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At the moment I think Savage and Ampney Crucis are the highlights.  I've kind of stopped caring about the red seas (although have to admire the longevity of the story).

I spotted it in the cinema.  I thought that it was a nice touch.  I need to give the DVD a watch to see what touches of MC1 colour I might have missed.

Hello.  Good luck getting the next generation interested.

I don't know how many posts you need before you get allowed out of the new readers section but just found that I can now post outside it.  I've only made 10 or so posts so it might be time related, maybe?

Haven't had any problems in Cambs (I was going to say that I hadn't had 'any issues' but thought that might be confusing).

Talking of the struggle to grow 2000AD in the US: I was in a comic book store in Portland earlier in the year.  There was about a shelf ot 2000AD related graphic novels, I'd say about 0.2% of the display space.  I had to do my bit for US sales so bought the first Button Man graphic novel.  I'd missed the first issues of that when I first got into 2000ad so never knew how Harry Exton got into the game.  The killing game that is, not the other one.

It seems odd that I, like so many others, didn't really rate Ron when we were kids, but only with hindsight do we realise how much he defined what we love about Dredd, and how many classic stories and images he was responsible for.

I used to sometimes get annoyed by his wonky gun-hands - he occasionally drew Dredd's hands, but then had to draw the lawgiver barrel pointing at an impossible angle so it would be shooting the right way.

so underrated yes, but understated never!

I immediately think of the 'unique' gun hands when Ron Smith is mentioned.  It does seem to be quiet a distinct feature of his style.  Some of his Judge Child art work is pretty memorable, especially the bits when Dredd and Hershey get involved in that Alien televised war.

I came across he-who-shall-not-be-named's works after spotting some reference to him in the aintitcoolnews comments.  I was always aware that the internet had all sorts of people but some of the stuff that he had written really made it clear that there are people with problems who have internet access.  Looking at some deserted forum which was full of nothing but posts by a single user reminded me of an entry on a cracked.com list (no. 5 , http://www.cracked.com/article_18792_the-7-most-unintentionally-creepy-places-internet.html).

I can certainly see the necessity for troll fences but think I can also imagine the attrition rate of new members must be higher because of it.

Again, its subjective, but most people would say the 1st golden age was from the beginning of the 80's to the mid point of that decade.

So that would be about progs 150 to 500 or so?  In Dredd term that would be stuff like Judge Death/Judge Child/Apocalypse War etc.  I'd agree that there is some good stories there (not from reading them at the time but from reading them in the complete judge dredd monthly years ago and in the case files more recently) but don't know what other stories were there at the time.

On an unrelated note I through some of the printing in the early black and white case files was pretty bad.  I specifically recall that some of the Apocalypse war pages were a lot worse in the case files than in the complete judge dredd.

When was the 'golden age'?

One of my favourite 'Mega City One Madness Moments' in the film was the bit at the start when the 'fattie' who was shot by the 'hot-shot' guy was being wheeled away, the floor cleaner was mopping up the blood and a bored sounding announcement was mentioned that the food court would open again in 15 minutes.  Clearly in Mega City One random death is about as common as a food spill in a supermarket: "Clean up in aisle 5".

I can finally find out what happened to Dredd when he went to the moon and got beaten up by some east meg 2 judge.  I suspect he survived.

Is that the story where Dredd [spoiler]gets prosecuted for destroying East Meg 1 in the Apocalypse War[/spoiler]?

I think I missed that one as well.  The one I recall as being the last one I read had something about a dealer/collector in crime memorabilia (including Judge Cal's skull) on Luna 1 being murdered and somehow Dredd being suspected of it.

A short sighted decision to donate my back issues means that I am relying on my memory.

What makes it more annoyong was that when I got Tsar Wars 1 and 2 the Courtshp was on the shelf beside them.  If only I knew at the time what a rarity it was to become...

Still at least it means that I have some unread Dante to enjoy at some point in the future.

Welcome!

And yes, I'm pretty sure you're right about both Dredd's survival and Dante being the best thing you missed. Dante is so worth tracking down it's unreal.

SBT

I've managed to get the first couple of Dante graphic novels but there's a gap between the end of the great game and the start of Tsar Wars.

Hi.  I thought I'd sign up to the 2000ad forum to catch the tail end of whatever membership bump happened after the Dredd movie.  I read 2000 ad from the 790s to somewhere in the early 1000s.  I then randomly started again a couple of years ago.  In about 2 years or so the case files will have caught up with the point at which I stopped reading 2000ad I can finally find out what happened to Dredd when he went to the moon and got beaten up by some east meg 2 judge.  I suspect he survived.

Best thing that I missed I think was the first half of the Dante Saga.