Seems an overreaction to me to quit over Regened. 2000 AD is an anthology. During 2000 AD’s entire run, I’d say I on average I’ve cared about three of the five strips. There have been plenty of clunkers. But only during 2000 AD’s nadir period did I consider binning the Prog (John Smith being the reason I didn’t).
It’s not like every Prog is becoming 100% Regened. Now and again, a strip gets a run to enable larger collections to be viable, which might provide greater longevity to the brand as a whole. As for this:
As many of these strips are now firmly established in the prog, I'm starting to disconnect from it somewhat.
‘Many’ seems to be doing heavy lifting. Perhaps I’ve lost count, but we’ve had, what, three strips in total? Pandora’s not unlike plenty of other humour strips throughout the Prog’s history (with the exception that I actually like it). Full Tilt Boogie blazed along, with plenty of stuff happening. I was less keen on where Dept K went and it and Boogie do both feel a bit ‘Phoenix’ in terms of target audience. But they’re perfectly readable stories, which is what I want from a Prog.
Or, to put it another way, I’d much sooner have another series of Pandora than more Skip Tracer or, I dunno, Greysuit.
But it’s all personal taste, right? I’ve really enjoyed the recent run: five out of five for this set, every week. I get that others don’t feel that way. Similarly, I don’t have much nostalgia for the old days. Reading through the Hachette collection has been pretty interesting. Robo-Hunter was a chore. Nemesis I–IV still clicked. Quite random. Yet The Red Seas and Brink? Lovely.
