Sin/Dex Downlode Tales question

[Colin Zeal]

I've just started buying the Sin/Dex trades and have got as far as volume three. Now I see that there is the DT supplement with the Meg coming up. Where does this fit in with the trades? Do I need to have read it by now or wait until further on in the collection?

[radiator]

Downlode Tales has only been hinted at as being a candidate for the Meg reprint, nothing confirmed as yet. Chronologically, the DT strips ran from the end of Eurocrash - the first S/D strip after that was IIRC Mission to Mangapore.

The Eurocrash trade (number 4 in the series, I believe) just has Eurocrash then it jumps straight to Mission....

If that makes sense...?

[Colin Zeal]

It does make sense, so thanks for that. I didn't realise that it hadn't been confirmed as a Meg reprint. Will it make any difference to my understanding of what's happened if I don't read it?

[radiator]

Yes - we're talking about a substantial chunk of story here - 25 episodes in fact.

It'd be like reading Block Mania, then jumping straight to Meka-City and skipping The Apocalypse War. I'm sure you'd be able to work out what had happened in between, but you'd have missed all the fun!

That's why people always moan about them missing out Downlode Tales from the S/D trades - it's not just us lot being pedantic!

[Colin Zeal]

Thanks for taking the time to clear this up for me. Why on earth was such a large number of episodes not printed in the trade then? One or two episodes is one thing, but 25 parts isn't far off a trade volume in itself.

[Emperor]

This topic has come up a few times:

http://www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,25433.0.html
http://www.2000adonline.com/forum/index.php/topic,27109.0.html

Grant Goggans touches on it in one of those threads when he discusses the broader problems with the Sinister Dexter trades:

Sin Dex should never have had episodes omitted in the first place, but that's going way back to Jamie Boardman's time as editor.  The first appearance of Demi is cut, I recall because Boardman didn't much like Anthony Williams' artwork - and he's the regular artist now!  (Tom Carney is similarly excised - every one of his episodes is gone.)

Honestly, this is one line which should be stopped dead in its tracks and restarted from the beginning, with all the many omitted episodes reinstated.  Heck, there's an entire six-parter cut from book three.  I don't like the artwork on it either (it's David Bircham) but it shouldn't have been cut.  And that's before we get to the Eurocrash/Downlode Tales botch.

And radiator has talked about it in the other thread:

Bit annoying, this. Certainly put me off ever buying the book.

I'm still unsure whether omitting Downlode Tales was a genuine error, or whether it was a deliberate move - after all, the SD trades have always skipped stuff, and the mish mash of different artists who worked on DT doesn't lend itself to collection in some respects.

Either way it's a shame.

So it is only one of the problems with the Sinister Dexter collections. The hope is that when the US trades get around to putting out the SD books that it will be a reboot to the trade collections, one that will collect every story not just the ones that someone thinks fit or look pretty.

[radiator]

Why on earth was such a large number of episodes not printed in the trade then? One or two episodes is one thing, but 25 parts isn't far off a trade volume in itself.

In the ECBT2000ad interview, Keith Richardson confirmed that it was a mistake (by his predecessor). At a guess I'd say it happened because they were using a database to assemble the contents of the book and Downlode Tales wouldn't appear in a list because it's technically not a Sinister/Dexter story.