How do you like your Sinister Dexter?

[JayzusB.Christ]

Just following on from another thread; can't remember which one.  But...

I'd been reading some of the very early SinDexes, and remember why, despite the obvious Pulp Fiction influence, I used to like it so much but am a bit jaded with it these days (with the obvious provisio that Dan Abnett is one of the best script droids Tharg has ever chained to a desk).

It was, for me, enjoyable in the way that DR and Quinch was enjoyable.  Fast paced, ultra-violent, amoral, trashy but witty, and irreverent.  It was a tiny bit like Eurotrash, if Antoine de Caunes had been given a big gun and told to shoot his guests. 

When things got serious, though, was when it started losing its lustre.  Unlike Dredd, for me at least, the format doesn't quite lend itself to any genre the writer wants to have a go at, and characters with punny names and knowingly stylised speech patterns don't really match long, meandering psychological dramas.

Or maybe I'm just suffering from the dreaded progstalgia?  I think there are loads more stories to tell in Downlode, just as MC1 is so often the star of Dredd stories (remember the first series of Downlode Tales?) but I'm not quite sure Finny and Ray should be psychologically examined quite as much as they are.

[JohnW]

SinDex started during my wilderness years, so I never got invested in it. For about ten years my only encounter with the story was by way of the Christmas prog, and thus it always had something of an inconsequential fuzzy-warm association for me.
I've read all of it by way of various collected editions, and they give me the same feeling. It's just a rambling shaggy-dog story with quips and killings – amusing rather than thrilling, dependable instead of essential.
So I don't really care which way the story goes so long as Abnett is doing his thing and the art is good. Any other writer and I wouldn't care for it at all.

How do I like my Sinister Dexter?
With chocolate biscuits on the side.

[IndigoPrime]

I never really cared for it originally. And I found it trickier when you later somehow had to care about two vicious assassins, because they had some kind of scruples. That said, some of the longer arcs were fine, and somewhat worked in giving some depth to the series. For me, all the alt-world stuff became too messy, and I kind of ceased to care about any of it. I kind of sigh when it returns.

But. I know it had lots of fans, and so that's fair enough. And given the wealth of great stuff Dan Abnett brings to the Prog and his apparent desire to continue contributing (rather than just heading to the US and waving goodbye to Tharg and co.), I'd happily take Sin/Dex as a permanent fixture in 2000 AD if it also meant getting The Out, Kingdom, Lawless, etc.

[NapalmKev]

In the early years of the strip Sin/Dex had the potential to be a Prog mainstay in the same vein as Dredd - stories ranging from high drama to slapstick comedy. I have no interest in modern Sin/Dex at all.

Cheers

[Colin YNWA]

As I've whittered on about at length here and elsewhere the great strength of S&D is its flexibility. It a simple robust concept, set in a world that's diverse enough to support just about anything. Similar to Dredd (and I'm not suggesting its on a par before folks start throwing stones) its a strip that is so well designed it can fit all sizes.

To that end and to utterly dodge the question it as good as it is (and I love it) because its so varied. One week daft and fun filled, the next starting a long emotional epic. A bit like life but with more bullets and shoulder wounds (one would hope).

The morality thing is an issue BUT great characters are great characters and just as you can love Tony Soprano even though he's an utter monster so you can love and route for our two guns for hire and their crazy 'code'.

[IndigoPrime]

Perhaps the pacing is the problem for me. Sin/Dex has turned into Dredd, but if 80%+ of Dredd was mega epics and massive and sometimes convoluted arcs.

[broodblik]

The biggest problem I have with S/D is that it takes too long to resolve a story-line. Look @ Bulletopia it ran for years and in essence now morphed into Azimuth.


I many sense I am split into how I feel about it. I am not sure that the strip should continue and if it must rather give us short stories than these 3 year story-arcs

[JayzusB.Christ]

I suppose for me, one of the problems about the long, soul-searching epics is that I always saw them as unashamedly one-dimensional characters, like Dredd.  Unlike Dredd, though, they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer despite the single thing they are very, very good at.

They don't need a whole lot of character development, I suppose is what I'm saying, in the same way that Zombo didn't.  They're shallow and superficial and it works. I like them as comedy characters, interacting with their mad, violent world as if it's completely normal.

[Funt Solo]

I wonder if it would be better if it had a tighter publishing schedule?

Bulletopia ran from 2020 to 2022 (with 34 episodes).

Back in 1997, there were 34 episodes (one 8-parter, one 11-parter, the rest singles) - all in one year. It kept on truckin'.

The spread looks worse if you consider that the Bulletopia arc also spreads out in either direction, with Azimuth being a direct follow-on from those events, and some of the foreshadowing stretching back to 2017 (at least).

Thing is, we'd not want to give up the other Dabnett joints and have him focus solely on AziDex, Shirley?

[JayzusB.Christ]

While the art on this new Dexter epic is amazing (as is Jim's specially-tailored lettering), I'd love to see a few good old-fashioned one-prog episodes, or at least three-prog ones.
.
I always thought, as is often the case with Dredd, the city is the star in SinDex, and the two guys work best as our tour guides through it. They don't even always need to be present - I loved those early Downlode Tales, showcasing slices of city life without the usual main characters.

Not that I could ever write any series for the prog, of course. And it may well be the dreaded progstalgia on my part.

[Funt Solo]

I have complained in the past about some aspects of Sin Dex, but I'm enjoying Azimuth so much (it's reinvigorated my interest in the entire comic) that I have to accept everything before it as necessary to get us here.

[AlexF]

I guess I like my SinDex how Abnett gives it to me. In theory, I prefer the simple joys of the early, silly one or two-parters. But actually at the time I thought the strip was fine but couldn't quite undertsand why it kept getting renewed. My fave periods for ther strip have been, by miles, the Kal Cutter - And Death Shall Have no Dumb Minions era, which was more or less one big action thrill romp, and then the most recent Bulletopia/Azimuth arc, which again is more action thrills (with AI).

So I don't know what I want, clearly.  I think a huge part of the ongoing appeal of the strip, though, is like Dredd - new artists all the time who aren't afraid to radically reimagine the lead characters and to play around with many styles.

[Blue Cactus]

I miss Sinister's long hair.

I don't really miss Sinister since he's not been appearing in the strip recently though. I enjoyed Bulletipia and the Dexter-Clinks-Billy-Hosana combo.

[Barrington Boots]

As a general rule I preferred the early stuff: little daft, violent, funny stories.

I've enjoyed the longer tales like Mother Lode And The Red Admiral, where it's basically an extended version of the same (violence and puns) but I find the more 'serious' tales don't work for me because, like others have already said, the characters are too shallow to be much more than the broad caricatures they are in the early shorts: a catchphrase, a unique look, a big gun, a totally bonkers setting.
As serious characters they also don't work for me because they're amoral killers with little to no redeeming qualities. Any attempt to give them depth falls a bit flat on several levels, and the more stuff like that I read (combined with the alt-dimension soft reboot) the more I end up feeling the concept is a bit played out.

I've been critical of it, but I actually think the recent stuff (killing Finny, Azimuth) is the best thing the strip has done for ages but I still think it needs a new hook - Dex alone can't carry it himself.

[IndigoPrime]

He won't have to. Surely a 'Finny is back' reset button is going to get prodded at some point.