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There was a TV show in the early 2000s (CGI, so probably holds up as well as anything CGI around then holds up) and a film announcement a few years back that just kind of disappeared. Though it's theoretically a big IP I'm honestly not sure it's the world really cares that much about stiff upper lip British officers defending the space commonwealth anymore, and if you move too far from that it stops being Dare.

Yeah, Pat Mills now says he regrets resurrecting the character in name only for the launch of 2000AD in 1977, even though commercially, it made perfect sense.

Hopefully, they'll get it right this time.

would a "Slaine at School" strip be too many?

He didn't think it.

Also I'm not convinced that children really want to spend their free time reading comics about school.

Harry Potter?

Or indeed The Bash Street Kids.

I know I'll get hammered for this, but I still think in these days of needing every galactic groat and all that, I'm paying £5 for something that I don't want and won't read.

This issue is great... for kids. The stories are aimed at this audience (7-12 year olds?) and fair play 2000AD for supplying a comic for them that's bright and zany and wacky like the Beano or Whizzer & Chips.

I would just like to opt out of them please.

I'm guessing the strategy is to hook in younger readers and have them graduate to the regular prog. I don't know whether it's working, but the fact that a number of strips have started out in Regened and then transferred to the main comic suggests that it is. In which case, I see it as a price worth paying to ensure that the GGC has a future.

[shouldn't]

My feeling is that Lowborn High and The Unteachables were a bit too similar to each other, both school stories with ensemble casts. Of the two, I preferred the former. Harry Potter done 2000AD style, with a focus on working-class characters, is perhaps 20 years too late, but I suppose the release of the latest Fantastic Beasts movie makes it sort of topical again.

Overall, this is the first Regened prog that I enjoyed in its own right and didn't just think "oh well, it's for kids, I'm not the target audience." Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. There's a part of me that thinks that Regened shouldn't appeal to old farts like me. But if the kids enjoy it as well, then I suppose there's no harm done.

I don't remember all the details, but one of the UKCAC booklets had a strip with what initially appears to be Dredd talking to the the other Judges about the need to crack down on criminal scum, and to hell with the bleeding-heart soft-on-crime brigade. Pull back to reveal that it's actually Thatcher talking to her cabinet.

I remember this, because I was there. Someone posted it on Twitter recently, with the comment "The Grant is strong with this one."

i don't understand if mr mills is claiming that he "cut corners" back in the day - or that he is the one who didn't ...

I think I can hazard a guess.

2000AD has maintained a pretty steady level of high quality for two decades.

And has been going for four-and-a-half  But there has been debate elsewhere on this forum as to why Skip Tracer keeps being recommissioned, to take but one example. People talk about the creator droids having compromising information on Tharg. My suspicion is that it's nothing more nefarious than that they get their work in on deadline, and don't require much editorial supervision.

I think a "fast-food" mentality is an inevitable consequence of producing a weekly or monthly comic on an ongoing basis, rather than every once in a blue moon.

I disagree. The inference is that these comics are ill-considered, throwaway, cheap and inferior. But that's just bullshit. You can create great content at pace, if you have quality creators and a solid editorial team. That you spend a year or ten years on something doesn't make it inherently better than something that was produced far more rapidly.

That may be Pat's inference, but it wasn't mine. David Bishop once admitted that when he was editor, he was sometimes forced to publish strips that he knew to be sub-par because "you can't run five blank pages". I think that's understandable. No comic that produces that much content year-in, year-out is going to be on top form all the time.

[feel]

Some good shouts here. I Fought The Law and Windmills Of Your Mind seem like quite likely candidates. the Sin Dex and Judge Death ones are bugging me, because the synopses feel like they're inspired by well-known songs, but I'm racking my brains trying to think exactly which ones.

I think a "fast-food" mentality is an inevitable consequence of producing a weekly or monthly comic on an ongoing basis, rather than every once in a blue moon. Or, y'know, spending ages creating a comic, editing it for 3 months, and then moving on to the next one.

Devlin Waugh in "Too Drunk To Fuck".

I could definitely imagine a Chaise Longue-influenced Devlin story.

Anyone want to take a guess at what songs the stories will be based on, based on the synopses? Knowledge of the writers' musical tastes would probably be an advantage here.