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So anyway:

A while back I bought two 2000ad graphics novels: John Smith's Cradlegrave and Leatherjack. Both great, but one thing struck me in the editing:

Cradlegrave reads like a single piece of work - unless you were looking for the "episode breaks" every 6 pages, you wouldn't even realise they were there.

However, in Leatherjack the "recap" boxes at the start of each episode have been left in. So just after seeing Leatherjack do x-y-z on one page, there'll be a caption on the next page saying "Leatherjack just did x-y-z." Jarring, and I imagine it must seem pretty ridiculous to someone reading it for the first time.

Is it common practice to leave such text in graphic novel versions of 2000ad stories, despite the fact that other episodic markers - titles, "next prog" boxes, etc - have been removed? I'm hoping it isn't, as I can't see any justification for doing so.

Well, a copy of Supergods anyhow.

http://mattseneca.blogspot.com/2012/05/nazis-burn-books-i-straight-up-bbq-them.html

Have to say, that is quite a funky grill he's got there.

[Devlin Waugh]

Following on from the discussion in the "John Smith fanclub" thread: any chance of a ebook collecting John Smith's text stories? There's certainly enough material (thanks to Toni Scandella for sourcing this list from Barney):

Devlin Waugh
Body and Soul (Judge Dredd Yearbook 1994)
A Love Like Blood (Judge Dredd Mega Special 1993)

Indigo Prime
Requiem (2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1990)
The Loa in the Machine (2000AD Winter Special 1992)
Weird Vibes (2000AD Yearbook 1993)

Mega City One
Resyko (Judge Dredd Annual 1991)
Animal House (2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1992)

Tyranny Rex
Shadowground (2000AD Annual 1991)
Touched by the Hand of Brendan (2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1991)
A Twist in the Tale (2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1993)

The stories aren't doing anything as they are, so why not slap a cover pic on and sling 'em up on Amazon?

Is there one? And if not, why not?

Smith is probably my favorite 2000ad writer. Wagner is amazing, Grant is great, Mills has his own unstable energy, but there's just a weird twist to (most of) Smith's work that mesmerizes me. The storytelling may be erratic sometimes - I'm thinking the old Indigo Prime and Tyranny Rex stories here, as I admit I'm not as familiar with his more recent work - but there's a poetry to them, a sense that we're getting glimpses of vast and bizarre universes that transcend any one story. His work is the black jellybean of comics: not everyone likes it, but you can't deny it has a flavour all of it's own.

Does he have a blog or a website or anything?

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, it would be the loss of a great character. And from a business point of view it might be considered crazy, wiping out a "franchise" that is synonymous with 2000ad itself.

But on the other hand, I really don't want to see Dredd dragged on and on forever, like Superman or Batman, until the whole thing becomes washed out. The death of judges, even established characters, has never been glossed over in the stories. One of the low points of the series, I think, came when Ennis was portraying Dredd as some kind of superhuman who could fight off hundreds of perps without breaking a sweat. Wagner's current portrayal of the aging Dredd, with frequent references to him "not being as fast as he used to be" and how he expects to die in the line of duty sooner or later, is far more powerful.

Trouble is, the longer Dredd's "decline" is dragged out the less powerful it becomes dramatically. There were references to him slowing down 20 years ago. If he's still complaining about his creaking bones 20 years from now, well, the whole thing will have become kinda a joke.

So whattaya think? Should he just be bumped off and the title changed to, I dunno, "Judge Beeny"? Should the whole thing be rebooted from zero? (Nooo!) Or should we trust in the writers to keep the character fresh forever and ever and ever?     

Can anyone recommend - or caution against - any of the Solaris publications?

I bought 3 of James Lovegroves "Age of -" series last week - Zeus, Ra, and Odin. Just finished reading Zeus. Very entertaining, felt more like watching a tv show or a Hollywood movie than reading a novel. But that said, it is a very silly book. It's so silly that the central premise - that the Olympian gods have returned to the modern world to oppress humanity and now appear on talk shows and get drunk in Greenwich Village - actually ends up being one of the least silly things in it.

But if you don't mind completely implausible plot twists and holes big enough to break your neck in, it's great fun. I won't be reading the other two straight away, but I will be reading them.

Hi all,

Like a lot of other people, I was a regular 2000ad reader back in the 90's --- from, um, the prog where Zenith gets confronted with his 'dead' father, to the prog where Big Dave's dog eats the postman's cat. Also like a lot of other people, I stopped reading the comic mainly because of the Summer Offensive. I was also at an unfortunate age - about 14 - where I was starting to think I should "put away childish things." Bleh.

I started reading the digital prog again last October, and for the most part am really impressed. Dredd has never been stronger. New (to me) features like Absolom and Dante are also really good. And it's great to see John Smith's new work in the Indigo Prime universe, a place that's always haunted some dark recess of my imagination.

I've also recently started hunting down old back progs, especially from the goofier earlier days. Best find was an almost complete run of Starlords stored away in the back room of a dingy secondhand shop. Never knew that the Gronk had a brother, and that Wulf's jerkin was made from him. . .

Anyway, looking forward to getting to know you all.