Prog 2336 - Thrills set to stun!

[Colin YNWA]

I agree 100% what you saying and maybe I ma just venting because out of the regen we got Pandora, Full Tilt Boogie and Department K which all translated well into the prog. The last few issues were not good at all.

Interesting point is Regened a victim of its own early success. Those early strips really landed BUT to give them the momentum and space they deserve as strips they have been removed from Regened into the Prog 'proper' and Regened is struggling to replace them.

Someone mentioned down thread its starting to remind them of the 90s (Broodblik I think - apologies I'm too lazy to look back properly) and this may be right in more ways than one. Then the talent disappeared from the Prog to the better paying US market and folks had to be brought in arguably before they were ready to fill the gap. Is the same thing happening on a small scale with Regened?

[Le Fink]

I agree 100% what you saying and maybe I ma just venting because out of the regen we got Pandora, Full Tilt Boogie and Department K which all translated well into the prog. The last few issues were not good at all.

Interesting point is Regened a victim of its own early success. Those early strips really landed BUT to give them the momentum and space they deserve as strips they have been removed from Regened into the Prog 'proper' and Regened is struggling to replace them.

Someone mentioned down thread its starting to remind them of the 90s (Broodblik I think - apologies I'm too lazy to look back properly) and this may be right in more ways than one. Then the talent disappeared from the Prog to the better paying US market and folks had to be brought in arguably before they were ready to fill the gap. Is the same thing happening on a small scale with Regened?

Does look like it. It feels like I've not seen those strips for a while in either main or regene progs either.

[Richard]

it's all a bit safe (is that what all ages means?).

Apparently yes, but it shouldn't. 2000AD was all ages when it first started, and that had Shako and MACH 1 and Judge Dredd and so on. It wasn't like Regened. Now we have stories about children at school.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Cover by Rob Davis:

Hey, Dredd - Mickey Mouse called, he wants his arms and legs back.

Sorry.  I haven't read it yet.

[IndigoPrime]

Does look like it. It feels like I've not seen those strips for a while in either main or regene progs either.

Maybe the last series of Pandora didn't move the needle enough – or isn't popular enough with the kids. But I'd be much happier if she was in every Regened. Dept K instead of Cadet Dredd would get the MC1 in there too. Full Tilt is trickier, given that it doesn't lend itself to standalone episodes and would lose momentum if stretched out across bi-monthly Regeneds.

Apparently yes, but it shouldn't. 2000AD was all ages when it first started, and that had Shako and MACH 1 and Judge Dredd and so on. It wasn't like Regened. Now we have stories about children at school.

Tastes change. The Beano is (fortunately, IMO) a very different beast from when I used to read it. The Phoenix appears 'safe', but has great and varied storytelling. Regened isn't falling down because people aren't getting torn to shreds by monsters or because not enough 30-something men are hitting and shooting things, but because of other reasons.

[Jim_Campbell]

Apparently yes, but it shouldn't. 2000AD was all ages when it first started, and that had Shako and MACH 1 and Judge Dredd and so on. It wasn't like Regened. Now we have stories about children at school.

I'm not sure how many times this needs repeating, but here we go again: the media landscape is very different from the way it was forty-odd years ago. Back then, there was very little media for kids — Saturday mornings, you got maybe an hour (or possibly two) of dedicated kids' stuff and after that it was sport and/or the westerns and war movies that tended to populate the weekend afternoon schedules. Another 30min at tea time if it was Dr Who season, and that was your lot.

These days, kids expect media that's made for them and, overwhelmingly, prefer to see protagonists around their age. Don't come at me with "Well, my kid..." — there's reams of market research on this. Also, for better or worse, many parents now keep closer tabs on the media their offspring are consuming and, generally speaking, take a dim view of their eight-year-old being served up graphic images of people getting dismembered.

None of this is a comment on the success (or otherwise) of any of the Regened strips to date, just to point out that simply recreating the Prog of Old™ is, commercially, a non-starter.

[Le Fink]

...Full Tilt is trickier, given that it doesn't lend itself to standalone episodes and would lose momentum if stretched out across bi-monthly Regeneds.

Yes in general the Regened format is up against it a bit - Make something dramatic and complete in just 12 (or so) pages, then do it all again in a few months when it's hard for readers to remember what happened the last time! Can't be easy.

[Funt Solo]

You know how Future Shocks (and their brethren) are in some ways considered filler, but in some ways they operate as a fun diversion from the steady stream of serialized strips? Too many Future Shocks, and we start to tire of them. Perhaps this is because one of the things we love about 2000 AD is that it isn't finished - there's another episode just next week.

Now, imagine that every few weeks, instead of the regular weekly schedule (4-5 ongoing strips with the occasional one-off) - you got a prog that was entirely made up of Future Shocks - some of them by newer creators, and some of them twenty pages long, and most of them thematically diluted to appeal to a mythical middle-class of orchids.

We could call it...

[Jim_Campbell]

Now, imagine that every few weeks, instead of the regular weekly schedule (4-5 ongoing strips with the occasional one-off) - you got a prog that was entirely made up of Future Shocks - some of them by newer creators, and some of them twenty pages long, and most of them thematically diluted to appeal to a mythical middle-class of orchids.

It's four progs a year. I can't imagine that Rebellion would be continuing with this approach if there wasn't some merit (profit) in doing so. If it was costing them regular readers, they'd stop. This strategy (as I'm now so very, very tired of typing every three months) enables them trial all-ages/YA material, run the breakout hits as a series in the prog, then bundle up the series up into a TPB to sell into the incredibly lucrative all ages/YA market (which favours OGNs/TPBs, almost to the exclusion of all else).

If the price of the 2000AD group's overall financial health and securing its future going forward is four whole progs a year that I don't feel are aimed at me, then, fuck it, I'll take that. Jeez, there have been twelve week runs of the non-Regened prog that I've felt less-than-enthusiastic about over the years, and they've gone on for twelve weeks.

Are these issues worse than than basically a whole issue being taken up with a very pretty but poorly-written Slaine story, or a Rogue Trooper/Dredd crossover that literally no one was asking for...? I'd argue not. Others may disagree, and that's fine... but I'd refer them back to my point about ensuring that 2000AD is a viable business for the foreseeable future.

[Funt Solo]

I totally understand your argument, Jim - and mostly agree with it. That doesn't, however, preclude my disappointment with the downsides.

The idea that Regened is saving the prog from demise is, though, just an idea. To use an analogy - the constant stream of MCU movies may well make a lot of fiscal sense - but it doesn't make them either artistically worthwhile or something I want to watch.

I do worry that the very idea of 2000 AD - as something one's parents might not find acceptable - is something that we might lose. In the end, you may have something that has the name printed on the cover, but that is effectively spiritless. A survivor, yes, but a shell of its former self. Like Moses Quest.

Like I said, though - I understand your points and mostly agree with them. (I also remember them from previous threads - so if it really is tiring to repeat them - you don't need to for my benefit. Not to be shitty about it, you understand.)

[Colin YNWA]

Like Funt Solo I agree (and have heard! I promise I have heard!)the point you make Jim. Doesn't mean it can't be done with more craft and the Regened can be appreciated. In fact I have loved many. These last two not so much!

[IndigoPrime]

Yep. In short (for me, anyway), it's not the concept – it's the execution. And you can be subversive in ways other than violence. (Again, going to The Phoenix, there's a lot of the downtrodden overcoming circumstances and also occasional openly political stuff like No Country.)

[Bad City Blue]

Just read it, and to be honest although I enjoyed the Regened at first the last few have been a bit dull.

Art highlight is Finder Keeper, very nice with great energy, and the new guy on Lowborn High does a good job, too.

Story wise it's a whole lotta meh. As has been mentioned, Cadet Judges would not be out unsupervised. What's the point of building a world just to have new writers piss all over it.

Lowborn High was okay at best, and theres ANOTHER twenty sodding pages in the next issue. Just give it it's own publication, Rebellion!

The FUture Shock was bizarre, partly because it very obviously wasn't produced for 2000AD and as such I'm amazed it was published as it's not good enough to justify looking so out of place. What happened at the end?I guess someone was "helping" the future. Yay.

Finder & Keeper looked great but was a very boring read. The whole premise of the strip is a shoehorned contrivance anyway.

How frikkin hard is it to get some decent writers in with original ideas? Set them ay school if you have to, but please, please make it more interesting.

[IndigoPrime]

Another curious thing that just struck me: Regened currently lacks fun. It's had it in the past, most notably with Pandora. But this issue felt quite dour throughout, with Finder & Keeper being furthest from that.

I wonder whether the format could do with a bit of shaking up. It seems that, for whatever reason, Regened has increasingly gone for fewer and longer strips. But perhaps there should be space for shorts too. Heck, even base one on an old property, if you like. Maybe Samantha Slade: Robo-Hunter, but as an anarchic and properly cartoony take, in which every strip takes place over a DPS.

[Bad City Blue]

Another curious thing that just struck me: Regened currently lacks fun. It's had it in the past, most notably with Pandora. But this issue felt quite dour throughout, with Finder & Keeper being furthest from that.

I wonder whether the format could do with a bit of shaking up. It seems that, for whatever reason, Regened has increasingly gone for fewer and longer strips. But perhaps there should be space for shorts too. Heck, even base one on an old property, if you like. Maybe Samantha Slade: Robo-Hunter, but as an anarchic and properly cartoony take, in which every strip takes place over a DPS.

A trainee Robo Hunter is a tailor made idea. Old Samantha getting an apprentice.