Messages

[the underground car park scene in Magnum Force]

I'd like to see What If Dredd Was a Girl?

Not sure how much story mileage there is in that, considering the Judges aren't a sexist institution so she'd act and be treated the same as any male clone.

But 2000ad writers and artists aren't and wouldn't. It'd be (sort of) interesting to see whether that character retained the Dredds' social and empathic obtuseness, or whether writers would fall back on the traditional portrayal of women as more emotionally articulate and intuitive than their male counterparts.

I'm still surprised they haven't tried to splice Dredd and Anderson's DNA and make a Psi-Judge Dredd, though.  And we do have the pair of young Dredd clones created in Tour of Duty, who if they were five-year-olds at the Academy when Chaos Day went down are a good opportunity to play What If Dredd Was Horribly Traumatised as a Child? or What If Dredd Lost His Faith in the Judges at an Early Age?

The Fargo clones already share a psychic bond. It's almost inevitable that current circumstances will cause some in Justice Deptartment to return to Morton Judd's radical ideas on population control and creation. Dredd clones whose attitudes and personal politics were forged in the heat of the battle against terrorism and civil disorder sound like they have more narrative potential than Psi-Dredds. It would be interesting to play the more reflective Dredd and his reforming zeal against some little zealots whose attitudes on the primacy of law are more harcore than even his younger self. It'd be a lot like the underground car park scene in Magnum Force.

[I WANT TO BE ONE]

I'd like to see What If Dredd Was a Girl?

Why are you always on about women, Stan?

I WANT TO BE ONE

Unaquainted as I am with [spoiler]Dolman[/spoiler], I didn't get that at all, although there's obviously more going on with that character. If he survives and this identity is concerned, I wonder if he'll get his old job back? Even despite the significantly lower population in the meg, it looks like the Judges could use all the competent bodies they can.

I kind of hope not, to be honest.  He quit as a matter of principle, and it seems like a bit of a waste to have the [spoiler]one Dredd clone who left the Judges to do something else with his life[/spoiler] default back to [spoiler]being a Judge[/spoiler].  It would be neat to have him stick around in some civilian capacity or other and become more of a recurring character, though.

Yep. The number of Dredd clones running around means the strip has the potential to do any number of 'What If ..?' stories: What If Rico Hadn't Gone Bad? (new Rico), What If Dredd Wasn't a Judge? (Dolman), What If Dredd Was a Dark Judge? (Kraken), What if Dredd had super powers? (Nimrod)

Since all these various permutations of Dredd's DNA and life choices happen within regular continuity, rather than a separate strip or title (like Legends of the Dark Knight), Rebellion will never have the problem of how to allow a successful character who appears in a What If? story to appear in the regular strip. I'd like to see What If Dredd Was a Girl?

There are whole books on this subject, and even wonderful fictionalised versions like The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.  The point generally being, who is more likely to be interested in a Messiah than two Jewish boys in the 1930s?

But how interested would those two Jewish boys be in the Christian Messiah? I am intrigued, though. What's the gist?

I don't think the equally jewish Stan Lee worshipped Odin, but that didn't stop him appropriating the tropes of Norse mythology for his own ends. Siegel & Shuster would probably have viewed the New Testament narratives as just another source of iconography, in the same dispassionate way they viewed the Nietzschean idea of The Superman, when they were cheerfully assembling their character from other peoples' ideas.

Judge Dwedd!

http://secret-oranges.blogspot.fr/2012/07/judge-dwedd.html

Sorry to hear about the missile batteries, but the colour on that cover is extraordinary. I always thought the colour in the pre-litho days was produced using colour separations, but that's clearly hand-painted. Would that have been done by Gibson or Tom Frame?

2000ad deserves to be more highly placed than spam. Voted.

Did anyone else see Dave Beckham speedboating that young girl?

Sounds like a perfect choice for Meg Reprint material.

It was awful, but it's good to know that was deliberate. Goldkind getting a writing gig was the worst form of cliqueness, and that story really tested my patience.

There were less talented post-Bisley painters working for 2000ad than Bliss, but he was a talented stylist rather than someone who seemed interested in narrative.

[The Spy Who Loved Me]

Five rings to rule them all and in the blandness bind them. 

Arf! Her Majesty arriving at the ceremony via The Spy Who Loved Me's opening sequence was fuckin' hilarious, though.

And all the dudes in top hats and tails doin' the hand jive reminded me of The Hives

Why did they book Arliss P. Loveless to read from The Tempest at the opening ceremony?

Drawn pretty excellently by Steve Dillon, if memory serves.

http://www.2000ad.org/artwork/CryOfTheWerewolf6_1.jpg

http://www.2000ad.org/artwork/CryOfTheWerewolf_5_1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/8Cr52.jpg

[Ming]

Thanks for posting, Ming.

The strip never quite got over the loss of 'the quest element', but some of those other ideas- like The Monk- demonstrate how many rotten ideas writers need to have before they strike gold. Underscores the need for good editorial too.

[CRY OF THE WEREWOLF]

I remember when I was still really young and a friend of the family gave me a load of Dredd comics to read and at the time he told me they were already pretty old. I remember a lot of the run was getting a lot more on the horror side. Maybe I've misremembered cos of the time that has gone by, but I'm pretty sure there was actually one story were Dredd was turning into a werewolf. Does anybody actually remember this run or has my mind just remembered something entirely different?

CRY OF THE WEREWOLF

I saw Halle Berry filming this outside of our office windows. She was tiny. Gorgeous but tiny.

http://beyondthemarquee.com/11108/

The bridge at 0m 56s is five minutes from my house. Note the Clackmannanshire Bridge's unique, entirely pointless and incredibly frustrating one-lane-only-on-the-Northbound-side design. I'm fairly sure that's not Halle Berry driving in that scene, though; the production's insurance wouldn't pay out if she was involved in another hit and run.

And its ASDA's for me every week. If it wasnt for them, i'd be fooked. Nowhere else seems to carry it.

I think my local Asda has only just started stocking 2000ad. Carlos's Durham Red cover was the first prog I'd seen in my wee toon for around fifteen years, and a good number of issues too- even if they were nestling in-between the computer game and fishing magazines. I'd assumed this was a result of some effort to capitalise on the release of the Dredd film.

I'd probably have given the odd issue or two a try during my last few years' absence if I'd been able to pick them up locally.