Messages

It's interesting to learn from Tucker Stone that he'd helped 2000 AD set up a focus group of American comic readers. I'm normally sceptical of this kind of thing but to be honest in this case I'd love to know the outcome!

The early Dredd stuff is a fantastic example of world-building, as a kid I loved the 'anything can happen next' nature of the stories, I couldn't wait for the next issue. The thing is, classic Dredd tales have been reprinted so many times they do seem to outweigh the later stuff. So I'm glad the casefiles have progressed into reprinting 90's Dredd so that era can be properly assessed, although I don't expect the Millar/Morrison stories will get any better with age.

Comparing classic Dredd tales to modern stuff only goes to show how good John Wagner is as a writer, 'form is temporary, class is permanent'.

Q: What is Dredd's favourite ice cream flavour?
A: 2T-FRU-T of course! 

I hope it sinks at the box office 

Fantastic pics - love the chunky rugged look of the uniforms.
As long as the principle actors look convincing I doubt anyone will have time to nitpick once the action gets going. 

Possibly another early test shot - the helmet looks like a slightly different design to the other photo, eagle pad looks just fine though.

At least it will quell fanboy entitlement rage for a few weeks. 

Music and comicbook critic Douglas Wolk has just started a new blog where he will review every Judge Dredd trade paperback in chronological order.  This should be one to watch:

http://dreddreviews.blogspot.com/

Northlanders, Punisher Max, Walking Dead and Orc Stain are all great choices.
If you like weird, offbeat stuff try these by  Alan Moore:

• Top 10 - Police precinct drama set in a SF/Fantasy world. An overlooked gem and the closest Moore got to writing Dredd.
• Saga of the Swamp Thing - One of the greatest horror comics ever.

And these by Grant Morrison:

• The Invisibles -  Mind warping saga about a team of outsiders who use chaos magic, time travel and ultra-violence to battle the forces of universal order and authority.
• Doom Patrol - The Worlds Strangest Heroes. Trippy, psychedelic superhero team adventure, totally off the wall, and as far from conventional capes & tights as possible.

Well done on the change over, it's like a show home, just waiting for the soft furnishings to arrive!
My only complaint is that the font-size seems to be in new smaller squint-o-vision.

[Batman #1]

I'm more interested in characters from the weirder corners of
the DCU so I'll definitely try out the following titles:

Batman #1 by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo
Batwoman #1 by J.H. Williams III, Haden Blackman and Amy Reeder
Animal Man #1 by Jeff Lemire and Travel Foreman
Swamp Thing #1 by Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette
Justice League Dark #1 by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin
Frankenstein: Agent Of SHADE #1 by Jeff Lemire and Alberto Ponticelli

Thats 5 DCU comics more than I'm buying at the moment, so DC are doing something right!
Looking forward to whatever Morrison is on, but it's a damn shame that Batman Inc. is on hiatus. 

Having never read any of Synder and Lemire's work I hope they're as good as fans say they are.
Should I buy monthly or wait for the inevitable trade paperback when these titles get cancelled?

[are]

The real problem in US comics is lack of variety, each month 95 of the 100 best selling titles are superhero comics, most people just aren't interested.

This isn't a dig at you, SC, but I've always found the notion that comics fandom is forced to buy superhero books at gunpoint an odd one.  That five percent of comics that isn't superhero books tells a different story than the one you think: unless your assertion is that those five comic books sell out quickly and everyone who missed out on the chance to buy them 'settles' for superhero books as a consolation, it's far more likely that comics readers want to buy superhero books and actually aren't interested in stuff like Ex Machina (one presumes because they had the misfortune to read it).

There's a snobbery about superhero books that's little more than "superhero fans are morons and boffins want to read comics about the Dreamtime/WW2/dystopian sci-wank"  that I can't abide.  A good story is still a good story regardless of genre - and superheroes are a genre just as much as gangsters, soldiers or cowboys are.

No offence taken PB! - You're dead right about Ex Machina!

Nobody is forced to buy anything, but wider distribution (digital, newstand, etc.), won't necessarily lead to a significant growth in comics sales if the material doesn't appeal to that wider audience. Horror, mystery, romance and war comics might attract more non comic readers to the medium if they are affordable and made widely available 
- The industry cannot grow by relying solely on superhero fans.

I grew up reading British comics in the 80's with only the occasional Marvel UK title so I'm not what I call a natural superhero comic fan. I got into US comics about 13/14 years ago by following Morrison, Moore, Ennis and Ellis at Vertigo, and have grown to love silver and bronze age Marvel and the more offbeat modern superhero stuff (e.g. Astro City, The Mighty, Godland, etc.) as well as Vertigo.
My approach is simply to enjoy the best and forget the rest.

DC have got balls of steel to do this.
However, I can't help feeling that the lunatics are running the asylum, Geoff Johns as Chief Creative Officer is surely an oxymoron?
He's running DC into the ground with his bizarre fan-fiction mix of gushing sentimentality, gory violence and continuity heavy stories.

The real problem in US comics is lack of variety, each month 95 of the 100 best selling titles are superhero comics, most people just aren't interested.
Going day and date digital is sensible but the pricing will be crucial: it must be less than a printed comic.
It won't change my buying habits, I will continue to buy everything Grant Morrison writes and wait and see if anything else catches my interest.

Are we including born in Blighty Canadians Chris Claremont and John Byrne in this thread?
If so should we just blame Canada instead? 

1 -A website can be set up for peanuts which can engage with fans and slowly BUILD interest (ie draw in other non or lapsed fans back in).This in turn generates FREE chatter on the social and 'geek' websites which draws more in...A virtuous circle.
2 -Holding back till later, I agree keep the better stuff back till close to release but operating a complete vacuum is unwise.

Isn't that what this forum is doing?
The circulation of the first official pic of Karl Urban as Dredd prompted a number of lapsed fans to this forum but non fans will probably stick to their preferred sites anyway. Besides, anything the producers release now will be drowned out by the hype for this summer's blockbuster movies. I suspect we won't see anything till New York Comic Con in October at the earliest.

The character has been completely run into the ground in recent years and Waid, Rivera and especially Marcos Martin (one of the most remarkably talented chaps in US comics) might be just what the doctor ordered. No more pointless retreads of stuff Frank Miller did better two-and-a-half decades ago - I like the fact Waid intends to put a different spin on things.

Precisely.

Having read 2 or 3 trades of Bendis and Brubaker's 'acclaimed' DD run, I felt no inclination to read any further. Slow pacing, static photo referenced art and talking heads dialogue,
it's very overrated IMO.
Andy Diggles' run was disappointing, perhaps because I was expecting something as sharp and entertaining as 'The Losers', and what I got was a car crash called Shadowland. I bailed out after 5 issues.

I really like Daredevil as character and hopefully Mark Waid with Paolo Rivera and Marcos Martin's Steve Ditko-style art can bring a much needed sense of fun to the comic.

I haven't read issue #6 yet but so far I'm loving it. Yanick Pacquette's art is terrific and as for Chris Burnham* he just gets better and better: issue #4 was very Quitelyesque, I'd be happy to see both of them stay on the book. Morrison's work is the only DCU stuff I buy so I'd hate to see it knocked off course by bad art or any DC editorial shenanigans.

Much like Morrison's best work I always find myself forced to read it a couple of times to try to get it all in. Now this might seem like bad storytelling but far from it. Its exciting and enthralling enough to make it a pleasure and to be honest the fact it therefore takes a little longer to read is actually a good thing with the cost of today's comics. Really looking forward to the first arc concluding in August so I can read it in one go when I think it'll all work quite beautifully if past experience is anything to go by.

Its disappointing how many Morrison haters fail to do this after claiming not to have understood the story!


*Apparently he's a big Judge Dredd fan!