The Future Of the Case Files...

[Grant Goggans]

Well, I'm sorry you don't enjoy them as much as I do, but I think Ennis was turning in some pretty good work during this period.  He's pretty much wrapping up around this time, but two years on Dredd have made him more confident and also more subtle than when he started.  Compare Blind Mate to the parodies he was doing in mid-1991, or Ex-Men to something like Teddy Bear's Firefight and there's a huge improvement.

Last Night Out is a very good script totally let down by the art, and I think A Man Called Greener is very funny.  The Chieftain's not great, but I like the art and I don't see what the problem with the bagpipes is.  There's certainly been sillier in Dredd.

As for PJ Maybe, I actually like Mock-Choc Factory considerably better than the 3-parter which precedes it, Wot I Did During Necropolis.  I'll grant you that the whole "chocolate factory" premise is forced, but from that premise, the story moves in a logical and believable fashion, while Wot I Did is one huge coincidence after another and relies upon a central character being incredibly stupid to work at all.

I think it would be a pretty good volume.  As good as a book without any Ezquerra, Kennedy or Gibson art could be, anyway.

[Byron Virgo]

No, no - I know that we all have our opinions, but the Mock-Chock thing is in NO WAY better than Wot I Did During Necropolis. Ennis just doesn't get the character of PJ, the story has a terrible resolution, whilst Ennis' Dredd is just a shadow of someone trying to write in a 'Wagner/Grant' style. And, perhaps most importantly, Wot I Did... is actually an enjoyably written and funny story, whilst the Ennis one is just a pain in the arse to read.

Funnily enough, I always felt that Ennis started off better on Dredd - Twilight's Last Gleaming, Death Aid (kind of enjoyable, if a bit of a waste of the Hunter's Club) and Return of the King - whereas his later stuff just seemed rushed, without much thought going into it. Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure Ennis himself said something similar in an interview once, where 2000AD were still printing his scripts some considerable time after he'd stopped writing them (for some reason, I get the feeling he may even have offered some money for them to stop printing his Dredd work?) I'll have to have a look about at some point and see if I can find it online somewhere...

[Robin Low]

"Wagner & Grant had some unmemorable runs as well. Surely in the Complete Case Files we're about to hit that stretch around prog 442 that's just one turkey after another for about six weeks - Megaman, Squadron That Time Forgot, Lemming Syndrome, Day at the Block Wars, The Lurker - that's as many failures as I think you'd see in these pages."

I like and remember all of those. All memorable and good fun.

With regard to collecting the Meg, Annual and Special stories, even I think it's unreasonable to expect those stories to appear as part of the Complete Case Files - it's fair to accept that Complete could only ever mean 2000AD complete. However, that's not to say I wouldn't like to see separate collections of the stories.

Regards

Robin

[Byron Virgo]

Have to agree with Robin on that one (at last!), as I liked all those stories as well, especially Lemming Syndrome and The Lurker.

Has anyone ever suggested just printing a Wagner-centric colour Dredd series? As his are really the only Dredd stories worth reading (and there have been other good Dredd writers, just not as essential), I'd be quite interested in reading an ongoing collection of his tales, particularly as he is such a master of the short story.

[Robin Low]

"I disagree - if the writer doesn't take the threat of the villain seriously, then why should the reader? Any sense of drama or pathos of that decision to nuke billions of people out of existance was terminally undercut by the fact that just moments before, the bad guy was doing a Paul Daniels impression."

Hilter had a funny moustache. It's hard to look at him and not think of Charlie Chaplin or Oliver Hardy. I don't think that makes his actions any less shocking.

For me, what allows Sabbat to work is that he's like this from the start. The same goes for Cal: he's camp, but utterly mad and horribly dangerous, and he was like that from day one. Contrast this with Judge Death - he started as a real monster and then was turned into a comedy figure, and that really did undermine the character and its actions.

"There again, I also hated what I read of Inferno (particularly that last, terrible pun), so I guess we're just from different worlds...
;-) "

It's the sheer cold brutality of it, almost hatred if you can imagine Dredd succumbing to an emotion.

Regards

Robin

[Byron Virgo]

From what I've read though, that's not how Morrison saw it, as I'm pretty sure he was just taking the piss by that point...

"Hilter had a funny moustache. It's hard to look at him and not think of Charlie Chaplin or Oliver Hardy. I don't think that makes his actions any less shocking."

Hitler wasn't invented as a figure of fun, but has been made into one since as a method of distancing ourselves from the horror of his regime, and he cetainly never quoted Paul Daniels before shoving some poor sod into a gas chamber.

As for Cal, I think that's a perfect example, as Wagner's characterisation is spot on and highlights exactly where Ennis went wrong (in fact, I suspect Ennis was trying to emulate Cal in some respects with Sabbat) - with Cal, yes he's a figure of fun for the readers, but you get a real sense of malelvolence behind the character, that he's actually just that bit smarter, more shrewd and vicious than we quite give him credit for. He might be funny, but we believe in the threat that he poses in that story. Sabbat, on the other hand, is just a ridiculous pantomime figure that is impossible to take seriously - he might as well have been drawn to look like Widdow Twanky.

[Robin Low]

"Sabbat, on the other hand, is just a ridiculous pantomime figure that is impossible to take seriously - he might as well have been drawn to look like Widdow Twanky."

How can you not take someone seriously if he's doing things that are resulting in death and terror? Camp and silly, sure, but the threat Sabbat posed was undeniable regardless.

If the Cal comparison doesn't grab you, how about Junior Angel? He's pure comedy with his childish pleading "Lemme kill 'im, Pa!", and yet a dangerously twisted and sadistic little kid (like Sabbat, really).

I think the real problem with Sabbat comes back to the thinness of the plot, not the campness of his character. Beyond raising the dead and sending them to slaughter the living, Sabbat doesn't do anything else. There are no subplots, no changes of tactics, no opportunity for the character to develop. The character is fine as far as he goes... but Ennis doesn't really know what to do with him (or anyone else for that matter).

I appreciate that I'm not going to convince you on this.

Regards

Robin

[IndigoPrime]

"I think it's unreasonable to expect those stories to appear as part of the Complete Case Files"

Why? I get your point about "it's not going to be complete, dammit!", but I would have thought the lack of annual (etc.) stories would irk.

As for Sabbat, it was the Dennis the Menace rip that pushed me over the edge at the time.

[Byron Virgo]

Yeah, exactly - what was the point of the whole Dennis thing?

I agree with you about the lack of any real story, besides 'Zombies! Thaaasands of 'em!', Robin, but Sabbat really lets down the team - Junior Angel was one I also considered, but I did find that he worked because of the context; he was funny precisely because he was so dark and twisted, and that was what was considered normal within his family unit. There was nothing I liked about Sabbat - not the design, not the characterisation, nothing. Even shoe-horning Muurd the Supressor in there just serves to try and leach some genuine villainy from a character who became a classic, despite only appearing in about two strips. I mean, Muurd killed Dredd and Junior tortures people - all Sabbat had was singing zombies and Dennis-the-bloody-Menace.

"How can you not take someone seriously if he's doing things that are resulting in death and terror?"

It's all about context - you can tell me that 'x' number of people have died, and there's no reason why I should care. The job of the writer is to contextualise those deaths - to make me as a reader go "sssssshit...!" In Judgement Day, the tone is all over the place as it vaccilates spastically between bland comedy and dull action movie violence (except when Ezquerra's drawing it, when it does at least look nice). It's just not good storytelling, and it means that I have no emotional connection with the narrative.

Also, I think that one of the problems with the thinking behind the story was 'bigger is better' - so they had to up the ante from the number of people killed in The Apocalypse War and Necropolis, to the point where it actually became ridiculous and just lost any sense of meaning.

[Robin Low]

"I think it's unreasonable to expect those stories to appear as part of the Complete Case Files"

**Why? I get your point about "it's not going to be complete, dammit!", but I would have thought the lack of annual (etc.) stories would irk.**

It's true that I'd like to see those stories collected as well. In a perfect world they'd be carefully slotted between the prog episodes in a chronological fashion. That's my completionist fantasy.

However, even I realise the problems of slotting colour annual stories into what are, for the moment, essentially cheap B&W collections. It's more scanning and reformatting (I'd guessing annual and special pages sizes don't match the prog). And I think it's fair to accept that the 2000AD Dredd stories are the real core of any collection. With them, the series would be as complete as it needs to be. Anything else would be a bonus.

Also, I think a separate Judge Dredd: The Complete Annual Cases and Judge Dredd: The Complete Special Cases would be more marketable. Those stories are, after all, a bit rarer, and could sell well in their own right.

Regards

Robin

[Robin Low]

Okay, lots of fair points there Byron. I can't disagree with some of them of because I know I've used similar arguments myself with regard to other things!

I guess at the end of the day, when I think about Judgement Day I really only think about three of four scenes and about three pieces of especially memorable dialogue. They just shine out so brightly for me they obscure the rest.

Regards

Robin

[paulvonscott]

"Also, I think a separate Judge Dredd: The Complete Annual Cases and Judge Dredd: The Complete Special Cases"

I did hear some rumour to that affect at Bristol.  If it's so make sure to remember the ones from the Dan Dare Annuals!

[IndigoPrime]

"It's all about context - you can tell me that 'x' number of people have died, and there's no reason why I should care."

It's the Doctor Who thing, isn't it? Every bloody week, there's some disaster that will wipe out the world, but that's not something that fits in our heads. But have a story where a character you care about might die, and suddenly it's a whole different thing. When Alpha got skewered I thought "oh, shit". When three billion got vaped in Judgment Day, I just didn't care.

"Also, I think a separate Judge Dredd: The Complete Annual Cases and Judge Dredd: The Complete Special Cases would be more marketable. Those stories are, after all, a bit rarer, and could sell well in their own right."

I doubt the majority of people would know what those titles meant, and I'll be flabbergasted if we ever see them, despite any rumours to the contrary. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen the same system as being used in the Strontium Dog stuff, bunging the 'extra' Dredd stories at the back. (And seeing as how thin volume 3 was, there would have been plenty of space to 'catch up' at that point.)

[Robin Low]

"Also, I think a separate Judge Dredd: The Complete Annual Cases and Judge Dredd: The Complete Special Cases would be more marketable. Those stories are, after all, a bit rarer, and could sell well in their own right."

***I doubt the majority of people would know what those titles meant, and I'll be flabbergasted if we ever see them, despite any rumours to the contrary.***

Okay, so change the titles a bit, but as they are I don't see people saying, "Annual and Special Cases? Huh? Well, I'm not taking that of the shelf to look at." If the majority of people think like that, then The Complete Case Files are equally vulnerable. Dredd fans will look, non-Dredd fans will treat them the way they treat anything else with Dredd in the title.

And as for titles that mean nothing, how about The Art Kenny Who??- that title won't mean a thing to anyone but a fan. It doens't even sound exciting.

And the fact that the stories are in colour should help, too - B&W doen't seem very popular with 'the kids' these days.

***Personally, I'd have liked to have seen the same system as being used in the Strontium Dog stuff, bunging the 'extra' Dredd stories at the back. (And seeing as how thin volume 3 was, there would have been plenty of space to 'catch up' at that point.)***

I agree, but then I see the problems too. Separate collections just seems a way round the fact that haven't been included in the Complete Case Files. After all how many volumes would you need to collect all the Annual and Special stories? One each?

Incidentally, in roleplaying publishing these days there seems to be a lot of this print-to-order going on. Maybe that's a way to go.

Regards

Robin

[Grant Goggans]

Robin asked, "How can you not take someone seriously if he's doing things that are resulting in death and terror? Camp and silly, sure, but the threat Sabbat posed was undeniable regardless."

Who do you take more seriously as James Bond?  Roger Moore or Daniel Craig?  Roger Moore kills a lot of people and stuff, but the brutality is constantly being undermined by quips, one liners, clown makeup and sight gags about stone pineapples at the end of the staircase rail.