I don't know if anyone has bought this up but have just finished reading Case Files 27. After reading "In The Year" I went back to "City Of The Dammed" in case file 8, and lo and behold different dates in "City" the date is April 30th 2120 however in "In The Year" its Jan 5th 2120 any comments?
Timey wimey wibbly wobbly :)
filippo
Judge Feyy was only 88.8% accurate.
Quote from: Tjm86 on 24 May, 2016, 04:01:50 PM
Judge Feyy was only 88.8% accurate.
You win the internet today, Tjm86.
Quote from: kcox28 on 24 May, 2016, 02:37:37 PM
"City Of The Dammed"
Beavers just aren't great with dates. Good at keeping logs, though.
Quote from: kcox28 on 24 May, 2016, 02:37:37 PM
in "City" the date is April 30th 2120 however in "In The Year" its Jan 5th 2120
Because Wagner didn't have Stewart Perkins' phone number in 1998.
January 5th 2120 is when the Mutant arrived, April 30th is when Dredd and Anderson arrived in Proteus, where it was evident some time had passed since the apocalypse began.
There's a scene where Dredd and Anderson start up the computer in the Sector House on Hill Street and Dredd asks the computer what the last date of data intake was - the date the computer gives is 5th January 2120, to which Anderson says 'Just four months ago... is that when it all happened?'
Boy, I hope someone got fired for that blunder.
(http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/17/170966/2382219-tumblr_m9lvrzyqfs1rex0u1o1_500.png)
Is this an issue?
Mutant arrived in January, Dredd and Anderson in April?
Love it all!!! I must pay closer attention but loving my fix of "case files" especially now i'm reading stuff i didn't the first time around. My only complaint is up the frequency of issues as case files are 20 years behind still! got a lot of catching up to do
All I can add is that contrary to popular opinion, City of the Damned is up there with the best Dredd Mega Epic thingys, so there!
Totally agree, maryanddavid - it's always been a favourite of mine! :)
I assumed this thread was going to be about how awesome City of the Damned is. It remains awesome to me.
Yeah, it was the first mega-epic I read week-to-week, and I still rate it highly. Some pages are in my all-time Top Ten.
It was the first I read as a whole, mum got me the collection to read during a long car journey. I think I read it twice then and loved it ever since.
Yep, definitely in my top five Dredd epics of all time! All the artist's were at the top of their game, but Steve Dillon was the stand-out for me.
I bought the first Titan reprint when I was in my early teens, and read it so often it became totally dog-eared.
I eventually gave it away - a family from Sweden came to visit briefly, and when I showed their wee lad some sample 2000AD stuff he immediately latched on to City of the Damned and started reading it voraciously. He hadn't finished it before the end of his stay with us, so I gave it to him as a present.
Sometimes I wonder if that was enough to turn him into a Squaxx dek Thargo, if he looked up more 2000AD goodness. I sure hope so.
My only real quibble with City is it was over too soon! I thought it would go on as long as The Apocalypse War and the others, but it ended at half the number of episodes.
Still, it was a stand-out strip at the time, with some fantastic imagery which left a long-lasting effect on me. It's up there in my top 5 Dredd strips! :)
(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j41/zygon1971/city-of-the-damned2_zps3dpxpm0q.jpg)
My first encounter with all classic Dredd has been via the Case Files, and... well, I can see why Wagner and Grant wrapped up CotD early. I don't know what the effect would have been if I'd read it when I was 10 years old, but it was the one Mega-epic that just didn't fire my imagination in any way. It was a little bit of a trudge, quite honestly. It rambles along in a fairly picaresque fashion (which has always been a pet hate o' mine) and no clear sense of it's going anywhere, narratively speaking, beyond 'we have to get to the mutant.' And then suddenly they do, and it's all over. No comedy, no supporting characters, few long-term reprocussions, and the art's all over the place.*
The banter between Anderson and Dredd is fantastic - best it's ever been - and Dillon turns in some of his best Dredd work. That's really all I like about it, though.
*By which I mean there are too many artists, and their styles don't mesh together very well.
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 25 May, 2016, 01:17:06 PM
stly. It rambles along in a fairly picaresque fashionnd no clear sense of it's going anywhere, narratively speaking, beyond 'we have to get to the mutant.' And then suddenly they do, and it's all over. No
true of most dredd epics
cotd has good ideas & moments
but its not a good story
i like it
It does make me wonder what a City of the Damned redrawn by a single artist would be like - regardless of the economics of doing it, could an artist familiar with it separate themselves from the original enough to make it a success?
Just imagining a PJ or Flint drawn epic, who could really let rip on the monsters.
The only similar retellings I can think of was the Rico story around the time of the Stallone film.
Good bits:
"To be eyeless in hell..."
Steve Dillon (if Dillon had done the whole thing, and it was, say an 8-parter, it'd be much better. Even at 16 or 14 or whatever it is episodes, it's flabby.)
Less good bits:
Most of the rest of the story. I've said it before, but City sounds amazing on paper - vampires, time-travel, psychic powers, apocalyptic imagery, mutants - but there's something about the execution that's a bit flat. It's hard to care about an alternate future that's erased by the end of the story.
IIRC, Grant and Wagner cut the story down and wrapped it up quickly because they simply lost interest in writing it part-way through. Shame, because I've always enjoyed it and thought it could've been more developed.
I agree with Greg - it's flabby and listless as it is, without making it even longer!
For me, the best thing to come out of CotD was John Smith's Darkside all those years later.
Yeah I'm afraid I have to be counted amongst the naysayers. Lacklustre seems to sum it up for me. Which when you consider the glorious art and central idea is very surprising. You can almost feel Wagner's and Grant losing interest in it as they progress until they indeed get to the point they decide to abort it.
That said I did only read it long after it first came out and always wonder how I'd have felt about it if I read it back in the day.
And lo, The Shanshu Prophecy was fulfilled.
The unimaginable occurred, as the disciple disagreed with the venerable Greg M. / Dark Jimbo / Colin_YNWA triumvirate for the first time on record.
Quote from: Link Prime on 25 May, 2016, 05:14:41 PM
The unimaginable occurred, as the disciple disagreed with the venerable Greg M. / Dark Jimbo / Colin_YNWA triumvirate for the first time on record.
Just remember this is the CotD thread. Everything is wiped out at the end when they return to their own time and nuke the mutant (from orbit of course, after all it
is the only way).
Loved it when it came out especially things like the Hell Street Blues references but d spite much of the artwork being exemplary (Ron Smith, Steve Dillon and Ian Gibson) I found the drastic art changes jarred, unlike Judge Child where artists drew contained mini tales and Kim Raymond never should have drawn Dredd.
Just to cause some controversy I extend that last statement to include Barry Mitchell, John Cooper, Robin Smith, Ian Kennedy and Ron Turner, fine artists all but I sighed inwardly back in the day when their art greeted me on opening the prog. Nothing personal or even really a criticism of their art, they just never felt like 'proper' Dredd to me.
Quote from: Trent on 25 May, 2016, 06:27:11 PM
...and Kim Raymond never should have drawn Dredd
Never understood this often-stated opinion, never will. Raymond's Dredds are some of my absolute favourites.
As for most of the rest... don't know where to start! De gustibus non disputandum est!
Tsk, there you go again, elevating perfectly good slanging matches with your reasonable opinions and erudition. I don't know what the internet is coming to!
Quote from: Trent on 25 May, 2016, 06:27:11 PM
Loved it when it came out especially things like the Hell Street Blues references
Funnily enough, that's the one thing about the story that I didn't like - I always groaned inwardly when there were too-obvious references to topical shows and catchphrases and they don't half make a story look dated further down the line.
I know what you mean but back then I wasn't looking further down the line, just enjoying the moment.
Oh, and Tordelback, fair point re opinions. I should look somewhere other than a 2000AD forum to express them. 😉
Quote from: Tordelback on 25 May, 2016, 06:36:39 PM
Never understood this often-stated opinion, never will. Raymond's Dredds are some of my absolute favourites.
I'm fighting with Tordelback Block on this one. Raymond doesn't make it into my pantheon of top Dredd artists, but I can recall a remarkable number of his stories with great clarity and fondness.
Cheers
Jim
Quote from: Trent on 25 May, 2016, 07:05:52 PM
Oh, and Tordelback, fair point re opinions. I should look somewhere other than a 2000AD forum to express them. 😉
Didn't mean to suggest that all - opine away! I just can't see myself accepting strips like Monstroso, The Urge, Code 99 Red, Palais de Boing, The Interrogation, The Guinea Pig or even The Robot War shouldn't have been drawn by their respective artists, so I'm not going to get into an argument about it.
Diff'rent strokes. I think any artist who wasn't Bolland, McMahon or Smith felt a little disappointing early on in my 2000AD life. Looking back now I can appreciate many more (the genius of Carlos in particular who I preferred on Strontium Dog 40 years ago) but still think some artists got Dredd better than others such as Cam Kennedy and Steve Dillon. I'm not criticising any artists, merely saying what floated my boat when I was a teenager.
Well if by extension you're suggesting Cam should have drawn every Dredd story, I'm not going to disagree!
La Placa Rifa!
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 25 May, 2016, 08:14:55 PMRaymond doesn't make it into my pantheon of top Dredd artists, but I can recall a remarkable number of his stories with great clarity and fondness.
Likewise. Can't say I was overly enamoured by his artwork even when it featured in EAGLE/TIGER and BATTLE: ACTION FORCE but it didn't ever
offend me, unlike some artists' work on Dredd.
Big kneepads were no big deal compared to how some droids draw Dredd's chin.
Quote from: Link Prime on 25 May, 2016, 05:14:41 PM
...le disagreed with the venerable Greg M. / Dark Jimbo / Colin_YNWA triumvirate for the first time on record.
Well you say triumvirate but I never get invited to the strategy meetings anymore. Not since I argued we take Peru first and build from there.
More importantly. This
QuoteRaymond doesn't make it into my pantheon of top Dredd artists, but I can recall a remarkable number of his stories with great clarity and fondness.
Wowowow, now lets all hold on a little bit here! City of the Damned may not be in my top 5 Dredd epics, but it's a close 6th! It's all bloody lovely stuff and all in good fun, superb art throughout and the first and best zombie Dredd!
Oh, and it's basically Hellter Skelter. But much better.
Quote from: Eric Plumrose on 25 May, 2016, 09:15:10 PM
...Can't say I was overly enamoured by his artwork even when it featured in EAGLE/TIGER and BATTLE: ACTION FORCE but it didn't ever offend me, unlike some artists' work on Dredd.
I think that's the point for me. His artwork doesn't offend me enough. I was surprised when I first saw his art on Dredd. Found it just too bland and safe. The 2000AD art I like the most has an edge to it.
To quote the artist himself:
"I felt I was stagnating as an artist during my time in comics..."
You're either with me or against me.... :lol:
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/q83/s960x960/12492038_818548184923347_6089734460071324696_o.jpg)
If they'd all been like Nikita Engels we wouldn't have won.
Is City of the Damned better or worse than Cry of the Werewolf?
Just the single line 'Grim' in Cry of the Werewolf gave me goosbumps when I first read it. Stone cold classic with Steve Dillon imperious.