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This strip was always one of my favourites as a kid, and also saw some of Ian Gibson's best and funniest art.

What's your favourite?

I'll go for "The Beast Of Blackheart Manor".

A brilliantly atmospheric Scooby-Doo style mystery with murderous butler robots and human pie filling. What's not to like?

Obviously, I really loved this show - especially the first series, but I was wondering if there had been any news about a remake? A proper TV one.

I seem to recall it being discussed a while ago on this board, but nothing since.

It came to mind last night becuase I was out with a few old Uni mates and one of them started using a voice-activated Google search app and was put off by another shouting "Fucking hell, check out Orac!"

Which made little sense, but we laughed like drains anyway.
So. Is Orac coming back?

[one]

Obviously I adore this film, but I've always been very confused as to how "The Thing" works, and I thought this place might be able to help.

Sorry if this is a bit rambling but here goes:

At the start, it's a dog, and then attacks the other dogs. Why? It's already a dog.
And after it's absorbed them all, would several Thing-dogs then be "born"?

Is that how it works with the humans aswell? They get sucked up into a giant Thing until it then "gives birth" to several individual humans?

ie  Would The Thing(s) have to absorb one dog/ man/ fish/ whatever for every one created?

Say the baldy gingery lad that they burn (think he's the first human assimilated) - could he have carried on popping out copies of himself without getting his tentacles into another human?

If he'd had all of that Antarctic team available (say they were all unconscious and trapped or something, like the dogs at the start) would his tentacles have come out, gone into all of them, and then a gigantic squishy blob would eventually have spat out ONE copy each of every human?

Erm, this may sound a bit weird, but some of you may know that I'm not quite up the speed with current 2000AD - I'm currently halfway through 2007, and habve 2008 and 2009 to plough through before I even get to 2010.

But I've noticed some board chatter and just read the Durham Red thread.

I know Wagner has been writing some pre-Final Solution stuff, and I also know there was that post Solutiion Feral execution brouhaha, but can anyone confirm? Has he actually resurrected Johnny Alpha? Like a proper, normal version ie not a zombie?

REALLY?

We've all got our own Golden Age of 2000AD.

Some of us where even lucky enough to be about 10 or 12 when the actual, real Golden Age of 2000AD was happening, I suppose c. Prog 150-450 or something.

But what thrill should we petition Tharg to bring back next?

It seemed ridiculous that a character like Bill Savage could be reborn after 30 years or whatever it was, but perhaps that is the unique genius of Pat Mills that led it to being so vital and brilliant.

So what would your personal vote be? Who should see a reboot, rebirth, redux or whatever?

Who should Tharg rescue from the drawer of despair? Who could survive the brave new world of modern-day 2000AD?

This is pretty personal, so my choice may not be all that feasible, but Christ I would LOVE Sam Slade and Wagner/ Grant/ Gibson back together again.

And Ace Trucking. (Even less feasible, I know).

I wonder. Is it the absolute zenith of Dredd art?

Obviously, I'm not referring to his hyper-stylised and largely awful later efforts, but I've re-read a few Dredd annuals from the early 80's (which also feature on the Restricted Case Files) and stuff like "The Fear That Made Milwaukee Famous", "Compulsory Purchase", "The Vampire Effect", "Pinboing Wizard" is surely just about as good as Dredd art gets.

Obv, I'd still have the Mighty Carlos as overall the greatest Dredd artist in history, but McMahon's work in the 80s is simply peerless in every way. The chin, boots, lips, sneer, gun, Lawmaster and uniform.

Just. AMAZING.

Sci-Fi Special 1980 cover is perhaps one of the greatest Dredd's ever put to paper.

Is that kind of thing hidden away somewhere on here?

Any 2000AD regular you think "I miss that fella" or "I wonder what happened to him/ her?"

Here's a couple:

That vaguley asian-looking goth girl who modelled T-shirts in the 90s (was that also Roxilla)?

sms, who shared art duties with Bisley on ABC Warriors, and was understandably rather overshadowed by him. He was horrible at drwaing humans, but his robots, machinery and backgrounds were often quite amazing.

Chris Weston's contribution to "worst Dredd artist" thread got me thinking.

Which artist has made the biggest leap from "hmmm, not so promising" to "Christ, he's amazing"?

I know most artists improve sligtly over time from a fairly decent start point (Henry Flint, Colin MacNeil), some stay pretty much the same (Ezquerra, Dillon, Cam Kennedy, Simon Fraser, SB Davis), some appear as almost fully-formed genius (Fabry, Jock, Bolland, Bisley), some even seem to get worse, as their new style doesn't get anywhere near their heyday (McMahon).

But who for you has gone from someone you never really enjoyed, to an artist whose work you would crawl over broken glass to enjoy?

I'll start with Simon Coleby.

Who just doesn't get it?

I don't expect a list just full of "rubbish artists". I would hope there's a few who are excellent, but just don't *get* Dredd. Or suit his world. Although some obv are just rubbish.

Kim Raymond
Bellardinelli
Mick Austin
John Cooper
Sam Kieth (the worst EVER)
Frank Miller
Vanyo
Jim Baikie
Barry Kitson

And nor would I want it to be.

BUT...why is it that we have never seen anything great funny strips since the Golden Age of strips like:

Ace Trucking co: "The Great Mush Rush"
Sam Slade: "The Beast Of Blackheart Manor"
Dr & Quinch: "Go To Hollywood"

I know that - famously - comedy is supposedly "harder to write", and having re-read all my progs from 2-400 in which these appeared, it isn't "rose-tinted specs"; they're fucking hilarious.

So what's happened? Why so many still-born comedy failures?

[742-762]

OK, so anyway, lots of people on here may have noticed that over the last two years or so, I've gone from about zero to replacing my beloved 2000AD collection from 240 (when I was about 9 or 10) through to whatever Prog it was when I was 18 and off to Uni.

And then embarked on an E-Bay/ Denise subs frenzy to fill in gaps before and after. I still have 2006/7/8/9 under the bed to read! (Yay).

But I have also been lucky enough to buy various progs from excellent sellers on this site, esp Paulvon and blixab.

So much so, that after a trip up to the loft to finally indez everything and get the newly gargantuan collection into some kind of order, I now know that I still require the following: 742-762 (ish) and 965-1000.

So any help there would be appreciated.

(obv I still have loads of gaps between 1 and 200, but that's a whole other story)

This has also meant that I also have lots of spares/ dupes in top condition.

535-634 (the odd one missing, all immaculate)
800-950 (some gaps, about 100 progs in all)
1100-1160 (about 50 progs)

So, any interested parties, let me know. I'm near Weybridge in Surrey for collection.

Obviously I've read most of this a few times, but there are a few annoying gaps in my collection, and I've recently read that the Lloigor's true identity was revealed in Phase IV as being "closer to home" than their original Cthulu-esque introduction may have led us to believe. Which I don't recall at all.

Can anyone please quickly summarise what happened in Zenith Phases 1-1V?

So, as expected, the new Who team have overseen a decline in ratings as the season went on, with a massive slump for the last episode to just over 6m viewers.

Obviously the die-hards will point to the "overall" ratings average of the series, but that's irrelevant; the good-will built up by RTD and Tennant meant that viewers would of course tune in at the start. And so they did. But as the series went on, the audience left in droves.

But why? Obviously Tennant is a more popular and charismatic actor, and has more mainstream appeal. I don't think Smith's occasional unintelligible delivery and mumbling helped much either. But was it the lack of a big, dramatic Dalek/ Cyberman storyline? Or was the writing in general too "clever" and impenetrable?

So, what can be done? Is it going to slide and slide until the massive expense means that it is unviable? Will Smith and Moffat's second series get back on track?

It seems like all the smug nit-picking and superiority about how this last series was "the real Dr Who" and so much better than those boring MOR *hacks* RTD and Tennant have forgotten one thing: MOR brings in the numbers and if you try and be too clever, no one apart from hardcore fanboys can be arsed with it. It's a fine balance, and they got it wrong this series.

As a fan of Dr Who, I really hope they learn their lessons and make Xmas an absolute belter. They need to.

Anyone interested in selling progs in and around that period, let me know

brendan.judge@newsint.co.uk

I've read - in various threads - some quite brilliant "doh!" moments, in which you recognise an obvious (or sometimes not so obvious) joke, gag, inference or whatever, that you have totally missed first time around.

Now I know in many cases we were probably still in junior school when first encountering 2000AD, but that doesn't excuse missing it in subsequent reads!

So what's your favourite *forehead slap* moment? Doesn't have to be your own.

"Ro-Jaws & Hammerstein" is my current favourite. Seems so obvious now!

Youngest I'm guessing was probably Steve Dillon (or McMahon).

Oldest......hmmmm, currently maybe John Burns, Carlos or John Cooper (in the Meg)?

How old was Belardinelli when he had his last work published? Or Redondo when he did that rather ill-advised Missionary Man in 2001?

["The Raggedy Man"]

I know that often these fillers are often very hit and miss and feel a bit "Pot Noodle" compared to the often delightful feasts that are "Cursed Earth" and "Apocalypse War", but what is your favourite ome-off Dredd and why?

I keep reading about "Bury My Knee At Wounded Heart", which shamefully I have never read (was it in The Meg? Can I get it on Clickwheel?) but what's your favourite?

I loved "The Raggedy Man" which featured art by John Ridgeway, an artist I usually loathed on Dredd - or indeed anything apart from Luke Kirby - but he was perfect for this, and it was the grimly comic pay-off that sticks in my mind, which went a bit like:

And everyone lived happily ever after.
Apart from the Raggedy Man, who was dead.
And the Helltrekkers, who all died of Black Scab soon after.
And Judge Dredd, who was seldom happy about anything"

I paraphrase, but hopefully that was clsoe enough to evince some fond memories.

Assume it was Wagner?

I bet it wasn't a one-off either, was it?

Hi all. Again.

I'm still after progs to complete my collection and I was wondering if anyone had any between, say, 50 - 400 for sale. I'd prefer bigger collections and in order (obv).

Any going, let me know.

e-mail:
brendan.judge@newsint.co.uk

Yes, that is my surname.

This was one of the first Dredd stories I read. I think it had art by Ewins, and was about a slightly deranged, shabby-looking robot (that looked like a lizard) who was blowing up humes. I don't recall ever seeing it in a prog, so I'm resigned to never reading it again, as I think it might have been a Winter/ Summer special or something.

Can anyone help?

I think the special also had a very good Dan Dare story about a planet that made everyone hallucinate.

I recall re-reading it until it disintegrated, and I'd love to track it dpwn again.