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Ah, of course. Put the Rennie droid in charge of Doctor Who forthwith!

As for the rest of the prog...

Cover: Faultless. The guy who works in the W.H. Smiths where I collect my prog put it on the counter while the bloke in front of me was still putting his wallet back in his pocket. The bloke saw the cover and exclaimed "What's that?!". I think he thought he was being given some kind of pornographic freebie*.

Scarlet Traces: Soapbox-tastic! Invaders from the Red Planet who don't kill Tories... what's the Edgington droid trying to say?!

Thistlebone: It's not quite hitting the spot. Not yet.

Anderson: Pff... your guess is as good as mine...

Absalom: ...although to be honest, this got a bit mystifying on the double page with the time loop thing (?)


_{* Not that the cover is at all pornographic, far from it. But suggestive of such a publication.} 

"Yers, s'what I do in my spare tiiime... I make Judge Dredd stories from old boxes....."

Recent Dredd stories have been credited to Kenneth Niemand, leading to speculation concerning the identity of the author.

The stories are well-written enough that the author is clearly not a newcomer to comics and the level of engagement with the concepts and themes at the heart of the strip suggest they're unlikely to be a first time Dredd writer either.

As demonstrated by the list of 2000ad pseudonyms above, the writers most likely to employ pen names are members of editorial staff wishing to conceal their connection to the publisher, but both Nerve Centre employees with scripting experience have stated they're not Niemand.

The list of writers who've scripted Dredd for 2000ad is still pretty short, and the Niemand stories published so far don't exhibit the stylistic tics or thematical concerns of any of them. Niemand's either an infrequent contributor or an established author switching to Southpaw

I'm calling Wagner.

Reasons:

1. It's such a darn good story (which doesn't preclude other droids of course, but if it wasn't any good you'd know it wasn't Wagner).

2. It's an important story. Obviously no idea how long it'll run but in terms of character development, I can see this being pivotal. In fact I almost get a sense of The Dead Man about it - it's an under-the-radar prologue to something bigger.

3. It features robot Judges. Yes, I know the mechs are featuring more often and yes, I know that Wagner doesn't exclusively write them now (vis. Rory McConville's 'Technophobes' the other week); but the way Patsy is first surprised that humans are unaware how sophisticated it is, then caught out by a lack of such sophistication in humans, leads me to suspect Wagner's hand.

4a. Wagner's History of pseudonyms
4b. Why would any other writer use a pseudonym?
Seriously, I don't know why any other droid would be scripting under a pen name. If it were an up-and-coming writer they'd be too keen for recognition to conceal their identity. And of it were a famous writer coming into the 2000 AD fold, Tharg would be proclaiming it from the rooftops.

For what it's worth, I think the use of the Niemand pseudonym for the Starlord story was a diversionary tactic.

5. Wagner's comment, mentioned upthread, that Dredd would end his days in a back alley shooting. Dredd himself even repeats that belief in this installment!


The point about stylistic tics is interesting, and got me thinking - how many stylistic tics from long-term Dredd writers would we actually recognize? The only instance that sprung immediately to mind was Rob Williams' use of convoluted and contrived wordplay for humour. Could we honestly make a list of active Dredd scribes along with notes on what to spot?

Regarding 'The Samaritan', so far there are only a couple of things I picked up. The plot has a procedural feel to it which is characteristic of many Wagner Dredds. And last week the title character used the exclamation "crap" - does Wagner usually swap this out for 'stomm' or suchlike?

Anyway, I am preparing myself to be thoroughly embarrassed when next week Tharg reveals the mysterious Mr Niemand to be none other than Boris Johnson. 

Yep - prog 2109

A second album 'We Are The Ghosts' released today

About as perfect as a prog gets. 'The Samaritan' nails exactly why I read Dredd. Scarlet Traces has blossomed into something glorious. Absalom is ab-solutely sublime, as ever. And I know I was a bit harsh on Thistlebone last week; well, I reckon this instalment would've made a much better introduction, since it hints at the evil at work rather than going straight in with a big reveal.

All this and a double whammy of good news: a full series of Full Tilt Boogie, and a new series from Abnett and Elson, doubtlessly to keep them ticking over until the next chapter of Kingdom. 

A muddled and unsatisfying Dredd that really only looked like it was trying to piggyback on the impact of Machine Law. Scarlet Traces layering on more intrigue - it's been the unexpected hit of recent weeks for me. A bit of a damp squid of an ending for Kingmaker, despite the final-page twist.

And Thistlebone...

Looks gorgeous. You can't fault the sort of work that the Davis droid has put in here. But - and maybe the excitement over its arrival has unrealistically raised my expectations - I thought story-wise it was a little underwhelming, a touch straightforward. Too much revealed, for an opening installment. I don't always like making comparisons but I've just finished reading Cradlegrave for the first time and there, the tension is ratcheted up for several weeks until the first reveal of anything non-natural. Got a feeling that Thistlebone needed a bit of that sort of suspense. Still, looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Finally... bring on Absalom

Congrats Chris, an atmospheric and very technically accomplished piece of artwork.


Since my entry never did even make it to the Instagram page, I'll post it here for posterity...

All good in the prog this week. I thought the Dredd actually worked so well as a one-shot action story that the subtext was kind of overwhelmed. What to make of that penultimate line, though? There was a broadcast - at a frequency that couldn't he heard...

Scarlet Traces great, though I presume that in this alternate universe the Pebble Mill Studios weren't demolished in 2005. Kingmaker also good - nice to see an alien villain whose first concern is to get their eye make-up sorted. Max Normal wrapped well, how fabulous were those Dredd shuggy panels?!

Finally, a sequel we didn't even know we needed. Is Quilli set to be the new Abelard Snazz? Things have certainly escalated since the first installment.

Just a quick thing to add, Frank - comics site downthetubes.net today published a piece on celebrities that have inspired the look of some 2000 AD characters, mentioning Debbie Harry and even Marianne Faithful as possible models for Judge Anderson. I've added a comment linking back to your recent post mentioning Deidre Vine, if that's OK.

One thing I did mean to mention was the frequent use of digital blurring by Leigh Gallagher in Kingmaker. I know he's trying to convey motion or depth of field but I just want to see the quality of the line work, damn it! 

Interesting that Tharg claims the Regened prog was met with 'universal' acclaim (quoting from memory, I don't have the prog in front of me) - it was very much a mixed reaction in the prog 2130 thread here.

Interesting cover. Great work by Neil Roberts but I wonder why they didn't give the whole thing to Siku? He should at least share the credit! The story itself has been a jewel of a two-parter. I'm a sucker for 'passage of time' type stories, this one pushed all the right buttons and was magnificently enhanced by Siku's spectacular art.

Very much 'as you were' with the remaining stories - Max Normal continues to be a blast (the mop and bucket stuff was hilarious), while the Edgington droid further enhances his claim to be the new Abnett by delivering on two fronts. The 3riller left me a bit cold, I'm afraid. Just realised it was by James 'Skip Tracer' Peaty, and like his Cube-based strip it suffered from a lack of memorable characterization.

[Dredd]

Dredd was interesting for two things. I never expected to see Siku back in the Prog. He art style has changed significantly.

I can see what he is trying to do on page 4 but it doesn't really work. Ok have Dredd's head/ helmet as a back drop and divide up the panels but how come the panels don't line up? The top of the helmet is especially jarring. The close up on the top two panels also doesn't work nor does the way the top panel of page 4 lines up with the top panel of page 5. Not that I think that was intentional

I think what's happening is, the top two panels close in on Dredd, then panels 3 and 6 are from the same frame (i.e. they're aligned) with 4 and 5 atop them, both slightly askew.

Siku's horizontal panels were probably less a philosophical conceit... and more a concession to comics being read on handheld devices

Interesting. Is that a thing with comics these days? Are layouts increasingly becoming a series of horizontal layers? Is it eventually leading to 'responsive' layouts where panels are shuffled around according to screen ratios?