Picking the Brains of 2000 AD fans for the divinitive years?

[Tjm86]

Actually, I need to backtrack on some of this.  There is little evidence of the police in the early tales full stop.  One seems to appear on a vid-screen in the first tale but is not identified as such and could just as easily be support staff.

Is it possible that you are thinking of Ezquerra's "Bank Raid"?  That did end with Dredd handing off a perp to a policeman but since that wasn't used as part of the original run ...

[JohnW]

There is little evidence of the police in the early tales full stop.  One seems to appear on a vid-screen in the first tale but is not identified as such and could just as easily be support staff.

Just to confuse the issue some more...


From the 1982 Annual

[Richard]

Those are auxiliaries.

[sheridan]

Two points - I agree that 'best 2000ad/Dredd era' is as subjective as 'best Bond' or 'best Doctor Who' - the one you grew up with is going to have a huge influence.  Having said that, there are some eras that just had a better line-up, so I'd say the prog really found its feet in the year or so after the Starlord series joined the roster and this lasted until the period where the brain drain took some of the talent to the states while the new crop were learning the trade (before also heading to the land of big bucks).  It just happens that I jumped on the Squaxx train in the middle of that patch, so the four or five years after Prog 308 will always grab me in a way that others won't, no matter how good they may be technically.

The other point about police.  My head-canon is that they'd been largely relegated to support roles to the judges, probably some time between the Dreadnought/Judges era that Michael Carroll's stories* are covering and the Atomic Wars of 2070.  This was gradually being phased out so that there were clearer lines between judges and Justice Dept auxiliaries who performed many of the same tasks but weren't in any way being called 'police' any more.  We were away from Mega-City One for quite a while - six months on the moon, followed by six months (in the prog) journeying through the Cursed Earth, followed by 100+ days of Chief Judge Cal's rule.

Behind the scenes (point 2b), what I think happened was that there was a rotating selection of writers who added various things to the mythos which I think came to an end around the time Dredd got sent to the moon (those were all Wagner stories alone, weren't they?), then Mills took over for the afore-mentioned Cursed Earth trip so that by the time Wagner returned they'd had a lot of time to think about how Dredd and the Mega-City could develop, hence when the city returned to its version of normality after Cal was deposed we quickly got some of the things that are a mainstay to this day (like citiblocks, and names for said blocks).

* as editor / showrunner / author

[sheridan]

...and the Mega-City Fats police van is obviously a left-over vehicle that hasn't been repainted yet, like that Waitrose on King's Road that had the sign from the 20th century despite the tiretrack rebranding for all the other shops.

[nxylas]

Yeah, I've been skim-reading Case Files 01 again. Wagner seems to have settled in as more or less permanent writer after The Return of Rico, and that's when the strip becomes much more consistent, a lot earlier than I'd remembered. In my memory, it had been the work of diverse hands for pretty much its entire first year.

[RookieNerd]

The whole discussion was a very interesting and informative read. Looks like I have got a lot to catch up on for sure. 

[AlexF]

Looking at Prog numbers, I'd echo Funt Solo's call of 178-700 (maybe stretch to 712 to get Shamballa in) as the first 'definitive' 2000AD era - but be advised that some sections might feel childish by today's comics standards.

Then I'd plump for 1500-1850 for a second slice of 'definitive', that also feels more grown-up.

Not a bad idea to avoid Progs 800-999... (even if that does mean missing out on Judge Dredd: the Pit)

[Richard]

Nope! The Pit was excellent.

[RookieNerd]

Looking at Prog numbers, I'd echo Funt Solo's call of 178-700 (maybe stretch to 712 to get Shamballa in) as the first 'definitive' 2000AD era - but be advised that some sections might feel childish by today's comics standards.

Then I'd plump for 1500-1850 for a second slice of 'definitive', that also feels more grown-up.

Not a bad idea to avoid Progs 800-999... (even if that does mean missing out on Judge Dredd: the Pit)

I get the reference of that profile picture. I just read that book recently one of the 2000 AD Ultimate Collection.

[RookieNerd]

Nope! The Pit was excellent.

The Pit is in the TMC which I have nearly all of. That was one of my faves from that collection.