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^ Sorry, that all needs a serious edit but the edit window remains ridiculous.

I'll look forward to it, as perhaps it will give me a different perspective on things.  I would genuinely like to like it, and had a little bit of a "Is it me?" moment with it.  "I can't tell who's who, I can't tell what's going on, and I can't even turn the pages!"  But each of those were momentary, and I have all my faculties, so in the end it came down to "It's not me, it's you."  Thinking over it even now, it's just so obvious and by-the-numbers.  I don't mind that, have Dredd visit his 'friend'/'mentor'/'plot dumpee' on the shooting range.  Have Dredd apparently do badly but actually do well.  But make it interesting!  John Wagner would have given those people character, but it was blah and I just let it all wash over me.  At the same time, the art was good but didn't do its job.  At the very end we see Dredd hasn't failed because he didn't shoot the holographic target Judge with the 'Judge' badge.  But all the targets are Judges, and we can't see any of their badges, so there's no build up to an "Aha!" but a "What's Dredd talking about?  Oh, that badge says 'Judge'.  Does that mean the other targets have badges saying something else?  (Looks back.)  None of them are presented large enough to read."  The story should flow, through the anrrative and the art. Sure, it should have sudden whammys that pull the rug out from under our expectations, but the reader shouldn't be piecing together what is going on in the way this requires.

I've been looking forward to reading "Judge Dredd: A Penitent Man" for a while now, as I've been getting the impression that Ken Niemand is considered a rather good and inventive Dredd writer.  Apart from "Surfer", recent Dredd trades have felt rather flat, so a return to form would definitely be welcome.

Unfortunately that hope has been dashed by yet another lame set of stories.  "A Penitent Man" has some potentially intriguing ideas - SJS doing dodgy things to keep convicted ex-Judges out of MC1 - but it's handled in such a by-the-numbers way. I was yawning over the ho-hum idea of yet again making everything dystopian even more so.  "Of course" they're all bad, "Of course" they do whatever they want.  The story tries to ratchet up tension by ratcheting up the scale, until at the end of the first part of the triptych, there's an army of SJS Judges lining up, but in the end it falls flat.  "Asher stays with me," says Dredd, and that's that.  No "Too bad, Dredd, this is an SJS matter now".  No plans to push Asher under a zoom train the next day.

By the time we get to the second story, the pivotal strong idea of Asher trying to be an honest man depite MC1 is thrown away.  Within a few pages we see him beating someone up, getting illegal access to Justice dept computers, and planning to go less than slightly legal with an operation that may restore some of what was taken from him on Titan.

The story is drawn by Tom Foster, who, as we know from the cover of "Every Empire Falls", can do a very good Bolland, but the work is uneven.  It's very proficient and looks great in places, but not always.  We see the 'side view of grumpy Dredd looking at <person> like he's smelled something bad' shot more than once.  Sometimes it looks good (and Bolland-y), but other times Dredd looks like a gummy old Popeye wondering where his false teeth have got to.  It's all drawn with skill but just look at Dredd riding away on his Lawmaster at the bottom of page two of "An Honest Man".  We know how long those Lawmasters are, but Dredd looks like his seat is only centimetres from the front of the bike.  The very next panel, at the top of page three, has a helmeted Judge talking.  We can't see his badge and he's in no way differentiated from Dredd.  I was completely confused for a moment, thinking it was Dredd, then rationalising that the 'riding away' panel was actually Dredd saddling up and here he was speaking before riding off, until I realised what was going on, and this is part of the problem.  He could have been helmetless, or had a beard, or been a different skin colour, or drawn holding something or with his badge showing, or even been drawn with Dredd visible in the background.  The art is certainly very professional, and well done technically, but it's variable all round.- lookl, story telling, choices in panel composition.  It doesn't help that the SJS play a large part in things, as, in my opinion, they have the stupidest and most awful uniforms of all the MC1 Judges.

Like "Judge Dredd: The Darkest Judge", the paper stock is super-thick again.  I'm not sure if this is to make the book feel more substantial, or just a cost (or supply) issue, but more than once I thought I'd turned over two pages at a time and spent a few annoying seconds trying to separate what none should separate.  This wouldn't be a problem if the book ihad page numbers, but it doesn't.  Having advocated (to derision!) for page numbers since the first JD Case Files appeared, and being very appreciative since they were introduced, I don't understand why Tharg isn't ensuring every trade has page numbers.  I'm sure P14 has extra capacity.

I thought this was the first Kenneth Niemand I'd read, but looking back I realise I'd already read some of his work in the equally underwhelming "Judge Dredd: The Darkest Judge".  Considering that this is all as lame as "Judge Dredd: Regicide", my new suggestion for the identity of Ken Niemand has to be Arthur Wyatt & Rob Williams.  I don't know if anyone else has suggested that he could be more than one person, but remember: Niemand is an island.

With his overly-long neck and funnt teeth, Rogue looks more like an otter or Rufus the naked molerat.  And what's going on with his left shoulder?

It's cube time for sure.

I still remember the time she came back using the alias Ken Niemand.  Pretty much an anagram, with the spare/needed letters forming the message "I can glam".

I find them to be a mixed bag, and still do with some of their other ranges.

For my money the best of the BF 2000AD audios were written by Jonathan Clements.  He had a good knack for starting his stories out with somewhat comical elements, and then suddenly turning them into something dramatic and 'scary' (e.g. Trapped on Titan, Solo).  I read an interview with him where he explained the kinds of things that he was doing in his stories to make the talky-what's-going-on-exposition fit more naturally, and it was all sensible stuff - conversations on radio, Alpha operating in the dark with his special vision and having to guide others, etc.

I don't want to alarm anyone - but this thread is now past its use-by date.

I hate all that in audio stories, especially one character telling another character about something they should already know about, or going into incredible descriptive detail.

"Activate the emergency transponder!"
"You mean the beacon that's part of a citywide network?"
"Yes!  It's monitored constantly by hndreds of Judges at Justice Central, 24/7.  Their response will be instantaneous, and someone will arrive to help us soon!"
"Justice Central?  You mean the massive building that acts as the headquarters for the Judges of Mega City 1, this giant mega-metropolitan conurbation here on the eastern seaboard of the former continental United States?"
"Yes, that's the one; the one built over the remnants of old New York city, and many other cities besides!"
"Okay, activating the transponder."

If the landscape and tanks and hoppas and gun emplacements etc are being generated using Unreal, does that mean there will be Unreal files capable of being used to create a new RT computer game? Perhaps they have to be ported/stepped down in some way from the 'movie scenery' Unreal to the 'generate a game world' Unreal, but could it work?

I think Rebellion would be smart to have a game ready to capitalise on the success of the movie.  Rather than revamp the graphics of the Gordon Rennie scripted game yet again, they'd be better off creating a sequel.  And by sequel I really mean something that is like some extra chapters in the middle of the original game (just like recent RT is set in the midst of the hunt for the Traitor General) so that there's a tie-in factor and not "What is all this Horst stuff?"

Dredd didn't have Danny Boyle.

Just don't put the squeeze on him.

the Bogatyr

When you get to know him, he lets you call him Humphrey.

Satellites.

that's primarily down to not enough letters coming into the Nerve Centre.

If they'd start offering two quid for every letter they published, and five quid for every drawing, then not only would the prog be entirely one long letters page, but I'd be MINTED.  "The Milky Bars are on me!"

Even better, "Tharg strips at Christmas".

I liked the Nerve Centre goings-on, it was sort of like when we saw what was going on behind the stage of the Muppet Show.  Plus, the Thrill Suckers were rather excellent.  I don't think it would work these days simply because I don't think the modern droid designs I've seen for (e.g.) Molch-R look anywhere as good as Burt, AALN-1, and so on.  Perhaps it could work if the scope of Droid Life zoomed out a little bit sometimes to include some Tharg (and Thrill Suckers).