seems to want to tag along with the non-Dredd focus of the story, rather than encountering non-Dredd persons-of-interest as he goes about his bloody and preferably pro-active business.

sheridan

Quote from: James Stacey on 09 August, 2017, 01:01:40 PM
Alienist is actually doing a good job of keeping it interesting. I still think the concept is oversubscribed in 2000ad but its engaging and the art is fab.
I'm not sure what you mean by this - the concept of a psychic woman in Victorian / Edwardian Britain using her powers to manipulate a weak-willed man for cover as she investigates paranormal mysteries?

sheridan

Quote from: Frank on 11 August, 2017, 08:46:10 AM
Maybe the Dreddless Tales From Megacity One, is the way to go with the main strip.
Nah, call it Judge Dredd: Mega-City One ;)

sheridan

Quote from: Frank on 09 August, 2017, 10:48:36 PM
Speaking of which, has the Traitor General been given a name? Or is Captain Kestra just his pirate name?

I mean, that would be a big deal, wouldn't it? Finding out a significant character's name, after 30 years?


It took 30 years to give him a motivation for being a traitor, you'll have to wait another 30 to find out his name!

JUDGE BURNS

Right guys.....is there anyone else in the cal-hab district ( Ayrshire division ) having mega problems with the deliveries of the weekly prog and the monthly meg?

I am sick to the back teeth of the local posties delivering my subscription progs 4, 5 or even 6 days late every week now !!!

Its now Friday and I am still awaiting prog 2043.  tomorrow I should have the magazine and prog 2044 but I doubt it.  As I work all day I am very rarely home when the postie arrives , which can be from 12 noon to 4 pm, so I am told.

So does anyone else have issues with the Royal Mail ???   I would be interested to know  Cheers  rant over.

Judge Burns  going back on patrol >>>>


user2000

Quote from: JUDGE BURNS on 11 August, 2017, 09:29:33 PM
Right guys.....is there anyone else in the cal-hab district ( Ayrshire division ) having mega problems with the deliveries of the weekly prog and the monthly meg?

I am sick to the back teeth of the local posties delivering my subscription progs 4, 5 or even 6 days late every week now !!!

Its now Friday and I am still awaiting prog 2043.  tomorrow I should have the magazine and prog 2044 but I doubt it.  As I work all day I am very rarely home when the postie arrives , which can be from 12 noon to 4 pm, so I am told.

So does anyone else have issues with the Royal Mail ???   I would be interested to know  Cheers  rant over.

Judge Burns  going back on patrol >>>>

I share your pain.

I am also in Ayrshire - mentioned before on other Prog threads.  I'd say I get 1 out of every 4 Progs on the Saturday, if I'm lucky, and it's slowly but surely worsening.

I got in touch with the ever helpful new(ish) sub-bot Oliver on Wednesday (nothing riles more than not having a sub Prog even by the newsstand release day!) and he sent me my Prog 2043 on Thursday, 1st class so it arrived yesterday - still no sign of the original item though?!

He says the Progs are sent out Thursday/Friday before release but they do not have any control beyond that point.  My point is that the Prog used to arrive 99% of the time on the Saturday and more importantly it was something TO LOOK FORWARD TO.

I got in touch with Royal Mail earlier in the year and they said it is for the sender to bring up any delivery issues, but then the Prog is sent 2nd class, so it is only their "aim" to deliver in 2 to 3 working days (do they even count Saturday as a "working" day?  It would certainly be interesting to see the delivery targets and actual records of the Kilmarnock office, never mind our local one!).

I mean, just what are they doing with them?  My regular postie is on holiday this week so I just put this one down to the random postie shoving it through the wrong door, but yours too?  Hmmm.

My sub runs out with the new Meg and Prog 2048 and I'm afraid that's it for subbing for me after a great many years.  I'd rather just get it from WH Smiths on the Wednesday (where I'm sure it will be 99% of the time) so that I can once again have something TO LOOK FORWARD TO!

...instead of perpetual disappointment...  I know it may seem silly, or pedantic, but this last year subbing with the crappy postal service has sullied my enjoyment of the Prog slightly.

user2000

On a cheerier note, my 11 yo son is a confirmed believer now after I've foisted a few GN's on him!

We used to read Dredd together over the last few years but my younger son (8 now) can't get into it - he prefers the funnies, currently reading all my old Cor!! annuals after ploughing though all the Whoopee!, Shiver & Shake ones etc etc, plus we still get The Beano (on "Readly", a wonderful invention that you wonder who actually makes any money from?).  Also we are about halfway through Charley's War but I can't find where I've stashed the next box full of Battles!  So I gave him the first book of Dan Dare which he also loved.  He's also loved the Misty and Monster books, plus he's been through all the old Eagle/Scream stuff from Hibernia.

Older sons fave is Strontium Dog, having breezed through the 5 books of the original collection then I fished out all the right progs for him and he is completely up to date (when is it coming back he was asking?  I made an educated guess at Christmas!).

Now he's onto the Dredd case files from where we left off at the end of the third one, so he's a lucky boy having just finished The Apocalypse War (gave him the IDW colo(u)r reprint book for a bit of a treat).

However it's always been a bit jarring over recent years with a bit of sudden no frills adult content in the Prog (and more so the Meg) so I will have to start re-vetting the content as he moves forward unfortunately.

If Rebellion want to reach readers his age (as Tharg bangs on about in reply to earthlets letters) then they might want to think about these unnecessary plot points - hey, I'm no prude but as much as I could give my 11 yo the first volume of America to read, I would have no choice but to make him wait, AT LEAST a couple of years before reading Fading of the Light...

Probably not the best place to tell that story (I'll happily be pointed toward an existing thread saying something similar), but I wanted to give a bit of relief to my doom laden previous post (although the end of this one ain't much better LOL).

Signs of the Times indeed.

Steve Green

John Wagner said he was writing a new one at the moment.

Christmas seems like a good bet, as it sounds like it would make for a good jumping on story.

user2000

HA!  Just patting the young 'un on the back there again for finally "getting" Tooth and he wanted to show me a "funny bit" in the Dark Judges book (the IDW coloured one, also awesome).

"GAZE INTO THE FIST OF DREDD!"   Ah, how we laughed, that line will NEVER get old LOL.

Richard

How do your 8 and 11 year-olds feel about reading black and white comics?