Sideshow Vote II: Like the desert needs the rain, I need you or not?

[broodblik]

So far, each issue of the regen prog we had a Cadet Dredd story. My personal feeling is that it has been a mix bag of stories. Do the regen need a Dredd to anchor the regen prog as well? Do the regen prog still need such a story?

Now my question is what should happen with the Cadet Dredd strip in the regen prog?
-   What a silly question we need our weekly Dredd fix even if is in a small package
-   Just drop the whole Cadet Dredd idea from the regen prog
-   Replace Cadet Dredd with a new character that will become the feature character of the regen issues
-   Maybe keep Cadet Dredd but not in each regen issue
-   Why not try Judge Dredd but just change the tone slightly?
-   Regen, regen never heard of this before

[Colin YNWA]

Ohhh tricky question as I love some of the Cadet Dredd thrills, and think it works best when he's a counterpoint to Rico... but that's as a 50 year old man. Maybe the way to deal with the character, whose a stickler in a comic of rebellion is to go for a more mad cap action approach. So more Jamie Smart (if only it could be Jamie Smart!). So I guess I go.

Why not keep CADET Dredd but just change the tone slightly?

[broodblik]

Why not keep CADET Dredd but just change the tone slightly?

Good option added as a choice

[Aaron A Aardvark]

Realistically, Dredd has to appear in 2000AD in some form.

In grown-up Dredd the man himself often takes the back seat, sometimes reduced to a few panels. Maybe the other cadets could get more page-time?

Keep CADET Dredd but just change the tone slightly

[AlexF]

Yup, happy to keep Dredd but I think not only change the tone but also stick to him being a younger cadet - like under 11. And frankly, more in-Academy stories with classroom shenhaigans, and less mucking about with criminal sin the outside world. It's a side of Dreddworld we rarely ever see, and I think leaning into the brainwashing techniques that must go on could be super interesting.

[Proudhuff]

-   What a silly question we need our weekly Dredd fix even if is in a small package

[Funt Solo]

I could easily live without Cadet Dredd, but then I could easily live without the Regened issues. I put up with them because I realize that without new readers, 2000 AD itself could die.

Cadet Dredd engenders the same feelings in me as did Scrappy Doo, Uni the Unicorn, the smaller, higher-pitched blob-thing in that cartoon about a blob thing, that fucking cat in the show where they said Tra-a-a-a-n-s-MUTE! (which could have an entirely different meaning now) and basically all characters where the management have decided that in order to appeal to a younger audience what you need to do is make everything younger, higher-pitched, generally whinier, squeakier, more polite and with softer edges and "awwwww!" and patronizing and utterly, utterly shit.[/rant]

[AlexF]

what you need to do is make everything younger, higher-pitched, generally whinier, squeakier, more polite and with softer edges

So what you mean is, Cadet Dredd needs to fight Cadet Roffman?

[Funt Solo]

what you need to do is make everything younger, higher-pitched, generally whinier, squeakier, more polite and with softer edges

So what you mean is, Cadet Dredd needs to fight Cadet Roffman?

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

colin, agreed, jamie smart on cadet dredd would be sensational. action, storytelling, fighting, fart jokes, and plenty of pathos too. i think he should bring a young uncle ump into play, too.

[Huey2]

Proper Dredd
Gotta agree with Funt - as a kid, I always found those characters put in to cater for my age to be really patronising. Who wants to see an episode following Wesley Crusher when you can watch an episode following Picard? I get the argument that kids prefer to follow protagonists their own age but Dredd himself wasn't conceived as a kid and the set-up seems weakened twisting it to fit Cadet Dredd.

or... if it's really gotta' be Cadet Dredd than have a strip where him being a kid is essential to the tale being told. But - sorry Colin - I'd rather we kept Rico out of it. The OTT Rico of Cadet Dredd seems IMO very different to the one Wagner was trying to retcon back in 2000. I'd also feel short-changed if I was a new reader to see this constant foreshadowing for something that was never going to be paid off (or has already been 30 plus years before I was born).

[AlexF]

having now read the latest Regened they might as well give up on Cadet Dredd and just have a recurring story set in the Alien Zoo, with Judges only an occasional presence.

[Proudhuff]

 Or just an Alien Zoo soap opera rather than Hogwart's High?

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

It needs Dredd, but Dredd needs to be more like the Dredd we know. I can't see this gelded version appealing to anyone, frankly, no matter how many years they have been on this planet.

SBT

[The Legendary Shark]

Replace Cadet Dredd with a new character that will become the feature character of the regen issues. Cadet Dredd77 - another Dredd clone (Sue Evans? (S. Evans, nickname Sevens?)), from hatching to graduation, told (roughly) concomitantly with the contemporary Dreddverse.