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Thrillpower Overload: the missing chapters

Started by Frank, 21 November, 2016, 01:55:35 PM

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JOE SOAP

Quote from: Frank on 11 December, 2016, 08:52:25 PM

[1] Steve might be conflating the visual reference Wagner supplied to Bolland for Anderson's 2000ad debut appearance - in the very first Judge Death story - and her first solo strip - The Four Dark Judges - which was originally scheduled to appear in the aborted 1985 Dredd monthly.


Wasn't it originally fortnightly rather than monthly?





Leigh S

Quote from: Leigh S on 11 December, 2016, 09:02:48 PM
Quote from: Frank on 11 December, 2016, 08:52:25 PM
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Thanks to the handsome and charismatic Roger Blake and Glyn Robinson-Byrne and their 2000ad Facebook Discussion Group (click to join) we can add some footnotes to Steve MacManus's excellent Mighty One tome (still available in all good stores).

An abridged version of Steve's generously detailed, warm and personable replies:


QuoteThe visual reference that accompanied the script in which Anderson first appears (actually written for the Dredd dummy) [1] showed a woman in a black leather catsuit with a zip pulled halfway down, revealing an ample sized bosom.



https://www.facebook.com/groups/2000adDiscussion/permalink/1544855875675611/


[1] Steve might be conflating the visual reference Wagner supplied to Bolland for Anderson's 2000ad debut appearance - in the very first Judge Death story - and her first solo strip - The Four Dark Judges - which was originally scheduled to appear in the aborted 1985 Dredd monthly.

Obviously, the only visual reference Brett Ewins would have needed for The Four Dark Judges was Bolland's previous strips.

From, erm... memory, that's it...very vague memory,  isn't there a panel in the Four  Dark Judges episode of Anderson doing up her uniform? So the error on Mac1 part might be the talk of it being her debut...

Actually, it is just a misreading I think - no error on Mac1s part:  When Anderson first appears in that strip, rather than her first appearance ever

(Page 2 bottom left, so near enough when she first appears)

Frank

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 11 December, 2016, 09:08:39 PM
Quote from: Frank on 11 December, 2016, 08:52:25 PM
[1] Steve might be conflating the visual reference Wagner supplied to Bolland for Anderson's 2000ad debut appearance - in the very first Judge Death story - and her first solo strip - The Four Dark Judges - which was originally scheduled to appear in the aborted 1985 Dredd monthly[/size].

Wasn't it originally fortnightly rather than monthly?

You're right; Thrillpower Overload, p.99. I was thinking of the proposed adult 2000ad spin-off, Zarjaz.



JOE SOAP

Quote from: Frank on 11 December, 2016, 09:24:16 PMI was thinking of the proposed adult 2000ad spin-off, Zarjaz.

Sounds too close to Razzle or Jizz.


Frank

Quote from: JOE SOAP on 11 December, 2016, 09:25:54 PM
Quote from: Frank on 11 December, 2016, 09:24:16 PMI was thinking of the proposed adult 2000ad spin-off, Zarjaz.

Sounds too close to Razzle or Jizz.

They could have printed the visual reference for Anderson. In TPO, MacManus and Sanders are quoted as saying the fortnightly schedule and the price were among the reasons the Dredd comic was canned -

"Nobody's going to pay 35p for a comic!"



Frank

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"WRITERS"

I initially thought that Strontium Dog image was from Rage, which would date the fantastic letterhead to just before the end of TB Grover's career, but the mention of Kaleb Daark places it before 1985.

According to Professor Google, Daark was a Wagner/Grant (and, presumably, Ewins) creation for Games Workshop. He only appeared in a couple of strips, due to a dispute over ownership of the character.

Fans of irony will want to cut out and keep the following quote:

QuoteWhoever arranged the deal didn't think to make it clear that the work would be (Games Workshop) property – the author claimed ownership of the IP and GW had to abandon it. Clash of cultures really – in the games industry us poor games writers are used to this kind of thing – not so in the world of comics.

Rick Priestly, quoted by the Realm Of Chaos blog



TordelBack

Quote from: Frank on 17 December, 2016, 07:12:15 PM
According to Professor Google, Daark was a Wagner/Grant (and, presumably, Ewins) creation for Games Workshop. He only appeared in a couple of strips, due to a dispute over ownership of the character.

If anyone was disputing ownership, it should have been Michael Moorcock!

These is great stuff, thanks Frank and Fatboy.

Frank

Quote from: Frank on 11 December, 2016, 08:52:25 PM
Steve MacManus: The visual reference that accompanied the script in which Anderson first appears ... showed a woman in a black leather catsuit with a zip pulled halfway down, revealing an ample sized bosom.

Wagner says he never sent Bolland any reference for Anderson, and Steve MacManus clarifies "(t)he image was a kind of 'mood board' for Brett Ewins, who was set to draw Anderson for the Dredd Fortnightly dummy. Because the dummy was going to be for an older audience, it seemed feasible to consider 'dialling up' the glamour. Whether we ever sent the image to Brett, I don't recall"

JOE SOAP's truffling regarding the continuation of the 2012 Dredd film on telly reminded me of his previous archaeology of the Dredd films that never were. The following concerns the 2 movie deal struck in the early years of the Rebellion era:


QuoteJUDGE DREDD: DREDD RECKONING

Mega-City One, 2070. After a lifetime on the streets, Judge Dredd has lost faith in the system.

Fearing the Department cannot afford to lose its figurehead, Chief Judge Silver frames Dredd and secretly replaces him with a corrupt clone, Kraken.

Unrequited love for Dredd leads Hershey to hijack and crash Dredd's prison shuttle on a strange, alien world, where they must help colonists fight sinister forces in the Wilderlands.

Dredd and Hershey return to Mega-City, One where Dredd must now face his most lethal foe. Himself.


JUDGE DREDD: POSSESSION

Dredd and Anderson team up to track down Judge Death, who wants to destroy the illegal mutant ghettoes of the ancient Under-City. Death possesses Anderson and Dredd is faced with the dilemma of terminating his companion.

The Chief Judge encases Death and Anderson in a transparent prison. Dredd learns that Cassandra is carrying a child and breaks the law by freeing Cassandra from suspended animation.

Now on the run, he and Cassandra escape into the Cursed Earth, where Death tries to take possession of Dredd. Can Dredd save the city and annihilate Judge Death once and for all?

https://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=43712.msg930384#msg930384


That didn't work out. Take two:


QuoteJUDGE DREDD: DREDD RECKONING

Mega-City One, 2087.  On rookie Dredd's first patrol of the city, his mentor,  Judge Callahan, is murdered by a group of Mega-City assassins, headed by Max Voltek.

Eighteen years later, a half animal half mechanical creature called The Phantom stalks the city. Dredd learns the Chief Judge is behind the Phantom, and is arrested and stripped of his status as a Judge.

Dredd goes on the run and forms an unlikely alliance with Max Voltek to fight the corruption at the highest level within the department


JUDGE DREDD: POSSESSION

To combat the depletion of healthy air, water, and food, a brilliant Mega-City professor has developed a device designed to rip a hole in time to access uncontaminated natural resources from the past, but it's stolen by a self-styled prophet, called Phobia.

17 Years Later: Psychics have been mysteriously disappearing. Dredd and Anderson confront Phobia, who summons Judge DEATH. Dredd traces the son of the device's inventor to the Cursed Earth, where they're attacked by an army of the undead, led by Fire and Mortis.

Dredd returns to discover Death has possessed Anderson. With hordes of zombies threatening to invade the city, Dredd manages to trap Anderson/Death in a plastic seal, but Phobia frees Death from his synthetic prison.

Dredd must follow Death into the Dead World through a vortex opened up by the device. Will Dredd find a way to out-duel Death in his very element? Judge Dredd's resilience in the face of the ultimate supernatural evil is the world's last hope.

https://forums.2000adonline.com/index.php?topic=43712.msg930391#msg930391


... and after that went South, another lot tried to get the ball rolling, without any success.



JOE SOAP

In regards to the Shoreline deal, this is an interview with screenwriter Chris Donaldson published in Dreamwatch, April 2003 -



O Lucky Stevie!

Quote from: Frank on 21 November, 2016, 10:07:18 PM


Not far wrong! Smith got back to say he would have turned it into a horror comic, rather than sci-fi - and predicted he'd have run it into the ground.


Isn't that what happened under Burton & McKenzie anyway>
"We'll send all these nasty words to Aunt Jane. Don't you think that would be fun?"

Frank

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Thanks to JOE SOAP, for the movie background, and to Stevie, for the Dorothy Parker impression.

You'll have to join the 2000ad Discussion Group on Mark Zuckerberg's Harvard Facebook if you want to experience the full majesty of John Wagner expertly fielding questions he's been asked a thousand times before*, but I thought this snippet was worth sharing:


"The Chief Judge's Man started out as a story idea for DC. They didn't see the potential in it, but I did, and I wasn't going to throw the idea away"


I've just been rereading Armon Gill's adventures, trying to work out how the three published stories would break down into five or six issues of US format comics, in the same way you can see how Wagner, Burns and Frejo's The Exterminator (920-927) would have read as two issues of Dark Horse's Terminator title.

Presumably, the initial pitch was for a contemporary thriller, titled The President's Man, with Bill Clinton or GW Bush apparently directing a Gulf War or Bosnia vet to eliminate enemies of the state. I wonder if Gill was still part cockroach/part leopard?


* Oh, alright. Brit-Cit Babes was tedious to write, as was Manix in Eagle - he doesn't even remember writing Invasion 1984. Wagner had no control over which artists drew his strips in the early years of 2000ad. He thinks other writers did a decent job of following up Day Of Chaos, once they stopped adapting stories they'd written before Chaos Day. He'd like to write The Death Of Judge Dredd, but Tharg doesn't seem interested. Wagner's reply to what he thinks of the decision to rejuvenate Dredd was an arch "Rejuved? Whaaaaaaat?"

JOE SOAP

The Shoreline Judge Dredd deal had numerous writers working on different treatments and scripts; in 2002 American comic writer Mat Nastos was one of those writers - 10 years later he posted about his experience:




dweezil2

Fascinating stuff Joe!

Thank Christ Statham didn't make the crossover from Shoreline to DNA Films-we certainly dodged a 'hi-Ex' there!  :o
Savalas Seed Bandcamp: https://savalasseed1.bandcamp.com/releases

"He's The Law 45th anniversary music video"
https://youtu.be/qllbagBOIAo

JOE SOAP



The 'hanging out with Van Damme' bit is a reference to a Rogue Trooper sizzle reel they were both working on.


dweezil2

Van Damme as Rogue Trooper?

Another lucky escape!  :)
Savalas Seed Bandcamp: https://savalasseed1.bandcamp.com/releases

"He's The Law 45th anniversary music video"
https://youtu.be/qllbagBOIAo