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Well the Cursed Earth Asylum did gain points for referencing David Bowie....

I suppose a problem inherent in all of the novels was they had to be lengthy 'epics' to fill the space.  These are by their very nature hard to do and require over the top super villains, epic quests, etc, which aren't really the bread and butter of Dredd IMO.  Even Wagner himself has found there to be only a handful of winning formulas for epics, and once used, they can only be repeated to an ever diminishing effect.  Hopefully the audios will be a much better format, given they'll be 60 min max?

Good luck with these Dave - I'll be listening with interest!

Sounds good - I'm esp looking forward to the Rogue one, (which is unusual as hes not really a favourite of mine - I always like Gordons interpretations of established characters though so I have high hopes).

Never heard of the Stront writer - anyone know of anything else he's done?

and is 'Death Trap' going to feature a certain Thin Green Judge?  I'm not a great fan of the Dredd books Dave Bishop wrote, as I felt they relied too heavily on recooking old ideas (especially the Cursed Earth one, which took the everything AND the kitchen sink approach to raiding previous continuity) but I'm still going to be first in the queue for these.

I agree SL'ET, the story is the thing.  I'd rather read a Wagner classic by Sampson than a Millar effort by McMahon.  However, the art can ruin a classic - case in point:

The prog 1077 end to the Judge Child Saga "in the year 2120".  This had been built up for the best part of two decades and here was a chance to round off the saga with a nice little epilogue.  Unfortunately, the art by Brashill reduced the script to a cartoon (the Tech Judges with "Tech" stencilled on their backs in case they get lost!) and powerful scenes were reduced to nothing.  Story first sure, but a bad artist can do a lot of damage.  As you say though, a good artist can't do anything to breath life into a crap script...

The other reason I'd still have faith in the return of Slaine is that Mills did set a great template for how to do these "Slaine as King" stories with the story in prog 1100 (? - the one where the drune lord traps him in his warped state), which was one of the best Slaines ever.

However, thinking about the Secret Commonwealth, the sudden revelation that the warped Slaine was actually a prehistoric animal spirit (or some other new age twaddle) did kind of ruin any future return - its like the Doctor suddenly announcing hes half human!

Horses for courses I suppose...

However, I couldn't excuse the appalling computer 'colour' (a bright green Ukko?!) and the puffa jacket and high heels that Medb wore into battle.  Slaine also went a bit 70's fashion on us.  I dont think Birchams was the worst art ever to see print in 2000AD (probably Sampson, Brashill or Ronald would hold that title for me personally), but it just didnt capture the feel of the strip for me.  It was more like a bunch of guys down the local nightclub doing an amateur production of the script!

I certainly wouldn't defend the script with my life, and it featured some pretty offensive stuff IIRC (Niamh being 'attacked' by the false Slaine was particularly tasteless).  However, I think if the art hadn't undermined it further, it would have been better received.

I can understand the thinking behind the "new is best" theory.  However, this only works when you have great stuff to replace the old with.  Killing off characters like Alpha would be unthinkable in America - Imagine if DC had killed off Batman and replaced him with Zippy Couriers!

Personally, I'd like to see more ABC and Alpha on as regular basis.

It might be nice to see the very occassional Robohunter one off, but to my mind the series ended perfectly with "Farewell, my billions".

Ace Trucking needs a proper send off.

The original Rogue was a great idea and setting that was only occassionally exploited to its full potential. The problem here is the original creative team arent working for 2000AD, zand we've had so much crap built up over the character in the past decade.

The problems with the last Slaine saga were more to do with the atrocious art than the pedestrian script. I noticed something wierd about that story though - the double of slaine is called a "replicant" - a very futuristic and therefore inappropriate term.  Pat had introduced the concept of a "Fetch" into the strip years ago, which is basically exactly the same thing but using its proper Celtic name! So why didnt he call the thing in the new story a Fetch? Is it really the same Pat Mills writing thee things?:)

Given this thread mutated, I thought I'd revive it here...  Bits in quotes from Nathans original post...


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The Storming Heaven cover is once again a fantastic image.  The strip itself was beautiful to look at but ultimately didn't have anything to say - in 45 pages, Trips sets up a psychedelic paradise, Caliban wrecks it, Caliban gets done over.  2000ADs equivalant of a supermodel - gorgeous but vacuous.

The Dredd is another below par effort from Alan Grant, which contains a couple of real no-nos.  Dredd is seen about to execute a perp and then recommending torturing him.  These grate for a number of reasons:

Both are pretty well established as totally illegal.  I know Alan likes to paint Dredd as a bastard, but the idea that the Judges will keep mass murderers alive (in suspended animation if needs be)just so they can serve their sentence is surely even more sadistic and relentless. Plus the fact that finding out why they did it before pulling the trigger would be a good idea!

The mask revelation is a bit weird - the perp shows no surprise about Dave having been in disguise.  

The idea of the Darwin Society had a lot of potential.  IIRC, the Darwin awards are given out to people who kill themselves in incredibily stupid ways.  It would have been more "Mega-Cityish", imaginative and funnier if the Society had littered the city with obvious death traps and let natural selection take its course rather than just shoot people.  PJ Holdens art is pretty good though, and has it's own style that given time could become a real winner.

"Shakara looks great too, but Morrison hasn't given Flint as much to work with as Irving has had from Rennie. And while I'm comparing the two, Storming Heaven wins hands down on the story front too. Shakara has neither the atmosphere or density of ideas with which Rennie has laced Storming Heaven."

I have to take the opposite view here - Storming Heaven has a superb central premise, but fails to capitalise on it, instead opting for a 'faceless, generic "gonna eat your face" bad guys kill faceless, generic good guys' plot.  Shakara has yet to develop, but the script has given Flint the opportunity to draw some fantastic images that are as much Morrisons as Flints (the last scene of this prog for example).  While it has posed more questions than it has answered, it has at least posed questions, the answers to which I'm still interested in, despite little by way of explanation so far.

Agree about the future shocks - these are utterly pointless - by all means print FS by new writers where the quality is high enough, but to fill week after week with these tired old re-runs just isn't on.  Hopefully, the new editorial crew will have the time and resources to get commissions a little more in advance, so that when a story falls through (like Dante?), there won't be a rush to fill the vacuum.  

Thats the one - and more importantly, the eagle badge on the Dredd strips.

The art has been truly magic on both strips - now all we need are meatier stories - The art in Storming Heaven is beautiful, but givena more inventive script (ie more than a Millaresque slaughterhouse), who knows..  

Shakara has benefited from a more imaginative script - while it hasn't made much sense, characters like Sneer and the final image in Prog 1278 do recapture some of the excitement I used to get from my weekly prog all those years ago in stories like Nemesis - wide screen thrills!

I agree, Scojo - I particularly like the fact that we get a different font every week, as opposed to Steve Cooks standard font that appeared for years - now all we need is a return to the old style credit cards inside the prog.

Storming Heaven is 10 pages long - presumably Shakara will do the same next week, otherwise I suspect we'll be left none the wiser at the end of this run...

Rogue Trooper? Now that's interesting, especially given the fact they will be new stories - If they get the bio-chips right, these could be really entertaining.  And let's just hope they give Alpha a British accent!

...Except it doesn't appear to list that story - Im sure its that one though.

It was a summer special - I think the one with Tharg being served drinks by the lovely ladies of 2000AD? You should be able to find it in the magazine section.

Whilst not wishing to drag this out further, that is precisely the point Scojo.  Dredd was created by Wagner and all the profits went to IPC/Fleetway/Maxwell.  

Now when Wagner and Grant signed up for the work for hire agreement they knew what they were doing.  However, they could never have envisaged the huge amounts of money that would be generated from their work - reprints, games, posters, t-shirts - these things were unheard of in the field of British comics.  Is it greedy to expect some recognition that the work you did had a value beyond it's initial printing?  Some small bonus for generating masses of extra revenue?  In business that's called a bonus for a job well done - it's called knowing who's responsible for keeping you in business and keeping them sweet.  Your rant about them just being comics writers misses the point entirely - they are the writers (the creators!)of the comic that Lippincott hoped would make him loads of filthy lucre!!  
Lippincott has shown his contempt for Wagner/Grant in every interview he gave.

Now everyone wanted a great Dredd film, but should W/G have been shafted once again just to give us some viewing pleasure?  IIRC they spent 6 weeks on that script/treatment.  If I didn't get something for more than a months work I'd be fuming too.

As a writer, you are nobody (no offense meant), because you have no track record.  W/G have a proven track record - if the film producers were unsure of the quality of their work, they could have read some back progs.  If that didn't convince them (and it obviously didn't), then they are IDIOTS.

We can argue about how things are done in Hollywood til the cows come home - surely the real argument should be what's fair not whats done.  

Even if we accept that what you say is true (and holds no exception for the creators of a character!)just because "thats the way it is" doesnt mean thats right.

Lets say Sperman becomes an international success, generating a billion dollar industry.  However, you as Scojo have signed a contract that gives you rights to a small one off payment every time you hand in a new Sperman script - you don't write, you dont see anything. Are you happy?