Prog 2220 Regened: Earth-Shattering

[TordelBack]

I'm wrong then and EVERYONE ELSE was right.

Welcome to my life

[Barrington Boots]

I'm the victim of a liberal conspiracy theory!

[ozebane]

I started picking up the prog again a few weeks ago as it showed up in my local Tesco for the first time since I was a kid, and I really cannot stress enough how much more I enjoyed this issue than the last couple. It's bright, it's full of ideas, and honestly, it's so much more contemporary. This scripts aren't toned down at all. The loss of the occasional boob and a bit of gore doesn't make it any less appealing to adults, it just makes it more appealing to everyone. All-ages doesn't mean "for kids", and Rebellion seems to understand that. The logo looks great, too. I reckon you could pull off a fantastic standard Dredd that doesn't betray the character in this style, and I'd love to see it happen.

Oh, and I say Regened as in Regenerated.

[TordelBack]

You were so nearly on the side of the angels, ozebane,  which makes your fall all the more terrible...

[scrotnig]

I started picking up the prog again a few weeks ago as it showed up in my local Tesco for the first time since I was a kid, and I really cannot stress enough how much more I enjoyed this issue than the last couple. It's bright, it's full of ideas, and honestly, it's so much more contemporary. This scripts aren't toned down at all. The loss of the occasional boob and a bit of gore doesn't make it any less appealing to adults, it just makes it more appealing to everyone. All-ages doesn't mean "for kids", and Rebellion seems to understand that. The logo looks great, too. I reckon you could pull off a fantastic standard Dredd that doesn't betray the character in this style, and I'd love to see it happen.

I absolutely agree with all of this.

Oh, and I say Regened as in Regenerated.

Oh. And it was all going so well.

[IndigoPrime]

Viva Forever on reflection seems like a one-and-done. The structure was Future Shockish.

[Wilko10]

The placement of these Regened progs is, admittedly, somewhat askew. Instead of acting as a temporary lapse from ongoing weekly stories, they would work much better as a break once said stories are finished. Criticisms aside, though, Prog 2220 was entertaining - if not entirely memorable.

Dredd -- Can't say I thought long and hard about this strip, but it was light fun. I enjoyed the Robot Wars reference, and that's about it.

Action Pact -- Had no idea what was happening in this one. I would attribute this to the art, which was stylish but somewhat indecipherable. I had a tough time navigating the story.

Viva Forever -- Great fun. Pippa Bowland's colors are delightful and Baillie's writing is smart, although nine tips was a bit overkill. I think the rule of three would have propelled this story into being brilliant. Less is more, after all.

Geeno Firenzo -- Its execution is a bit rough, but I liked what Karl Stock explored here. Scathing critiques of society and, more specifically, the phone generation, but these Future Shocks have often suffered from feeling overstuffed. Once again, less is more - at least for me.

Mayflies -- Completely agree with everyone that this steals the show. Rogue Trooper has always been more than just about Rogue. There's so much to explore in the world that a continued series of these characters would be very much welcome.     

[broodblik]

Action Pact -- Had no idea what was happening in this one. I would attribute this to the art, which was stylish but somewhat indecipherable. I had a tough time navigating the story.

That was also my first reaction then I re-read it. The story is quite interesting especially the premises where beings are captured throughout the galaxy in different times and then used to do the dirty work off the one alien species. I would like it to be explored more.

[sintec]

The story is quite interesting especially the premises where beings are captured throughout the galaxy in different times and then used to do the dirty work off the one alien species. I would like it to be explored more.

Isn't this basically the plot of Damnation Station though?

[Huey2]

Really liked this prog. Favourite of the year so far.

" This scripts aren't toned down at all. The loss of the occasional boob and a bit of gore doesn't make it any less appealing to adults, it just makes it more appealing to everyone. All-ages doesn't mean "for kids", and Rebellion seems to understand that. "

Absolutely! I would love to see 2000AD permanantly go all ages. Whilst my youngest will occasionally dip into collections of the old stuff it's not the same as a brand new prog arriving once a week. I'd love to be sharing the current thrills with him but the occasional bouts of swearing, nudity or gore are a barrier.

Other thoughts:
As others have mentioned, really enjoyed seeing Simon Coleby's art here. I think some of the other regened progs have suffered by having too many artists with a similar style. One of the things which appealed to me when I first picked up the prog was the range of art within one prog. You could have the likes of Smith, Belardinelli, O'Neill and Ezquerra all rubbing shoulders.

Whilst I enjoyed the new strips, I do think it's a shame they were linked to the Dredd or Rogue universes. In some ways this seems to set limits on them whereas, with only a few tweaks, they could have had their own worlds to explore.

And Cadet Dredd. I enjoyed the tale but would have preferred to have read the same tale starring the current Dredd. I get that kids, on the whole, prefer to read tales about characters their own age but that's because the protagonist is usually navigating the same, or an exaggerated version of their own lives. Taking the obvious example - Harry Potter - the success of the tales is largely down to the adventure taking part in a unusual school and the camaraderie he has with his classmates. Let him have his adventures on his own in a haunted woods and it wouldn't matter what age he was.
The other thing about Cadet Dredd is that any reader picking up the prog is going to know - or find out soon - that there's a adult Dredd and I fear that giving them the shorter version can be seen as patronising. Still, at least this version was free of Rico foreshadowing an event that's already happened forty odd years ago.

[HeidTheBaw]

This won't be popular on here, but I thought I would add some balance.

I resent paying £5 for these specials and I only do so to keep my collection intact.

I don't see the the point in them. I started reading 2000ad at 8 years old and I was lured in by great stories and incredible art. It made me a comic fan for life. I've got two boys and they'll be ready to do the same, and I won't be using the Regened specials to initiate them. The cartoony, kid friendly approach has no longevity - kids will grow out of it pretty quickly. It doesn't have the staying power that has kept me reading the prog for 35 years.

Cadet Dredd was just about serviceable, but the art, although functional, is not appealing at all. The story was just there.

Action Pact was a mess. Carroll is a terrific writer but this felt rushed and lacked and sort of hook. The art is all over the place. Very difficult to tell what is going on, hard to tell who is who, unappealing aesthetically and poor depiction of action for what is supposed to be an action based strip.

Viva Forever was just about readable, which is standard for Baillie, but the art is awful. Completely inconsistent from panel to panel. Weirdest body shapes I've ever seen in a comic. Confusing and generally just not nice to look at. The colours were the main saving grace.
Putting Mayflies aside for a moment, the art in the future shock was the best of the bunch. Loads of character, expressive and easy to follow with layouts that worked and told what story there was well.

Mayflies was the only thing I'd be interested in seeing more of. It just reads like strip that would appear in the normal prog. But it's weirdly jarring finally alongside the rest of the strips in here.

2000ad is working already as it is. I get that that it's good to try out new concepts or writers and artists, but there must be better than this out there. Or maybe not and that's the problem.

I know it's good to be positive, especially when new people are breaking through. But i wouldn't hand this to anyone I was trying to get into comics, let alone 2000ad, they'd never want to read a comic again.

I'd just hand them a bunch of progs since the start of the year; there's not been a strip less than solid since the end of year special. It's mostly been stellar in both writing and art.

[IndigoPrime]

The cartoony, kid friendly approach has no longevity - kids will grow out of it pretty quickly. It doesn't have the staying power that has kept me reading the prog for 35 years.

What kept you reading the Prog is presumably that it evolved. Ultimately, it's now aimed at old gits that comprise most of the readership of this forum. If it's to survive — if Rebellion's comic line is to be more than catering to a dwindling pool of adults and a small number of nostalgics — it needs to broaden its scope accordingly.

So I don't disagree that the kid-friendly approach in and of itself doesn't (necessarily) have longevity (although I'll happily read Lumberjanes, Usagi Yojimbo, Phoenix, etc, all of which are in that space), but it's supposed to provide an entry point to youngsters that the current Prog cannot do.

2000ad is working already as it is. I get that that it's good to try out new concepts or writers and artists, but there must be better than this out there. Or maybe not and that's the problem.

For very young children, there's loads of choice, assuming you want a magazine full of generic puzzles bagged with plastic tat. Oh, and there's Hey Duggee, which on transforming into a sticker magazine to save money actually massively improved the entire product. Even so, it still only has two comic strips. There are the Lego comics, too, which are, objectively, a bit shit. But you're really buying that for the covermount.

In terms of traditional comics we'd recognise, that leaves The Beano (humour; currently aimed at a slightly broader market than before, which is both genders and 5–11 or so) and The Phoenix (mixed strips; skews a couple of years older) and... that's basically it. Plus The Phoenix is hardly sold anywhere and so hardly anyone knows about it.

That's not to say I think Regened is perfect. I think it has a number of problems in terms of frequency, strip rotation, writing, and impacting on the momentum of existing 2000 AD strips. But I do like the concept and think it has a role to play. It's good to know it sells well, and I hope Rebellion can make it work. (Ultimately, I'd like to see the company figure out how to spin off a separate publication, but, well, £££££.)

[Jim_Campbell]

I don't see the the point in them. I started reading 2000ad at 8 years old and I was lured in by great stories and incredible art.

I'm not sure how often it needs repeating on these threads, but...

Great stories and art, yes. But simply recreating 'golden era' 2000AD isn't going to connect with today's yoof who, twenty/thirty/forty years after whichever chunk of progs you choose to label 'golden age', would be largely unmoved by five cliff-hangers every week in black-and-white stories featuring surly, thirty-something white men.

[broodblik]

You can even have a case where in the normal prog you find nothing appealing it is the nature of the beast. The regen progs are aimed at getting anyone reading the comic irrespective the age. This I felt was achieved.

[Mike Carroll]

Now I have asked this a couple of times before, but no-one has committed to an answer. So I'm going to have to press you all here: is it 'Regened' to rhyme with 'gleaned' (as in have new genes) or 'Regened' to rhyme with 'lend' (as in 'made for a new generation')?

As I recall, during his after-dinner speech at the Annual 2000AD Creators Retreat in Honolulu a couple of years ago, Tharg several times pronounced "Regened" as Rej-en-ed. That is: it pretty much rhymes with "Reginald" if you take away the L.