What's coming up in 2000ad & JDM

[zenithman]

Can anyone tell me what's coming up in 2000ad and Judge Dredd Megazine? What's Sin City the new Dredd story about? When will the ABC warriors return? What coming up in prog 1280 and 1300? Come on Tharg just a little bit of news please.

NOTTSEY

[paulvonscott]

Very little news gets put on this site, and we don't even know what's in next prog.  People are interested and although I'm sure the editorial staff are busy enough, someone should keep the site fuelled with news, comment and insight.

[Matt]

You've hit the nail on the head there PVS. I find I'm increasingly losing interest in the site & the comments that appear on this board. You've done well PVS in trying to inject new life into the board with your ideas (create a 2K character). Maybe a weekly editorial column from Tharg? Sneak previews, development news, upcoming merchandise & graphic novels? The site seems to have a large community around it now & needs more than the message board to keep me coming back day after day. How about some online games? Just so happens that I work for a company that develop them. Interested Oh Mighty One? Could send you some samples?

MATT

[Wake]

Robin Lees is working on a few online games but these things take time. I don't have the time or the java/flash skills to write games myself, but I'm willing to accept submissions from any fans who do.

Since I don't work from the Command Module itself, I'm not in a position to write news items myself. I occasionally pester Mark or Dom for something, but the main weekly dynamic of the site is the prog profile for the current prog (which I usually do on a Monday or Tuesday, when I get my subs copy)

It would be nice if CyberMatt and Alan could use this board to disclose teasers of forthcoming progs, etc, rather than such info having to come to the site via Dom/Mark and me.

Write to input and ask Tharg to make it so...

[paulvonscott]

Before I comment, I have to say that the site has had a great start up, has been very well put together by wake and is indeed a very good thing.  The back prog and voting sections are great!  What there is is really good, we appreciate it is still in development, so it's just a few suggestions really.  No Rigellian hotshots please! (Grud knows I deserve one.  I wonder how much they hurt? well maybe not enough to find out.)

It does need some development though and largely because it could become a very vital part of the 2000AD community.  The engine I guess.  Or the liver! Choose your por simile :)  A chance to gather all those scattered fans together (and in the darkness bind them) as well as great place for lapsed fans to jump back on board.

Okay, say a lapsed fan, george, has just on a whim decided to look up Judge Dredd for old times sake.  He finds the site.  What does he find?  Well a noticeboard discussing stories or storylines he doesn't understand.  When he goes to look up the prog he gets some moderatly interesting snippets on the latest prog and if he is lucky, a bit of an article on it.  But he still doesn't understand what is going on with 200AD.  George isn't stupid, he can see it's changed andd it's difficult for him to see if it will appeal to him.  He then logs off and probably doesn't come back.  

The website could be treated a lot like those prog 2000's which provide great jumping on points.  Visiting the site should mean that you could jump on any time.  This means that you could have a section for absentees that give you almost magazine style features about current strips and give you evertyhing you need to understand the charcters and storylines and get something out of that strip, a paragraph given over to what has happened in each episode of a strip before (and character storylines they may have missed) and even linking that to some sample online stories that will clue them up.

For existing readers there could be more news, interviews, development (and basically everything Matt has just said).

How about some of those silly pole's that always appear on websites (which 2000AD character has the best gun, tick one) you know what I mean.  Or organising some chat events with artists.

How many other people who use the boards look at the letters page anymore?  It is good, but maybe a few Tharg posted threads would keep it healthy.  There is often quite a few people on the site but there is only a handful of people who seem to post (20-30?) admittedly that may because of people like me who have swamped the board and put people off (Er... sorry, I hope to get a life soon)

Anyway as I said, I appreciate that the site is constantly developing and improving thanks to Wake and it is just a few comments on what else could be done and that the site should be seen as an extension of the comic.

Cheers

(Really sorry for going on so long, honest)

[Stu]

To work best, this site should be the true centre of the 2000ad's online presence. At the moment though, if you want first hand news, gossip, whatever, you'd be better off logging on to the newsgroup.

At the moment this place feels more like a damn good fan site than an official site (see quote below).

"the main weekly dynamic of the site is the prog profile for the current prog (which I usually do on a Monday or Tuesday, when I get my subs copy) "

[2000AD Online]

Speaking as one of the lapsed, I have to say this site, rather than 2000 AD itself, has been far more instrumental in rekindling my interest in the comic.

[paulvonscott]

Yeah Stu, me too, it is like standing on the fire escape at school and talking about 2000AD during the breaks.  It took me from the occasional buyer for the last two years to a regular buyer.

I have to say, I would be really interested in an article which describes what goes on in a Nerve Centre over a week.  I don't think many readers appreciate the work involved.  We only see five strips in a magazine It doesn't look that hard...

:) Okay i'm just joshing, but that would be a great site feature.  I think people would really like to know what goes on.  Obviously Tharg probably doesn't have time for such indulgences.

[Wake]

Providing a place to discuss 2000AD is way down the list of what this site is about. That niche is already filled by the newsgroup and the Yahoo groups.

I see this site as an overlay of an official site and a fan site.

In it's capacity as an official site, it advertises major 2000AD events, gathers email addresses, encourages people to subscribe and now has a shop. These are the aspects which are worth money. When Rebellion want something on the site, they let me know and I do it. If they could make more use of this board for short news items, then that would be great (easier for me, plus it would look better if more droids were seen to be posting, as opposed to using pseudonyms)

In it's capacity as a fan site, I put up stuff that I would want to see. The credit data, the downloads, the profiles, etc. I usually tell Rebellion what I've done, or what I'm working on, rather than the other way around.

This second aspect is made better by contributions from other fans. Obviously Barny's Cover Story was what got the site going, in combination with an Excel workbook of story credits and some stuff from my fan site. This site wouldn't contain nearly as much material as it does if it didn't have this fansite aspect.

In order to tell you what's in next week's prog, Tharg would have to tell me. I'm not prepared to pester him every week for something like that.

I like the idea of "a day in the life of an editorial droid" but it's too soon to ask CyberMatt to do it, so it would either have to be Andy or wait a few months.

Wake

[paulvonscott]

Hi Wake

Yes, I understand the reality of these things.  It wasn't really a criticism of the site, which to me looks better than any fan site I've seen, i.e. it doesn't look like a fan site, but more a discussion of things that people wanted which basically boiled down to input from the higher realms.  Again, reality intrudes and people putting together a weekly comic probably don't have the time to create material for a website.

"In it's capacity as an official site, it advertises major 2000AD events, gathers email addresses, encourages people to subscribe and now has a shop. These are the aspects which are worth money."

Well, those are the money making sections, but they aren't what brings people in are they?  The features you've added on the back progs, the message boards and all the rest do that.  THEN people go to the money bits.  Perhaps if the site made enough money the site may be viewed differently.


I thought the message board 'had' provided people with a place to discuss 2000AD, I appreciate as far as it goes, it is just a chattering entity that nobody pays any serious attention to.  Fair enough, people enjoy it.

As for droids, well if they used there proper names they would probably find the comments here a lot less harsh and uncritical.  I suppose that isn't always a good thing.  When I said droid chats though I eman along the lines of those ones that the BBC runs.

Anyway, I'll head off I think we are having a parrallel discussion here, I agree with everything you say and have done so far and appreciate that you have fitted more into a part time job than many would manage in a full time one.

Cheers

Paul

p.s.  As it's something you could deliver, can we have some of those little voting poll's that you see at the site of web pages?

E.g.

Who is the most evil villain in 2000AD?

Torquemada
Death
Kreeler
etc

Then you tick one and it takes you to the results and you see what everyone else has voted for.  Silly things on websites but I enjoy them.

[Anemic_Newt]

Probably the second best thread I have read on hee for a long time - very constructive - and I agree too

Newtie - very slimy