Prog 2134 - Bow Before Quilli!

[Frank]

It did help me figure out why I struggle to get into the writer's work in general though - when I see it discussed, I can appreciate the thematic underpinnings and the obvious intelligence and craft that go into it. When I read it, it all feels oddly flat and unsatisfying.

I like the individual aspects of Williams' Dredd game but - to use a metaphor he'd appreciate, if not the critique - he falls just short of the end zone.

I'd rather read Williams' Dredd than other members of the chasing pack, but I'm 100% more interested in his original work. Ordinary remains the best combination of story and art Tharg's produced in the last decade.

[TordelBack]

It did help me figure out why I struggle to get into the writer's work in general though - when I see it discussed, I can appreciate the thematic underpinnings and the obvious intelligence and craft that go into it. When I read it, it all feels oddly flat and unsatisfying.

My problem too. I mean, Williams's Dredd is obviously good, thoughtful, respectful, carefully crafted, challenging, exciting, frequently original... and it doesn't hurt that Flint and Weston both clearly revel in drawing the ever-living stomm out of the scripts. But for me it feels like there's a sort of silence at the heart of it, a space around which Williams is writing but never seems to enter. Low Life is a bit like that for me too, but the humour vested squarely in the characters usually distracts (meaning of course that I prefer Frank stories to Nixon ones). 

It may, as Greg says, be a failure on my part to use my noggin to fill that void.  Whatever the reason, it means is that I appreciate Williams's Dredds, I usually enjoy reading them at the time, love the imagery on the page and take an interest in the stories he's telling, but ultimately I don't really like them.  Sorry Rob! 

[Frank]

... it feels like there's a sort of silence at the heart of it, a space around which Williams is writing but never seems to enter

That's a very good way of putting it.

I accept I'm coming at this from a very different angle from most others here, who see creating comics as shift work, but isn't that the problem with all house characters?

If they've been successful at all, everyone who follows the original creators is performing a RuPaul lip-sync of the hits fans remember, rather than singing their own song. Covers and Karaoke are fun, but not much else.

[TordelBack]

It's a strong argument, I'm all about the creators me, but things like Moore's Swamp Thing, Miller's Batman Y1/TDK, Morrison's All-Star Superman, or even Delano's Hellblazer, suggest it isn't universal: all of those seem to get to the heart of things at least as well as the original creators did, sometimes better.

Incidentally, I do take pleasure in seeing how well Williams works for many other Dredd fans - the enthusiasm and excitement is genuine, and it's great to see. I just wish I could share it a bit more.

[sheridan]

(though I am a bit fed up of ape characters at the moment, there have been loads of them recently to the point that the ape thing isn't a novelty anymore - maybe give us a nice mutant or alien sidekick for a change!)

Don't forget the wobo*  er, I mean robots...

[Frank]

I thought the Dredd, beautiful art aside was off to be honest - Giant whines because Dredd hasnt sent him a text? I could see a story where Giant and Dredd meet up and there's an unspoken "first time we've talked since the "dunking digestive incident"... " (as it is now recorded as in Justice Dept annals), but having a tizzy fit about it?

Objectively, this is a well-written story by an intelligent and skilful writer, and I admire the fact that he's taken Giant under his wing and is making use of him. Subjectively though, I couldn't get on with it. It's a great idea for a story, but the characterisation of Dredd and Giant just didn't ring true.

Discussion on those evil groups on social media - the ones that are so much less harmonious than here - reminded me of Giant's origins and relationship to Dredd.

Young Giant (651-655) revealed ... Young Giant* to be a feral street kid whose defining characteristic is his inability to control his emotions. Dredd talks him into foregoing the immediate emotional catharsis of revenge upon his mother's killer and dedicating his life to becoming a judge.

[SPECULATION] Dredd is probably the closest thing Giant has to the father he never knew [/SPECULATION]


* I know he grew up on the streets, but I'm pretty sure Giant's mum gave him a name before she succumbed to Queen Amidala disease. Given the way Williams blesses Giant with the speech patterns of a blaxploitation movie, Isaac or Curtis seem appropriate. Dolemite, at a push.

[JOE SOAP]

* I know he grew up on the streets, but I'm pretty sure Giant's mum gave him a name before she succumbed to Queen Amidala disease. Given the way Williams blesses Giant with the speech patterns of a blaxploitation movie, Isaac or Curtis seem appropriate. Dolemite, at a push.

It’s Josiah or Josssy - as he’s known to his peeps in the rec-room.

[JOE SOAP]

* I know he grew up on the streets, but I'm pretty sure Giant's mum gave him a name before she succumbed to Queen Amidala disease. Given the way Williams blesses Giant with the speech patterns of a blaxploitation movie, Isaac or Curtis seem appropriate. Dolemite, at a push.

It’s Josiah or Jossy - as he’s known to his peeps in the rec-room.

[Frank]

* I know he grew up on the streets, but I'm pretty sure Giant's mum gave him a name before she succumbed to Queen Amidala disease. Given the way Williams blesses Giant with the speech patterns of a blaxploitation movie, Isaac or Curtis seem appropriate. Dolemite, at a push.

It’s Josiah or Josssy - as he’s known to his peeps in the rec-room.

Tek-Division's just a branch of science.

[Professor Bear]

By now it's clear that Williams's Dredd isn't really my thing, but it's very, very good comics all the same.

I find myself in the same boat here, though it's offset by the current rotating gaggle of Dredd writers and their offerings being pretty strong, IMO, even when doing plots we've seen a million times before ("it's a figure from your past that we've never seen before, Dredd - and he'll only speak to you!").  Williams' characterisation of Dredd reminds me a lot of the Millar years, and Frank's observation about Giant's original personality as an angry yoot is probably the only interesting thing I got out of this, even if Wagner and the other Dredd writers moved Giant past that characterisation long ago.

Scarlet Traces - ace stuff.  I could take or leave the previous stories, tbh, but this is cracking along, and I'm loving seeing Dizzy spread his wings a bit, especially the use of graded tones in place of solid blacks, which has been noted by others as being reminiscent of Cam Kennedy's colour work.

Kingmaker - well, I liked the basic idea of a base D&D party fighting aliens, but I think this is too much of a pastiche for me now and often feels like box-ticking.  Callbacks to other Edgy works don't help, but it's not actually bad or anything, just... by the numbers.

Terror Tale - didn't work for me.  Intriguing setup and some of the way it played out was interesting, but it's not the lack of a sting that sinks it, it's that nothing of the interesting stuff gets to pay off.

Max Normal - I don't think I can recall a single "wacky" recurring character from Dredd that I ever actually liked and that most certainly includes Max, so this was always going to be a tough sell with me and I didn't think I'd enjoy it at all, but here we are.  A lot of writers make the mistake of assuming being mean-spirited is the same as being funny - and boy oh boy do I have years of blog posts to prove it - but this, I think, hit a sweet spot between performative misanthropy and character comedy that a lot of comics writers these days seem to find elusive.  I do hope we see some more.