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Topics - Funt Solo

#22
General / Who Are The Creators?
06 September, 2021, 05:46:51 PM
Creator, co-creator, developer or mere peon? Sometimes, it's difficult to tell who's who, or what each appellation even means. In the creative industry of comics, isn't everyone a creator? (Obviously, not the letterers.*)

Do we need new words? Originator? Conceptor! And just because you came up with the idea, you might not write the script. And you almost certainly don't own the property. You might come up with the idea, then write the first script - and someone else gets paid to write all the others, but somehow never gets the "creator" title even though they beavered away creating the majority of the actual character arc, dialogue, plotting and adventure. Or a significant portion of it.

Is Ken Niemand** (for example) one of the creators of Judge Dredd? A co-creator? A developer? An employee? Just a ... writer? It seems odd that you could take someone who understands the intricate world of Mega-City One so intimately and just dismiss them as some kind of easily replaceable cookie-cutter professional. Sure, we should honour the originators, but as they hang up their spurs don't we want other creators to have their chance at fame and fortune (within a small, tight-knit industry on the verge of collapse - ha ha - nervous laughter).

Which brings up that other question: should there be no more Judge Dredd if Wagner retires? I don't think anyone imagines that reality. No more Sherlock? Of course not: demonstrably. No more Slaine? Ah...


*I'm joking. Although they never do get listed as creators in the Nerve Centre sense of the word. Like the lighting technicians of the movie industry - it's not *their* vision. Except, without them...

**I chose him because, as he's not real, it's impossible to offend.

#23
General / The Wheel of Worlds
12 August, 2021, 06:28:59 AM
So, there's a frame in Ampney Crucis Investigates... The List of Ten (episode six, prog 1719) that is showing characters from the "Wheel of Worlds" - Ian Edginton's linked universe of stories.

Obvious to me are the characters from Stickleback (right) and The Red Seas (center bottom). I don't know who the guy with the pistol is (bottom left) or the cyclops weirdo (top left) - can anyone help me out there? (I *think* they may be Leviathan but it's been a long time.)



#24
Do I know what character I'm looking at in each panel?
Do I know what their motivations are?
Do I know where they are?
Is there a plot and can I identify and follow it?
Do I require to do any research in a library?
Can I count how many Ritterstahls are currently extant?
Has a steam train just teleported into frame to save the day?

So, you see, I think we can all agree: Skip Tracer is strictly better than The Order.
#25
There are various positions on this argument:

1. Ethnicity in historical fictions is not accurate - there's too much white-washing.
2. Ethnicity in historical fictions is not accurate - there are too many unrealistic insertions.
3. It's muddy - on the one hand, there is some white-washing, and on the other, there are some unrealistic insertions.

Discuss.
#26
General / 2000 AD Reoffended
18 June, 2021, 06:01:59 PM
I figure with the Regened project being such a success, we should also try to recapture the lightning of the mid-90s Summer Offensive by having four progs a year be under the banner of 2000 AD Reoffended!

Of course, I've had some ideas for the five stories:

Judge Fred: Serial Killer
Fred Smyth is a High Court Judge who dearly wishes that capital punishment had never been abolished - especially for littering! By day, he applies the most severe sentences allowable under English law. By night, he dispenses true justice!

Rouge Torpor
The story of an opium addicted prostitute during the French revolution. Her street name is Venus, and she's an agent for the British Crown, helping to smuggle aristocrats to freedom. Unfortunately, her mind is pretty blown from all the drugs, and she holds hallucinatory conversations with her purse (Bourse), her syringe (Aiguille) and her douchebag (Sac).

Strontium Fog
When the British release their new radioactive gas in a chemical warfare assault on the German positions during World War II, rather than kill the enemy, it transforms them into ravening, mutated beasts that spread the condition through their poisoned breath and venom.

Missionary, Man!
A Christian porn star... [that's enough - ed.]

Walter's a Cripple
This hilarious, Dickensian tale... [no, look, just stop! - ed.]
#27
Prog / Guatemala
05 June, 2021, 08:15:42 PM
So, I'm reading Guatemala for the first time, and it's been revealed that Hershey has a daughter - but the way the story is told it seems like I should have known this before.

Was this revealed in a previous story?
#28
Article on ComicScene: PAT MILLS ASKS SHOULD CHARACTERS DIE WITH THEIR CREATORS?

QuoteAnd when writers have taken over my stories, it's always been a disaster.

Well, of course I'm going to bring up the superlative (ABC Warriors strip) Red Planet Blues by Alan Moore (1985 Annual). Oh, and Bax the Burner! Moore, again. And Satanus Unchained - probably the most credible storyline about a dinosaur with a grudge.

The key thing that grates when Mills goes on about his rights is the shifting sands of who "owns" a character. Of course, he always finds in his own favor. So, if it's him that's borrowing someone else's work to riff on, then it's all just an innocent blending of creative forces. But if he's decided to apportion himself ownership, then it's a crime to tread on his hallowed ground. He's like a dog with a bone - that he took from another dog.

Given that Gerry Finley-Day wrote the vast majority of Invasion!, does that mean Pat shouldn't have written Savage? Or that he owes GFD some cash? And should he have given up on Slaine when his co-creator (Angie Kincaid) was shelved off the project?

I do agree with him to an extent. Flesh should have died with Twentieth Century Mills.
#29
Suggestions / Encyclopedia Errata
15 May, 2021, 12:43:08 AM
The Megazine's 2000 AD Encyclopedia probably has a few mistakes. Figured I'd jot them down here when I notice them.

- The first Banzai Battalion story runs from 1135-1137
- For Oola, Blint, the notable appearances section has skipped Christmas With The Blints from Xmas-prog 2005.
#30
General / Promises, Promises...
27 April, 2021, 02:26:15 AM
From a discussion on another thread. Thrills that have been promised, but have yet to materialize.

Last part of Flesh: Gorehead, from prog 2010 in 2016:

#31
General / Now I Know My ABCs...
31 March, 2021, 05:43:21 AM
I've started my own A-Z of 2000 AD project and (of course) started with 'K', and Kingdom.

It has to be off-forum because the chart and table have some groovy, interactive functionality that can't be replicated here.

Tech note: table hover components sort-of work as long-holds on touch-screen devices, but really this is designed for pointer-driven interfaces.
#32
General / Six Degrees of Shako!
19 March, 2021, 04:48:45 AM
How many links does it take to connect Shako to any other 2000 AD or Megazine character?

For example, Gene the Hackman has a Shako number of one, because they starred together in "Shako's Kingdom" in the 2020 Sci-Fi Special.

---

What about The Gronk?
#33
General / What Defines a Dredd Epic?
06 March, 2021, 04:37:41 PM
Is it number of episodes? Most people want to include Robot Wars (8), so then you also have to let in Destiny's Angels, which feels less epic.

Robot Wars is 41pp long (actually, it's forty and one half), so perhaps we should go by page count - and Destiny's Angels trumps that at 66pp. Cry of the Werewolf is 48pp and The Graveyard Shift crosses the line at 45pp. We can add in Dredd Angel, Death Aid, then, when the Meg starts up, the page count is often higher per episode, so in comes Midnite's Children (48pp over 5 parts) and America.

Or, does an epic need an epic narrative? A city-wide effect of some kind? Or Dredd teaming up to solve the case?

What makes an epic?
#34
General / Favorite Cover Lines
19 January, 2021, 03:25:36 PM
Cover punnage is an art form, and "Hack to the Future" (from prog 1091) caught my eye yesterday as I was doing a bit of letterer indexing:




If you want to post up a favorite all you need to do is paste the following URL into img tags and swap out the "???" with the prog number: http://www.2000ad.org/covers/2000ad/mediumres/???.jpg

#35
General / Dreddverse Map
16 January, 2021, 01:59:26 AM
By my reckoning, every strip that's been set in the Dreddverse...

#36
General / Thrills Over Time
09 January, 2021, 07:06:33 PM
#37
Film & TV / Endlessly Re-watchable
08 January, 2021, 03:37:03 AM
Inspired by the idea (over on the Last Movie Watched thread) that a top list of movies doesn't need to consider quality when instead it can consider enduring longevity, I wanted to think about those movies that you watch again and again. Maybe they're those movies that, even if you happen upon them, you're stuck for the duration, unable to tear yourself away.

For me, there's:

- Goodfellas
- Aliens
- Blade Runner
#38
Games / MMOs and the single-player experience
04 January, 2021, 09:28:01 PM
Saw a GDC talk the other day that was exploring this argument:

A. Single-player content shouldn't be part of an MMO because the USP of an MMO is not that.

B. Single-player content should be part of an MMO because Conan (the Barbarian, not O'Brien).
#39
General / Judge Dredd Script Droids
19 December, 2020, 02:20:00 AM


Notes:

- It starts in the center ring with 1977.
- Order of droids is weighted by contribution, then by year.
- The big Pat Mills chunk in 1978 is The Cursed Earth.
- Wagner's voluminous dominance is obvious from the first year.
- Noteworthy long-form stories from this era are Robot Wars, Luna-1, The Cursed Earth and the Judge Cal saga.
#40
Other Reviews / 2000 AD FCBD 2020
25 August, 2020, 11:28:08 PM
Best of 2000 AD, Issue 0
(Free Comic Book Day Summer 2020)




Judge Dredd: Democracy Soon
S: Al Ewing, A: Erica Henderson, L: Simon Bowland
A well-mannered meeting of polite, middle-class democracy advocates clearly haven't been paying attention.


Legends of the Rogue Trooper: Survival Lesson [reprint]
S: Gordon Rennie, A: Richard Elson, L: Tom Frame
From the 2005 Winter Special, the unique experience of Elson depicting a lone, bare-chested warrior bred to fight! Wait a minute ... "let's knife" ... "get whet" ... it's all connected!


Anderson, Psi-Division: Reasons To Be Cheerful, Reason One [reprint]
S: Alan Grant, A: Arthur Ranson, L: Annie Parkhouse
From Megazine 2.10 (1992), hauntingly gorgeous art from Ranson accompanies Anderson down into the undercity on the trail of revelations.


Durham Red: The Judas Strain [reprint]
S: Lauren Beukes & Dale Halvorsen, A: Carlos Ezquerra, L: Simon Bowland
From the 40th Anniversary Special (2017), this plays something like a sci-fi sequel to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Alpha as the unwitting stooge.