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Take up boardgames and roleplaying games instead - sometime the old ways are better.

I'm working in a series of sketches of designs for the various postulated world Judges never to have appeared in the comics, starting with the Canadian Mounted Judge:

http://excoboard.com/PlayDredd/124374/1780171

PJ Maybe connives to become his Iso-block's Chief Warden, then authorises the release of Mega-City One's toughest criminals who he sends after Judge Dredd! Maybe escapes his eventual failure and replaces a member of the Council Of Five to attempt Dredd's direct assassination - and, shock horror, he succeeds. So who is it that - a later - rides into town with a badge that reads 'Dredd'? It all happens in a dimension near you.

The idea may have been that the Empire (five years after ROTJ now a diminishing force) was cannibalising bits from its old vehicles to maintain the civil war on Coruscant (where the TIE Crawler first appeared, in Dark Empire #1). That would make sense, but later fiction created by writers may indicate it was a purpose-scratch-built craft; if so, it is crappy.

Volumes One and Two are available through Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/X-9-Secret-Agent-Corrigan-1/dp/1600106978/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303989923&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/X-9-Secret-Agent-Corrigan-2/dp/1600108717/ref=pd_sim_b_1

[Popeye]

I have been reading, for quite some time, the Fantagraphics reprints of EC Segar's Thimble Theatre Popeye series, and Volume one of the Ray Bradbury Stories, a mighty, two-volume collection of all his short stories.

[SECRET AGENT X-9]

Al Williamson did the Bladerunner adaptation too if memory serves. Along with Carmine Infantino and later Cam Kennedy those guys are my favorite Star Wars artists. Ive given up Star Wars comics the past few years. Legacy started off nice but so many theme re-hashes and dull stories have killed it for me. The old Marvel stuff is fun.

Have you seen Al Williamson/Archie Goodwin's run on SECRET AGENT X-9 (published by IDW Comics as large-format hardbacks)? They are fantastic.

I understand that the Marvel UK stories (and those that appeared in Pizzazz magazine) are to be reprinted in the last volumes of the current Dark Horse reprint series? I've at various times owned a complete run - several times over - of Marvel USA and UK Star Wars comics. There were some cracking UK stories including THE WEAPONS MASTER; the WORLD OF FIRE story (not sure which US title it appeared in, but I've seen it as a paper-back-sized reprint) is another corker. It, when reprinted by Marvel UK, had some beautiful Infantino covers which really amped the danger the characters faced.

I actually prefer the comics to the 'Star Wars' movies; the 1977 showing of STAR WARS didn't register greatly with me, but I was entranced by the weekly comics. After forgetting what the movies were like (I didn't have a video recorder), I had constructed an elaborate imaginary version based on photographs and comic strip adaptations. I was mightily disappointed when my cousin showed me pirate copies of the three movies - against my imagination, they seemed so cheap! And after forgetting how many scenes had appeared in the novels (mainly the ESB tie-in) and had never made it to the big screen, I found the movies unevenly paced.

This week will see a preview of the cover art for CITY OF DREDD. Although a lot of work has been completed for the interior, the project didn't quite feel like was making real progress until the cover - the icing on the cake - was stirred into the mix.

[BLACK VIEW]

The PLAY DREDD Play-by-Forum adventure BLACK VIEW has just ended. It's one of our first games attempting to bring the game duration down to four weeks or less to stave off the insidious 'Game Fatigue' members have been known to have suffered. As always, a rough edit of the game play has been archived on the message board. BLACK VIEW will be adapted to HOT LEAD magazine's comic-screenplay hybrid format later this year.

My own plans for future games include AFTER NINE HOMICIDE (an adventure set in Brit-Cit featuring for the first time, Player-character Brit-Judges), NEW CELLS (a flashback to the 'secret' first generation of Judge Clones which caused chaos during the initial outbreak of 'Burger Wars' hostilities in Pre-Atomic War America), and WAR ON TEX-MEX, as war breaks out between Texas City and Mex-Cit (the players taking on the roles of both Texan and Mexican Judges!). The latter game will be accompanied by sourcebooks detailing further both of these exciting and dangerous locales.

I agree whole-heartedly with Robin. Dredd is a fascinating character (when written correctly), not at all a one-dimensional bully boy who is nothing more than a gateway to the lunacy of Mega-City One. Without Dredd or Judges of the same mentality, Mega-City One fiction (and stories beyond the walls of MC1) largely end up as 'dogs-dinner' incidents.

Exactly. Wagner walked away from 2000AD's Judge Dredd strips during the 1990s for quite some time, and the strip carried on smoothly without him (albeit not left in the most capable hands). Dredd will go down with 2000AD, but the other way around? Not sure. Who knows how many readers (most of them being in the 30-60 age group) will stick around when ALL the nostalgia-reinforcing strips of their youth are gone?

As a supporter of the Dredd strip, I've found its output for a few years to be mediocre, or to be diplomatic, to be 'ticking over'. There are lots of exciting story possibilities for Dredd and MC1 without having to make drastic changes to the routine, but all I see are other writers retreading Wagner's ideas or falling back on tired 'gangster noir' tropes.

I didn't care for 'Origins' the first time I read it, but now have a greater appreciation. However, I would cite it as the exemplar of the flaw inherent in many modern stories - they have neat concepts, but then manage to chop their legs from under them and wrap up too soon (or we go the other way, with so-so, overlong stories like 'Served Cold' promising a sequel). Origins could have had all sorts of story ramifications for MC1 (other than Dredd being even grumpier) - what if Booth survived to challenge the Judges (might he have found allies on the bent Texas City Judges), or Fargo survived to tackle the morals of Hershey's Council of Five? Instead, it's as though the story never happened.

And also Revolution. The A Question of Judgement stories preceding the City of the Damned might have been the first inkling of the strip's more introspective direction, although they were quickly resolved with a pair of tight boots and a trip into a dangerous future...

[Elizabeth Sladen (1942-2011), who succumbed to cancer yesterday at the age of 63]

Elizabeth Sladen (1942-2011), who succumbed to cancer yesterday at the age of 63. I'll view The Time Warrior tonight in her memory. I know Tom Baker was very fond of Elizabeth, so condolences to both him, her friends, work-colleagues and her family who were at her bedside at the end.