The text stories - do you miss them?

[JayzusB.Christ]

Much as I love Conrad and Fox's podcast, I would have to disagree when they grumble about text stories in the old specials.

In the specials I remember, they were  generally by John Smith and were often really good. Ones that stood out for me were the harrowing one about a diseased Mega-Citizen condemned to Cursed Earth quarantine,  a couple of world- and character-building Devlin Waughs, and a Strontium Dogs with two really interesting Stronts we'd never met before.

John even managed to get a really good (Friday) Rogue Trooper story into a special otherwise filled with really bad Michael Fleischer strips.

I remember Pete Milligan doing a good Anderson one, and Mark Millar doing a less good Anderson one (Though the latter did feature a Judge Gordon Rennie).  The last text story I really enjoyed was in one of the end-of-year specials, a SinDex Famous Five pastiche by Dabnett.

I wasn't altogether impressed by the more recent Dredd text stories in the Megazine but wouldn't mind seeing more text stories in the specials. I have a feeling I might be in the minority though...

[Richard]

They're very hit and miss, but they're not all bad. There were some perfectly good ones. That Sinister Dexter one you mentioned was a highlight. I also liked the Zenith one a couple of years ago by Matt Smith.

[JohnW]

Meg 329!
Short story competition!
Second prize!*
That was me!
Richard wrote something nice about it on this very forum!
You betcha I'm in favour of text stories!
                                     ...on principle.

There's been some fine, fine stuff printed down the years, but there's also been a whole lot I probably never even bothered reading.
I have read various Dredd novellas and some of them are excellent, but when all's said and done I want my 2000ad stories with pictures and speech bubbles.
So if I have a physical copy of the Sci-Fi Special on a rainy summer day, then give me a text story by all means. It'd beat Spot the Difference.
Otherwise? I'm sad to say that it would likely be wasted on me.

*I still have the prize: a Dredd badge keyring from Planet Replicas. (I had to buy it myself, but I bought it in a spirit of celebration so it counts as a prize. 🥳)

[Magnetica]

I've never liked them and have always considered them a chore to read. It's a comic, not a magazine.

[Funt Solo]

Yeah, I'm a shocker and have always just ignored the text stories. It's not that I'm against prose - but if I pick up a comic, I want it to remain a comic. I like novels a lot more than short stories, any road.


See also:

Rupert Bear - I always read the two-line verse but ignored the longer prose at the base of the page.
Watchmen - I *eventually* forced myself to read the text bits, but usually just read the comic frames. (And the same for Give Me Liberty, and New Statesmen.)


I recently bought the Providence compendium, which has tons of prose sections - so we'll see how I go with that. (Honestly, at this stage, it feels like a childish habit I haven't shaken off. But then, so does eating ice cream.)

[JayzusB.Christ]

Meg 329!
Short story competition!
Second prize!*
That was me!
Richard wrote something nice about it on this very forum!
You betcha I'm in favour of text stories!
                                     ...on principle.

There's been some fine, fine stuff printed down the years, but there's also been a whole lot I probably never even bothered reading.
I have read various Dredd novellas and some of them are excellent, but when all's said and done I want my 2000ad stories with pictures and speech bubbles.
So if I have a physical copy of the Sci-Fi Special on a rainy summer day, then give me a text story by all means. It'd beat Spot the Difference.
Otherwise? I'm sad to say that it would likely be wasted on me.

*I still have the prize: a Dredd badge keyring from Planet Replicas. (I had to buy it myself, but I bought it in a spirit of celebration so it counts as a prize. 🥳)

Well, I have half of your Dredd story read, and am saving the rest for later. Brilliant stuff!  And I was interested to find that your name really is J Ware.

[JohnW]

And I was interested to find that your name really is J Ware.

I've never made a secret of my real name – much to the despair of my family.
("You're posting on that forum? My God! Couldn't you have done something decent with your life? – like playing piano in a whorehouse or something?")

[The Legendary Shark]

Families always expect too much of us, like requiring we wear pants.

[Blue Cactus]

The text stories rarely grabbed me, and I say that as someone who loves short stories generally. I'd just much rather read comics in Tharg's publications and when I was a kid it felt like a drag to go from visually exciting comics to large pages of text.

[broodblik]

Never was a fan of the text stories.

[sheridan]

I think I've mentioned this when I appeared on Space Spinner 2000, but I'm quite capable of reading long novels (current bedside reading A Dance of Dragons, over 1.000 pages :O ) but when it comes to a six page text story, between a third and a half of which is taken up with illustrations then I stumble.  My hypothesis is that my mind is in words and pictures mode and so it seems like a chore to have the two separated out, whereas I'm in pure word mode when it comes to doorstop novels...

p.s. I have completely unsubstantiated theories about some of the text stories in later annuals and specials but won't go in to it here.  Maybe when my currently stalled prog slog blog gets around to that era and I've read them all more freshly.

[broodblik]

Agree with you Sheridan, I do not like my text and pictures to be mixed. If I want to read text only I will grab a book

[The Legendary Shark]

I don't mind the mixture of text and pictures - suchlikes as illustrated Sherlock Holmes stories never put me off, and neither do illustrated Judge Dredd stories.

[Barrington Boots]

As a kid I never read the text stories in any comic. I'd read any book I could get my hands on, but there was something about a text story in a comic that seemed remarkably unappealing. It's very different to reading a full novel or even a short story.

As an adult, I confess I skipped 90% of them back when I was buying the Meg without really thinking about it. It's different with something like Watchmen when the text is an integral part of the tale - but two pages of prose still seems like something eminently skippable, I suppose.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Seems I'm very much in a minority with text stories.  Then again, I really didn't want them to resurrect Johnny Alpha, so what do I know.

To be fair, there was a Bad Company text story in an annual that quite blatantly finished by saying it was all a dream. So that wasn't good.

Now, what I really, really want my filler to be is a Dreddworld Atlas, with illustrated text pieces showing notable events in each area.  Come on, Tharg, don't let people forget what happened in Uranium City (even though I've forgotten myself).