Messages

The Shako gubbins was pure coincidence.  There must be something in the ice water.  I was going to post it on the 24th for a laff but I just couldn't resist when I saw that Robson/Coyle strip.  Bloody fabulous that it is!

[Bryan Coyle / Lee Robson]

Bryan Coyle / Lee Robson - ...oh, that's good.  That's damn good!  Zarjaz, in fact.

(Link reposted here in case my tat obscured it for anyone.  In such a case, my apologies, Bolt-01.)

http://www.babblecomic.com/2012/12/zarjaz-presents-judge-dredd-the-right-to-arm-bears/

[WARNING: NASTY VIOLENCE!]

WARNING: NASTY VIOLENCE!




Polar Bears!  I luv 'em.  Couldn't eat a whole one, though...  And because it's Christmas, here's a cracker joke (as opposed to a cracking joke...)

Q. What kind of creds do Polar Bears use?
A. Ice lolly!

[Blackmocco]

Blackmocco - Most Pure, indeed.    What a thing to wake up to!  Brrrr....

Gavin Leahy Block Christmas Cheer Subcommittee - Nothing short of perfect for Christmas.  The ultimate Secret Santa.  Hope those pesky Pete Wells Blockers don't nick it!

Megabus - Thrill capacitors exceeding design specifications!  I'm running out of spare fuses as you continue to ramp things up for the climax.  Mercilessly fabulous!

Monarch - Looking forward to what you're now brewing up for the 24th.  Must've been frustrating.   

Continued pleasure, too, from revisiting all the contributions.  If Christmas can't be delayed so we can have more now...    ...at least there's next year to look forward to!     (Oh, and Christmas itself, I guess.  Details, details...)

Watch out for Judge Jones.  He's a slippery one, sometimes with a 'tash, sometimes not, for some reason I could never work out... 

Despite gaps in my collection, I got cracking with a similar endeavour a couple of years back.  In the case of missing progs, I relied upon the reprints so it became (fairly) complete at least up until Prog 1000, if memory serves. 
First, I collated the raw information prog-by-prog including the kind of thing John Caliber is rightfully famous for and Barney is so very enjoyable for in its breadth - street names, sentences handed out, expected dates of release of cubed criminals, judges, department divisions, observations on seeming reasons for things, mention of hobbies and fads, technology used, fairly exhaustive obsessively mentalifying stuff, really.  Then, I spent six months in a mental asylum and never went back to it, as intended, to tidy that raw information into something more useful than a drokking looooong list of itemised stuff (albeit set in year-by-year and story-by-story layout).  Pretty sure it tried to include all judges mentioned.

I'm practically certain that I still have a lot of the files - on a memory stick, somewhere.  If you'd like, I could shovel it out of wherever it's hiding and check it's as I remember to pass along to you, FinH.  Don't want in any way to influence you with my take on things but if it'd help with a project with such an enormously zarjaz pay-off you'd be entirely welcome to make of the contents of those files what you will and use them as you need.  Wouldn't want to promise anything before next week, what with one thing and another, but do let me know it you wouldn't think it an intrusion upon your own (utterly mental!) pleasure in rooting all those names and other things out.

[Jon/Enigmatic Dr X]

Jon/Enigmatic Dr X - And now we surely all know why we eventually 'let slip' that Santa isn't real.  Better the children come to believe that he doesn't exist than know the full scope of such tyrannical evil.       That's a corker of a sweet-and-sour strip, guys.  Punchy, gritty and funny all at once.  (All man, indeed!)  Or to put it another way, Santa clearly deserves all the stabbings, shootings and block war comeuppances we can muster! 

I'll admit it.  I just wanted to see the Dictators of Zrag getting punked down again and the rest just sort of sprawled out from there.
Thanks very much indeed for your kind comments, gents.  I'm positively bloated with praise.  Monday is usually Misanthropy Day here in the WhitCave but you've all gone and ruined that for me with your reception of Second Class Santa.  You rotters!
Seriously, though, I'm chuffed to bits that the strip has hit the mark in the loony bananas crossover retro homage sort of way I was aiming for.  Not sure the pointy hat gag exactly qualifies as 'genius,' TordelPenge, but... hey... it would be downright rude to argue with praise like that so I guess I'll take it!  (Thanks!)

Very, very glad that you liked it, gents.  Thanks again, Megabus, for kindly playing along and thanks also to Lee Carter for giving me his nod of approval.

Seven more days of this jigsaw juggernaut of festive thrills.  What can I say but...  Roll on tomorrow!


*Waddles off singing, some shooting and a chase... parupapumpum...*

That's very kind of you, Megabus.  Just enjoyed your latest - struck by the plot-point of machinery being fallible.  Nice touch in a genre that too often forgets this.
Thanks very much for playing along with the strip-split retro-thing and sorry if I made you panic.  Panicked a bit myself when the computer went a touch blinky on me!

(Sorry, Megabus!  Computer got a bit shirty on me after 23:57, just when I thought everything was safe!  )

[PARENTAL WARNING!]

PARENTAL WARNING!

Please be advised that the following strip from myself is not necessarily entirely apt reading for younger children.  It's not that it's riddled with obscenity and equally not that I'm trying to be all 'Nanny State' about the content, but I would be remiss should I fail to suggest that you check its suitability prior to juve access.

I'm a tad perplexed as to WhitBloke's promised shenanigans tomorrow 

Oh, nuts.  I feel I have perhaps perplexed you unduly, Larf (and others, I've no doubt) with my warning above.  To be plain, the strip is by no means peppered with expletives of a sexual nature.  There are no f-words or c-words present at all, in case that is now a concern.
It's really more a case of things like "Terran bitch" and "You're damn right!" and things like that in almost all cases I was concerned about in the dialogue.  It's certainly not Derek & Clive stuff but, even this being said and true, I would be remiss had I not now and did not later make some sort of 'Read First Being Showing To Your Kids' mention. 
With the above post, I have opted to err on the side of what could be said to be 'deliberate overstatement' just to be sure.  I just wanted to be sure that nobody automatically allowed their kids to read it without checking it because it does to some extent have a more adult tone than other contributions - though not of a level which exceeds that which the Prog itself regularly features.

[Alski the Dark King of Croon]

Double-Post but it's got to be said...

Alski the Dark King of Croon - Convoooooy!!!  [spoiler]A thousand screaming lugs![/spoiler]  Perfect cover, Alski!  And Drummer Boy Dredd...  Scrotnig stuff.  Packed with dark crooning chuckles, but the rhyme with the [spoiler]Wally Squad[/spoiler] really got me.  Going to go and enjoy it again right now. 

[PARENTAL WARNING!]

PARENTAL WARNING!
TONE LOWERED BY WHITBLOKE SHOCKER!  2000AD Fan Forum Advent Calendar stained by presence of filthy cusswords, claims Mary Whitehouse Block spokesperson. 
"Oh, snut," cringed filthmonger WhitBloke when confronted by an angry mob of parental types demanding who will think of the children.  "What have I done?!?"
Full story inside!

Basically, my contribution tomorrow contains some instances of language wholly unsuitable for young children.  Those of you sharing the daily fun of this wonderful Advent Calendar with your juves, please be advised that skipping past to get Megabus' next gripping instalment of MGM shall probably be for the best.
While the pictures themselves were drawn with no intentionally 'mature' element to them the dialogue in places shall rather insist that the eyes of your collective spawn kiddiwinkles of reading age be kept from it.  This said, I doubt the nature of my forthcoming contribution contains anything members of this forum themselves will find offensive.  (Daft, yes, but not offensive.)
Please check my contribution for its suitability (and need for some on-scene editing of dialogue by yourself) prior to reading to any children who don't yet read themselves.

I shall also be posting a similar warning on the thread itself prior to posting my contribution.  I post it here to be doubly assured that all such parents here are suitably warned prior to what could have been a rather upsetting incident.  Not as embarrassing as when they found your Razzles or that old videotape of Durham Red Does Dallas but needlessly upsetting all the same!

PARENTAL WARNING!

[1 - 1776 - Chris Weston -]

Process of elimination?  Failed.  Ranking them in my head, rationally?  Failed.  Divorcing my opinion of the cover from the strip within?  ...well, I managed that part, just.
Went with gut in the end, like I should have started with!

1 - 1776 - Chris Weston - Because, on reflection, the Chaos Bug ramp-up remains the key Dredd 3D event of the year for me and this just captures it so bloody well.
2 - 1791 - Simon Fraser - ...because parting is such sweet sorrow.
3 - 1774 - Mark Harrison - A scorcher that practically demands interest in the contents.

HM - The first three of Ben Wilsher's covers.

How did the New Territories fare during Judgement Day?  (Figure that that zone of lethal dread right next door could have played a part in their desparation.)  What of Mutie relations during and after MC1 opened its doors and then made the Townships?  Can you still get the best Chinese takeaways in the whole of the Cursed Earth from the back of an old radwagon?  How fat is Lucas Rudd now, or has his Henry Fonda-ness prompted him to hardworking mayoral heights?  Does anybody else use Quint's route to get there (if they go there at all anymore)?  Did Booth's return have any impact on their lives?  Did MC2 refugees wind up there, perhaps with an odd mix of out-of-the-city-at-the-time Luna-service and Diplomatic Division judges making a new home for them there?  Does the spirit of Calamity Jane mooch about at night?  Why did Deadwood not continue on the telly?

Always been fond of Helltrekkers.  Not perfect, and sometimes downright functional as said above, but always fondly reread and frequently spurring idle daydreamt visions circling around the hope that we'll see something in the Megazine even after all this time.

But, yeah.  Crustacea ended up something's appetiser.