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Musings on The Small House.

Started by Tjm86, 03 November, 2018, 06:55:13 PM

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CalHab


Fungus

This talk of Williams and the much-missed Ewing at the helm(et) of Dredd is pretty mouth-watering, even if it's highly speculative. The Small House has been a welcome return to grandiose and serious Dredd, after a long lean spell in the prog (for me anyway).

Could be no mention yet of Flint on this thread? But there is a heft to his Dredd, especially as written by Williams, that is just perfect. In the (G)olden days Dredd for me was Ron Smith's -- Flint's is how I 'see' Dredd now...

To my surprise I'm anxious to read Wedneday's prog..... :o

Magnetica

I think is because most on here probably take it as read that Henry Flint is now the go to art droid for Dredd (with MacNeil and Willsher up there for me as well).

Whereas the most uncertainty is around who is going to be writing the strip long term. For me Rob Williams and Al Ewing's Dredd Stands head and shoulders above any other non Wagner / Grant Dredd.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: Fungus on 05 November, 2018, 10:33:24 AM
This talk of Williams and the much-missed Ewing at the helm(et) of Dredd is pretty mouth-watering, even if it's highly speculative.

If you listen the the Thrill Cast I mentioned, Al doesn't sound like Dredd is at the top of list of 2000AD-related things he wants to do, unfortunately.
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

TordelBack

I rate Ewing's Dredds very highly, in the all-time Top 5, the overall tone and ultra-dark humour are just perfect, but I wonder how well he'd handle the remorseless grind of a regular slot. That said,  I'd pay good money to see him quash my doubts!

I do agree that a more co-ordinated approach to using the stable of excellent writers Tharg has on Dredd is the best way to deal with the demands of almost 400 high-density pages a year. Acknowledging that I know nothing about the realities of editorial or writers' fees,  I envisage some sort of internal pitchfest, with major events and arcs roughed out a couple of years in advance,  and the breakdown of unconnected one-offs,  short-runs and the various 'mythos' arcs loosely sketched out so that everyone knows what's going on around their own stories.

It'd be nice,  for example,  to see Carroll's Texas City shakeup reflected in the manoueverings of Judge Smiley,  Lamia responding to the fallout from an invasion of alien ice-intelligences,  or Judge Pin tangentially crossing paths with Joyce and Pax. Obviously the trick here would be not to constrain anyone's writing,  risking further choking the flow of fresh ideas that the strip thrives on, but the goal of a cohesive world with a shared direction,  rather than parallel individual kingdoms, could be worth it.

AlexF

I agree that Williams has been doing excellent work on longer-form, continuity-important-seeming stories (aren't they all imaginary, as a wizard once said) - but for my money the best fun one-offs lately have been by McConville and Eglington. Eglington has also proven his chops on longer Dredd with the Sons of Booth trio, I really enjoyed that I did.

Sure, it's always nice to read the future history of Mega City One, but is it not generally agreed that the golden age of Dredd was between Apocalypse War and Oz*, i.e. when Wagner and Grant were mostly doing funny one-offs, and ignoring the sub-par City of the Damned?


*aka when young me was first introduced to the Prog, surely a coincidence...

TordelBack

Certainly was my favourite period of Dredd, along with the Deadman/Necropolis and Day of Chaos eras. But for all the self-contained stories of that time, with Wagner and Grant there was the reassurance of things moving forward, with the fallout (of all kinds) and recovery from the Apocalypse War, Dredd's near breakdown, the growing Democracy movement, and even the reappearance and development of old characters (Mean, Krysler, Chopper), McGruder's first fall and the changing makeup of the Council of Five. There was also an apparently endless fountain of novel ideas from the two greats, which gets ever harder to equal after 40+ years of stories.

But quite agree about Eglinton and McConville.

Funt Solo

Quote from: AlexF on 06 November, 2018, 06:41:26 PM
...is it not generally agreed that the golden age of Dredd was between Apocalypse War and Oz...

It's certainly got some top thrills.  On my patented Yay:Meh:Boo scale, it scores an impressive 37:51:11

Oh no, it's a list:

The Apocalypse War
Meka-City
The League Of Fatties
Fungus
The Game Show Show
Gunge
Destiny's Angels
Rabid
Blobs
The Executioner
Jimps
The Night Of The Rad-Beast
The Last Invader
Shanty Town
Prezzel Logic
Trapper Hag
The Prankster
The Starborn Thing
[King Of The Road]
The Stupid Gun
Condo
Cry Of The Werewolf
The Weather Man
Requiem For A Heavy-Weight
The Graveyard Shift
Suspect
Rumble In The Jungle
Bob & Carol & Ted & Ringo
Pieromania
The Highwaymen
Are You Tired Of Being Mugged?
Bob's Law
Citizen Snork
The Haunting Of Sector House 9
High Society
The House On Runner's Walk
Portrait Of A Politician
The Switch
[Rookie Dekker]
Superbowl
Bingo
The Making Of A Judge
The Wreckers
Many Unhappy Returns
Dredd Angel
Gator
[Doubts]
Question Of Judgement
Error Of Judgement
A Case For Treatment
The Wally Squad
City of the Damned: A 2000AD Postergraph
City Of The Damned
The Hunters Club
Monsteroso
Spugbug
[Juve's Eyes]
Sunday Night Fever
[Hagatha Smeld]
[Aftermath Ron Reagan]
[Thirteenth Assessment]
[Casey's Day Out]
[99 Red]
Midnight Surfer
Nosferatu
West Side Rumble
[Back On The Streets]
[Get Smart]
Something Abnormal About Norman
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Magnificent Obsession
Megaman
Death Of A Politician
Love Story
The Lemming Syndrome
The Squadron That Time Forgot
The Uglybug Ball
A Day At The Block Wars
The Lurker
A Merry Tale Of The Christmas Angel
The Warlord
Beggar's Banquet
A Chief Judge Resigns
The Secret Diary Of Adrian Cockroach aged 13 1/2 months
The Last Voyage Of The Flying Dutchman
Letter From A Democrat
[The Falluci Tape]
Gribligs
The Big Sleep
It Pays To Be Mental
[Rumours Can Kill]
[Zombies]
[The Exploding Man]
Riders On The Storm
The Law According To Judge Dredd
Paid With Thanks
The Art Of Kenny Who?
Russell's Inflatable Muscles
[The Dredd Syndrome]
The Urge
The Fists Of Stan Lee
Atlantis
[Block Rite]
Pinboing Replay
[The Peeper]
Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman
[The Dead Ringer]
Phantom Of The Shoppera
Tomb Of The Judges
[Hell's Packers]
The Witness
[A Real Xmas Story]
Varks
Superslab
Slick Dickens
They Shoot Deejays, Don't They? (Or At Least They Ought To)
The Taxidermist
The Beating Heart
The Comeback
[The Genie]
The Shooting Party
Navel Manoeuvres
Night Of The Ripper
The Interrogation
The Blood Donor
10 Years On
What If...The Judges Did The Ads?
So You Want To Be A Judge?
Pit Rat
The Raggedy Man
Simp
Reasons To Be Fearful
Fairlyhyperman
Revolution
Bug
Alabammy Blimps
Return Of Death Fist
[Corporal Punishment]
Killkraze
Oz
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Richard

Nonsense, it got even better after Oz. The democracy and Necropolis storylines were awesome.

After that, you also have The Pit, Sector House, numerous Al Ewing stories, and Tour of Duty, not to mention every PJ Maybe story.

TordelBack

Funt's list covers about 5.5 years of progs (and includes the first two Democracy stories,  the first PJ Maybe story, the start of Dredd's doubts and The Graveyard Shift) . Richard's covers 25 years of Progs and Megs, the great majority of the strip's history.

Richard


Magnetica

I would prefer this thread to be a discussion about the shocking events currently going on in the Small House story rather than a discussion of when the golden age of Dredd was; I haven't been this excited about a Dredd story since he put his boot through Jack Point's door*.

But if you are going to discuss that, I would start it earlier than the Apocalypse War. Back to the Judge Child, or even earlier. As well as that being my favourite epic, there were some fantastic one offs and shorts either side of it, such as New Year is Cancelled, Xmas Comes Early to Des O'Connor Block, Uncle Ump's Umpty Candy, the Aggro Dome, Monkey Business at the Charles Darwin Block, Pirates of the Black Atlantic, Otto Sump's Ugly Clinic, the Mega Rackets, Judge Death, Unamerican Graffiti, and Judge Death Lives, not to mention Block Mania.

Classics, every one IMHO.

* if it was Jack Points door- but that isn't really the point.

TordelBack

On the speculation front, could Dredd just be playing to the watching Smiley when he publicly [spoiler]disses Hershey[/spoiler]?  I am genuinely excited to see Frank's story playing out at last, but I sort-of wish it was in his own strip, with a bit more room to breathe.

It is all good and lovely-looking fun, but I'd possibly be more engaged with The Small House if I didn't suspect every other writer will completely ignore anything currently happening, much as they did with Every Empire Falls (where Giant was in another of Dredd's secret gangs, IIRC). I retract this reservation if it turns out that there really is some shift in the status quo that is reflected in the wider strip.



The Enigmatic Dr X

Quote from: TordelBack on 07 November, 2018, 04:05:39 PM
On the speculation front, could Dredd just be playing to the watching Smiley when he publicly [spoiler]disses Hershey[/spoiler]?  I am genuinely excited to see Frank's story playing out at last, but I sort-of wish it was in his own strip, with a bit more room to breathe.

It is all good and lovely-looking fun, but I'd possibly be more engaged with The Small House if I didn't suspect every other writer will completely ignore anything currently happening, much as they did with Every Empire Falls (where Giant was in another of Dredd's secret gangs, IIRC). I retract this reservation if it turns out that there really is some shift in the status quo that is reflected in the wider strip.

This. The problem with non-Wagner Dredd is not that it's non-Wagner Dredd. The problem is that every other bugger ignores it.
Lock up your spoons!

Magnetica

Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 07 November, 2018, 06:48:45 PM
Quote from: TordelBack on 07 November, 2018, 04:05:39 PM
On the speculation front, could Dredd just be playing to the watching Smiley when he publicly [spoiler]disses Hershey[/spoiler]?  I am genuinely excited to see Frank's story playing out at last, but I sort-of wish it was in his own strip, with a bit more room to breathe.

It is all good and lovely-looking fun, but I'd possibly be more engaged with The Small House if I didn't suspect every other writer will completely ignore anything currently happening, much as they did with Every Empire Falls (where Giant was in another of Dredd's secret gangs, IIRC). I retract this reservation if it turns out that there really is some shift in the status quo that is reflected in the wider strip.

This. The problem with non-Wagner Dredd is not that it's non-Wagner Dredd. The problem is that every one else ignores it.

Not sure that is completely the case. The events in the Small House reference story elements from writers other than Rob Williams and John Wagner

Yes it does include stuff  from Wagner and Wagner / Grant stories (and ok they aren't "non-Wagner") e.g most notably as pointed out by Jim and Frank above the fracturing of Dredd and Hershey's relationship in Tour of Duty, but also going further back to Letter from a Democrat and the subsequent stories that followed on from that (based on the Blondel Dupre reference).

As far as non-Wagner it also referencing the further split in their relationship in Bullet to King Four and the Cold Deck (both Al Ewing) , the Kazan Clone in Bullet to King Four and the black ops stealth Judges in Family Man and the Cold Deck (both Al Ewing).

And ok Rob Williams came up with the whole Trifecta story with Al Ewing and Simon Spurrier - but that just goes to show writers can collaborate when they want to.