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Howdy folks!

I'm currently working on an economics paper on robotics that is using cultural examples as a type of economic model. I happened upon Judge Dredd last weekend (I'm enjoying what I'm reading right now of it) and I found that it would be perfect for my paper -- 96% of the population is unemployed due to automation. However, I can't find relevant comic arcs that deal with unemployment in MegaCity-1. Can anyone point me towards certain arcs and which Case File books they'd be in would be relevant to my research? I found one arc called the "Unemployment Riot" which looks like it hits the nail right on the head for me but it looks like it hasn't been reprinted since the 80s.

Thanks so much! I really appreciate it!

The story that springs to my mind that deals with work in MC1 is 'The Rise and Fall of Chair Man Dilbert' in progs 1012-1013. I'm going from memory here but I think it was about a guy who had a job as a shop dummy before becoming a highly fashionable human chair. It certainly showed the terrible job situation in the Big Meg. I'm sure it was subtly taking the piss out of Elizabeth Hurley when she was kind of an 'It-Girl' accessory for Hugh Grant too.

I think I'll have a re-read tonight.

From memory I think Citizen Snork, The Suspect and Sunday Night Fever touched on the theme a bit.

There are some fantastic stories about unemployment, too many to list, but I'll give you some examples to start you off:

At the serious end of the spectrum, there is Sunday Night Fever (Progs 416-418; reprinted Judge Dredd Casefiles Vol. 8), about the desperation of unemployment (and men in rhino suits).  One of the best Dredd stories of them all, IMO.

The more humorous look would be represented by Citizen Snork (Progs 356-8; reprinted Casefiles Vol. 7), featuring the daft things people do to fill their time.

Then there's The Suspect (Prog 342; reprinted Casefiles Vol. 7), about a man who bucks the trend (I won't spoil it for you).

Others will be along to show that I've missed all the important ones - in particular there are some more serious 'recent' (i.e. last 10 years) ones the names of which I can't recall.

EDIT: Or in Jon's case, pick exactly the same ones but beat me to it...

There was a story about a rumoured job vacancy at a dangerous chemicals plant for which thousands and thousands of people turned up to fill. When it became clear that there was no vacancy, a riot broke out destroying part of the plant, lethal chemicals leaked out and millions were killed.

I can't remember which prog it was in but I read it fairly recently in one of the case files. I think the art was by Cam Kennedy.

Sorry for the vague recollections.

EDIT: It was Sunday Night Fever, as pointed out by Jon and Tordelback.

Ha ha ha. I guess definitely those three then. ;)

A couple of Daily Star Dredds too. I'll see if I can find these tonight...

Half remembering on the way to work so I can't check offhand but wasn't there a grim Christmas meg Dredd about the black market in jobs?

Can't for the life of me find it in my indexes but there was a story, in the Meg I think, all about the queue which built up outside the benefits office following "technical difficulties".  That one had a happy ending for the protagonist. The art was by Siku I believe.

Double post (dratting time limit on edit button) -

Found it "Doledrums" Prog 1176, Written by Alan Grant and art by Dean Ormston

Quote from: OccamsRagr on 30 April, 2014, 06:52:30 AM
I can't find relevant comic arcs that deal with unemployment in MegaCity-1. Can anyone point me towards certain arcs and which Case File books they'd be in would be relevant to my research? I found one arc called the "Unemployment Riot" which looks like it hits the nail right on the head for me but it looks like it hasn't been reprinted since the 80s

I'm coming up blank for a story of that name, but the title suggests Sunday Night Fever (Case Files 8), in which the rumour of a single job vacancy leads to an angry mob, thousands of deaths, and mass panic. In a related vein, The Suspect (Case Files 7) features a citizen who's so determined to work he actually holds down several jobs, which is a crime in a city where employment is at such a premium.

Otherwise, Citizen Snork (Case Files 7) is about how unemployment destroys an individual's identity, and how citizens compensate for that. The titular hero decides to grow his nose until it's the biggest in the city,  winning fame and fortune; his dad takes up a form of hang gliding/CB radio and his mum professionalises sitting around as a discipline.

Another example of unemployed citizens inscribing their determination to distinguish and differentiate themselves from the herd upon their own bodies are the sequence of stories about fatties. Requiem For A Heavyweight (Case Files 7) riffs on Rocky as it tells how Arnie Stodgeman is plucked from obscurity to compete in the World Heavyweight Eating Championship, and The Magnificent Obsession (Case Files 9) details Two Ton Tony Tubbs's determination to become the fattest man in the world.

The Wreckers (Case Files 8) is Daphne DuMaurier's Jamaica Inn for the 22nd century, with unemployed folk resorting to attacking traffic carrying wealthier citizens through their economically deprived neighbourhood. More novel solutions to income inequality can be found in Paid With Thanks (Case Files 10), which details how one citizen has created an income for herself by billing big corporations for her billing services, and House On Runners Walk (Case Files 7) where some old dears discover that even dead citizens can still draw a welfare check.

Not directly related to unemployment per se, but Block War (Case Files 4), The Problem With Sonny Bono (Case Files 5), and Block Rite (Case Files 10) all look at how the lack of anything better to do with their lives and the social conditions in which they're forced to live by the state drive the citizens into territoriality, petty rivalries and resentments. Their frustration with the nature of their own lives fosters a disproportionate pride in their little patch of turf and drives them to lash out in hate and jealousy at others. (cough) UKIP (cough)

Quote from: Tombo on 30 April, 2014, 09:26:16 AM
Double post (dratting time limit on edit button) -

Found it "Doledrums" Prog 1176, Written by Alan Grant and art by Dean Ormston

That's one of the ones I was trying to think of: well done, Tombo!

Also one of the Mega-Rackets stories dealt with a citizen leaving his wife as collateral to loan sharks for bribe money so he could suceed at a job offer.
Progs 209/210 and reprinted in Case files 5.

Go way back to a very early story (although I can't place it right now), and the Chief Judge is saying how citizens wouldn't stand for working more than just an hour or two a day. It's a curious shift from MC1 as a kind of futuristic utopia to a satirical comment on contemporary society.

Quote from: Spaceghost on 30 April, 2014, 08:37:35 AM
There was a story about a rumoured job vacancy [spoiler]at a dangerous chemicals plant for which thousands and thousands of people turned up to fill. When it became clear that there was no vacancy, a riot broke out destroying part of the plant, lethal chemicals leaked out and millions were killed.
[/spoiler]
I can't remember which prog it was in but I read it fairly recently in one of the case files. I think the art was by Cam Kennedy.

Sorry for the vague recollections.

EDIT: It was Sunday Night Fever, as pointed out by Jon and Tordelback.

Spoilers, braw, spoilers! (I've added them in the quote.)

The Art of Kenny Who? is another fine example of the effect of the US comic industry robot employees on Cam Kennedy would-be human ones.

Also check out The Stupid Gun (reprinted in the Dredd Case Files no. 6), in which unemployment is also a major theme, and the unsettling Lemming Syndrome (prog 445), which focuses on outbreaks of mass hysteria among a terminally bored and depressed population.

It's not specifically about unemployment, but Full Mental Jacket (reprinted in Case Files 12) is a very powerful look at the general mood of hopelessness and despair around MC1.

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 30 April, 2014, 11:40:07 AM
Go way back to a very early story (although I can't place it right now), and the Chief Judge is saying how citizens wouldn't stand for working more than just an hour or two a day. It's a curious shift from MC1 as a kind of futuristic utopia to a satirical comment on contemporary society

The satirical treatment of unemployment (and other aspects of modern life) kicks in once Alan Grant joins the TB Grover writing partnership. Grant's described his and Wagner's working practice as spending an hour reading the papers in the morning and seeing what leapt out as the basis for a story, so it's not surprising that so many of the strips from the early eighties revolved around the empty lives of underemployed citizens.

Once you hit the late eighties and unemployment becomes less of a pressing concern in the media (and once Wagner and Grant end their writing partnership), worklessness and its attendant frustrations are no longer the focus of the strips - although everyone's still unemployed in MC1. The collapse of Western capitalism in 2008 should have been the cue for a slew of new stories about signing-on, but it coincided with a period when Wagner's writing was centred on much longer, epic stories. I suppose Day Of Chaos was metaphorically about credit default swaps and the human misery they inflicted.

Unamerican Graffiti/Midnight Surfer show the impact of unemployment on Marlon Shakespeare.

I think the earliest mention of mass unemployment as a way of life in MC-1 was in one of the City-block stories, reprinted in CF2.

Ah, here we go: the early Robot Wars (Prog 11), where Goodman says citizens would "never agree to working more than a ten hour week" (followed by the first of Dredd's semi-regular passive-aggressive "well, here's my badge, then, if I can't get my way" huffs).

Yeah, I remember a few scenes of lazy, arrogant citizens lounging around in lavish apartments ordering robots around prior to the Robot Wars storyline. That soon changed to the bored, poor cits living in squalor we know and love.

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 30 April, 2014, 02:14:04 PM
the first of Dredd's semi-regular passive-aggressive "well, here's my badge, then, if I can't get my way" huffs

HA! Nice observation - no wonder Hershey lost her rag at his implied threat of that tactic during The Cold Deck. Also, "the Grand Judge" - ooh, get her.

I want the Grand Judge's chair!

If you can track down a copy of Megazine 215, then My Beautiful Career is a wee goldmine - it features Employees Anonymous, a self help group embarrassed by the fact that they have jobs in a jobless society, whose meeting is interupted by a crazed gunman. The gunman's lifestory is one of woe and has some great examples of nutty Big Meg jobs - he started off in a supermarket as a Trolley Jerk – responsible for placing expensive goods in customers' baskets, who are too embarrassed not to buy them. After a robot complains on behalf of its owner and gets him fired, 14 years of unemploymet follow before he gets a gig for the Judges as a Civilian Perpetrator - human punching bags to help Judges prepare disarming and disabling tactics against perps. His beatings eventully leave him so mangled that the Judges have no further use for him - 'I'm sorry, Flip. We're not going to be able to beat you up any more.' Tossed back onto welfare, he flips out and his descent into criminality begins. Needless to say there isn't really a happy ending!

I'd just like to add that Sunday Night Fever is one of the great Dredd stories and one of Cam Kennedy's best works. Funny,tragic, horrific....I remember it being a real pleasure to read and re-read, enjoy!

Jeez...it's so easy to forget some of the shorter stories...

Sunday Night Fever original art
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vnbcgj0YrJQ/UvA-g-mKcvI/AAAAAAAADZo/WClUwQdJ93E/s1600/Sunday+Night+Fever1_1.jpg

Thank you guys so much for the flurry of replies! I honestly did not expect this much attention. Clearly, I have a lot of reading to do.

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 30 April, 2014, 11:40:07 AM
Go way back to a very early story (although I can't place it right now), and the Chief Judge is saying how citizens wouldn't stand for working more than just an hour or two a day. It's a curious shift from MC1 as a kind of futuristic utopia to a satirical comment on contemporary society.

I read Casebook 1 last night and noticed that (btw it was AWESOME). I'm just going to ignore the utopic references for my paper -- I imagine its just the comic finding its footing, much akin to Batman using a gun for the first few issues.

Quote from: Dark JimboIf you can track down a copy of Megazine 215, then My Beautiful Career is a wee goldmine - it features Employees Anonymous, a self help group embarrassed by the fact that they have jobs in a jobless society, whose meeting is interupted by a crazed gunman. The gunman's lifestory is one of woe and has some great examples of nutty Big Meg jobs - he started off in a supermarket as a Trolley Jerk – responsible for placing expensive goods in customers' baskets, who are too embarrassed not to buy them. After a robot complains on behalf of its owner and gets him fired, 14 years of unemploymet follow before he gets a gig for the Judges as a Civilian Perpetrator - human punching bags to help Judges prepare disarming and disabling tactics against perps. His beatings eventully leave him so mangled that the Judges have no further use for him - 'I'm sorry, Flip. We're not going to be able to beat you up any more.' Tossed back onto welfare, he flips out and his descent into criminality begins. Needless to say there isn't really a happy ending!

That does sound useful, however, if its not in a casebook, I have no idea how I'd track it down. If I had more time to search through libraries (paper is due Monday), I would, but I don't think that's feasible. :/

Quote from: OccamsRagr on 30 April, 2014, 06:16:48 PM
That does sound useful, however, if its not in a casebook, I have no idea how I'd track it down. If I had more time to search through libraries (paper is due Monday), I would, but I don't think that's feasible. :/

Back issues are readily available from the 2k shop, but... obviously you're probably not going to get hold of it before Monday! http://shop.2000adonline.com/products/judge_dredd_megazine_215

Someone send the man a digital copy - it's for research!

By completely happenstance, I do have that issue... lets see what I can do.

Quote from: Skullmo on 30 April, 2014, 03:47:45 PM
I want the Grand Judge's chair!

Do you think it has massage settings?

On a more topical note I always wondered if the Judges deliberately kept the unemployment levels so high so as to keep the cits isolated in their apartments (watching game shows and partaking in wacky hobbies.) You are less likely to create an environment for sedition if the masses are prevented from freely associating in the workplace. Divide and rule.

Quote from: Eightball on 30 April, 2014, 08:19:07 PM
I always wondered if the Judges deliberately kept the unemployment levels so high so as to keep the cits isolated in their apartments (watching game shows and partaking in wacky hobbies.) You are less likely to create an environment for sedition if the masses are prevented from freely associating in the workplace. Divide and rule.

Given the correlation between the development of organised labour and democratic governance, that conclusion is difficult to avoid. Without wanting to sound like the kind of North American who holds permits for assault rifles, has a cellar full of dry food, and believes Barack Obama was born in Kenya, the more dependent on the state the citizenry are for all their income and social provision, the more powerful and secure the rule of Justice Department becomes.

They've even co-opted the sham democracy of mayoral elections and referenda on hot topic issues as the same kind of distraction as dumb telly and pointless fads to prevent the populace from looking too hard into the question of who's really in charge and what they're up to.

Post Chaos Day Dredd did seem pretty keen to sentence as many minor offenders as possible to work crews. Seemed to be a mix of both necessity and Dredd 'softening' in his old age (if they're not staving, they won't commit more crimes).

Quote from: Eightball on 30 April, 2014, 08:19:07 PM
On a more topical note I always wondered if the Judges deliberately kept the unemployment levels so high so as to keep the cits isolated in their apartments (watching game shows and partaking in wacky hobbies.) You are less likely to create an environment for sedition if the masses are prevented from freely associating in the workplace. Divide and rule.

Considering the correlation between unemployment and crime, from an economist's point of view that would be pretty dumb. Granted, the Judges don't seem to be great economists so its possible.

I was reading the other day that crime rates seem to be dropping across the western world, no one seems sure why. Netflix maybe :)

Quote from: OccamsRagr on 01 May, 2014, 03:57:38 AM

Quote from: Eightball on 30 April, 2014, 08:19:07 PM
On a more topical note I always wondered if the Judges deliberately kept the unemployment levels so high so as to keep the cits isolated in their apartments (watching game shows and partaking in wacky hobbies.) You are less likely to create an environment for sedition if the masses are prevented from freely associating in the workplace. Divide and rule.

Considering the correlation between unemployment and crime, from an economist's point of view that would be pretty dumb. Granted, the Judges don't seem to be great economists so its possible.

MC1's an incredibly violent and crime ridden place; there are stories about it most weeks. You're presuming that the aim of Justice Department is to reduce the high incidence of crime - the very thing which legitimises their iron grip on power - rather than to reinforce that same iron grip on power. Present day UK politicians perpetually promise to crack down on criminals and demonise the unemployed; both groups are very useful to anyone cynical enough to exploit folk's fear and prejudice for their own ends.

It's pretty clear that a lot of MC-1's laws exist specifically to create criminals, whose punishment is then used as an example to others to behave.  I doubt anyone really objects to Dredd saving them from Nosferatu or standard-executioning a gang caught in the middle of an ARV, or even halting dangerous boingers® or low-level skysurfers, but whose interests are being served by hauling people off to the cubes for a 2-stretch after finding a few grams of sugar and a sachet of synthi-caf during an unprovoked 59C?  Please list your own preferred contemporary parallels for maximum satirical effect.

The concept of 'criminality' is a useful one - as Dredd says in 'The Graveyard Shift', "Nobody's innocent, citizen - we're just here to determine the level of your guilt".  When everyone is a 'potential criminal' they'd best keep their head down.

Quote from: TordelBack on 01 May, 2014, 08:24:19 AM
It's pretty clear that a lot of MC-1's laws exist specifically to create criminals, whose punishment is then used as an example to others to behave ... whose interests are being served by hauling people off to the cubes for a 2-stretch after finding a few grams of sugar and a sachet of synthi-caf during an unprovoked 59C?  Please list your own preferred contemporary parallels for maximum satirical effect

Current UK policy objective is to turn being unemployed into a low level criminal offence which carries the same penalties as public disorder or vandalism.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/8877282/Jobseekers-unemployed-for-two-years-face-community-work.html