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Well, it's hardly likely to cause the system to crash again in the rush to view it, but there is now a bit of my fan fiction on the site if anyone wants to read it.  

And no, there isn't a voting system that allows you to give it a '1'.  But if anyone can get throught the first few paragraphs (and that is probably half the battle) I'd be interested to hear what they think.  

Particularly if they think I've got Dredd right and the various other silliness found within.  

Cheery Ho

http://www.2000adonline.com/index.php3?zone=input&page=fiction&choice=victims

Well...

Wasn't it fun?  I liked it.  Great Dredd story, fun silly story and I even enjoyed Naughty Dante.

I do thing though that it could have been, well, 'more'.  25 years is a big anniversary, I was lucky to make this one, I doubt I'll make 50th.

With all the talk of 2000AD and all the interviews that have been done in various mags and a variety of cross medium hoo-ha that has been going on, I think it has been a bit of a wasted opportunity.

For my mind (small withered pickled - like a silverskin onion) this was probably the best opportunity for a reclaim the old fans issue.  A 100 page prog (dare I say at the ?1.40 price - gasp!) jam packed full of strips and articles, featuring in addition all the stories in the actual (as opposed to this virtual) Prog 1280.

Basically a prog 2000 out of season, when most people are thinking what to get there girlfriend for christmas (remember they -are- ex 200AD readers), with a bit of publicity behind it, adding in a lot of the old favourites, giving all the remaining major ones a brief summary of what they've been up to for ten years.

A bit of nostalgia... the newer strips, you ould have had articles detailing their worlds, even something like ND was a bit of a puzzle when I returned.  It's not complicated but you just think, hmmm... whats going on here then... why does that bloke look a bit funny.  Why is he talking to his arm?

Oh well, it's done now, I'm sure Rebellion have a slow and stealthy campaign for the thrill sucker emancipation of Britain, for me a quick stab to the vitals usually proves effective.  

Well, that's one weirdo's views, all responses on a postcard, strapped to a potato and thrown at your local MP.  Mine's Tony Blair, I'm PVS, the police are outside.  I'm off.

Goodnight.

PVS

Message board starvation over...

Thank Grud, now I can avoid doing any work at all..

PVS

Er.. hang on, that's a bad thing isn't it?

There are people in the old chatroom

AD2000AD Crown Court

Basically trying to find a story that no one likes and at the same time showing that even the most maligned strips have a friend. All you have to do to get a strip on the list is add it on.

For the bigger stories you must nominate a large story or an 'Era' in the strips life'. Just because a story is on the list doesn't make it bad. There are always unbelievers.

Remember all you have to do is give something a spirited and convincing defence to get it off the list. There's no argument because if someone likes something, they like it.
 
The List of the Damned...
Agent Rat
Ant Wars
Armoured Gideon
Babe Race 2000
Black Light
BLAIR 1
Chronos Carnival  
Dead Meat
Flesh: the Legend of Shamana
Grudge Father (the)
Harlem Heroes
Judge Dredd:
1. Helter Skelter
Junker
Kelly
Kola Kommandos
A Life less ordinary
Maniac 5
Mean Team
Mean Arena
Night Zero/Beyond Zero  
Para Sites/Wireheads
Red Razors - 2k version
Rick Random
Roadkill
Robohunter (Millar)
Rogue Trooper:
1. Fleischer Era
2. White Era
Rose O'Rion
Sancho Panzer
Shaky Kane/Shaky 2000
Skizz III
Slaine:
1. Post Horned God Era
2. The Secret Commonwealth
Soul Gun Warrior
Space Girls
Supersurf 13
Survivor
Tales of Telguuth
Tor Cyan
Trash  
Urban Strike


The Saved...
"Walk towards the light!"

Bad Company 3 (PVS), Big Dave (Wood), Blackhawk (Milo), The Clown (Wellsy), Dinosty (Watcher), Dredd: Dead Man (Scojo), Dredd: Inferno (Wood), Dredd: Necropolis (Wood), Dredd: Judgement Day (Wood), Dredd: Tale of the Dead Man (Logan), Helltrekkers (PVS), Mean Team/Mean Arena (Anaemic Newt), Metalzoic (PVS), Really & Truly (Wood), Shako (Milo), Slaughterbowl (Wood), Strontium Dog:  Final Solution (Blackblood), Tao de Moto (Steven LT), Vector 13 (Scojo), Zippy Couriers (Steven LT & Wood), Zenith Phase 3 (Jayzus BC)  Zzzenith.com (Steven LT).

A few more saved...  For the sake of space (ha!) Here is my defence of Metalzoic, a strip that I would be proud to have reprinted on my gravestone and another from the time of Helltrekkers that has survived mere nostalgia and is just a great story.

It's an advancement of the Earths geological table, stretching beyond the time of mankind to when primitive metal beasts walked the earth.  The art is great, the story is great, the robot characters are great, the story is equally, violent, atmospheric, funny and moving.  There has been so much thought gone into the strip I just can't help but fall before the mighty Pat!  Hallelujuah brothers, we have a hot one!  I have the DC collected volume and it was a brilliant on off story.  Compare that to your limp nineties fodder, operate on your own brain and stuff it in your pipe.  Metalozoic!

I'm off to watch more H20.  The film, not the wet stuff.

2000AD Crown Court

Basically trying to find a story that no one, not even its parents will stand up and defend and at the same time showing that even the most maligned strips have a friend.  All you have to do to get a strip on the list is add it on.  

Just because a story is on the list doesn't make it bad.  You always have someone who doesn't like a strip, so if your fave strip gets on here, don't worry you can get it back off.  

Remember all you have to do is give something a spirited and convincing defnce to get it off the list.  There's been a lot of this mealy mouthed, oh, it wasn't all bad talk.  You have to mean it! You have to say, without reservation or shame, 'I LIKE THIS!' and tell us why.

There's no argument because if someone likes something, they like it (and the posts would trail off forever). Only thus can these stories be saved from eternal damnation.  You can't argue over the strips, if someone defends it, it is saved.  However the down side is that you're a publicly associated with this strip forever, no matter how you may plead 'I was being ironic'.  

The List of the Damned...
Survivor  
Rogue Trooper (Fleischer)
Junker
Robohunter (Millar)
Chronos Carnival
More Friday
Space Girls
Para Sites/Wireheads
Dead Meat
Babe Race 2000
Mean Team
Harlem Heroes
Kola Kommandos
Trash
The Grudge Father
Vector 13
Dinosty
Flesh: the Legend of Shamana
Any Slaine story after (and not including, obviously) The Horned God?
Bad Company 3
Skizz III
Supersurf 13

Reprieved (they are saved, walk towards the light!)
Zippy Couriers
Tao de Moto
Helltrekkers
Shako

I was just wondering with the news of these Big Finish CD's, bound early progs, roleplaying games, computer games, miniatures, posters and a host of other stuff if anyone had an idea of how much ? worth of merchandise has ever been available on a year by year basis?

I think 2002 will probably mark the highest point its been since the eighties if not, well, ever.

A complete guess (and I'm guessing high here) is that at the end of the year you will have been able to spend ?500 on 2000AD from the comics to the mechandise and that at the end of the following year it will be ?750-?1000.  As I said, I'm pitching my estimates high to take into account stuff we don't know about.

It's not a criticism, I think that a lot of the stuff released this year is what people have been wanting for ages, there has generally been a lack of good licensing since the IPC days. There certainly hasn't been any news of any rubbish to be released.

So far I've found fans of:

Tao de Moto
Zippy Couriers

Series I thought should be sealed in steel barrels, encased in concrete and placed in a secure chamber for hundreds of thousands of years.  But no, I'm not here to comment on those series, but just to see if we can find one story that NOBODY will defend.

I am suggesting Chronos Carnival to get us going.

Basically you can make a suggestion, but if someone is willing to make a spirited defence it comes off the list.  lets see if we can find the last limpid eel at the bottom of the eel barrel..

I was just spending my Saturday mornings measuring my copies of 2000AD and I couldn't help but notice that between prog 1 and now we have lost almost 1.85 square metres of comic along the way.  That can't be right.

It's a shocking statistic whether its true or not.

Actually the new progs bleed to the edge and I dug out prog 78 and the actual space for the comic strip is more on the newer size prog.  So we've never had it so good.  Won't stop me complaining though.

I hope we never get down to the American size of comic though.

What is this post about?  I really don't know.

I just wondered becasue I thought the IRC chat was on Wednesday at ten and there was no-one in.  Perhaps I'm doing it wrong.  Oh well.  I'd defintiely be up for a chat later if folk are interested.

Why not sell Backprogs of 2000AD's scanned in as PDF's on CD?  (There may be a better way, some sort of browser, I don't know, I'm not a tech) They have done this for a rpg magazine and you have the whole magazine (I think there was at least a hundred issues) on CD, all the covers, ads, letters, strips, artwork - all the pages you could want.

Let's face it most people don't have the money to buy all the backprogs, most people don't have the space to store the backprogs and Rebellion don't make any money from backprogs.

This way they could, they could sell a CD with a 100 progs on it, make some money, make a lot of people happy and spread the joy a little.  It wouldn't kill reprints because let's face it, reading a book is always going to be a more enjoyable.  You don't get my titan books without a fight!

You could sell them for a tenner each or whatever and I bet a LOT of readers would buy them.  If you have a five year limit for realease since they saw print it wouldn't damage sales of new 2000AD either.  You could even have a promo ovffer and give the first prog away with 2000AD.

The only objection I can see is from people who sleep in the shadow of their back prog collection, but speaking from someone who has got a fair few, I'd probably still kep a lot of my favourites, but at least I would feel burdoned by them.

Anyway 2000AD is a comic of the future so I reckon it would be a good idea.  

Who's with me?!

PVS

(He crazy man!)

I have to say, something I have picked up from the threads, is that there does seem to be an alarming amount of poeple who quite simply want one thing and one thing only...

VIOLENCE

I for one like a good punch up and ear biting as much as Tyson, but in the context of a story, when the story demands it.  I certainly don't feel I've been short changed if there is no violence.

I've lost count of the number of posts which spent ages talking about the violence and how good it was.  Sometimes the story isn't really mentioned.

So is that what you want, unrestrained complete carnage (or stories which are actually designed to be vehicles for violence), or do you like your Vi comics in reasonable doses?

I am off to talk my restraining drugs before I-

BOK!

Damn, there goes another monitor.

ETC

Even though I entered cryogenic sleep in order to avoid the trivialities of the mundane world, it appears my thermostat is knackered and the year I have awoken in is not 2525 and so I shall not get to see if the prophesy has come to pass.

I have however noticed that the voting system could be better.  When I vote for shakara it's a bit of a dilemma.  I think the arts great and the story is okay, so I give it somewhere inbetween.  It would be much better if you could vote for the art and then vote for the script, the combination of the two votes would give you the rating for the strip.

Now as humans tend to fear change (as I fear Great Expectations by Charles Dickens) you could easily (ha) make the change by splitting the votes in two.  So if you've already voted shakara an 8, it means that you have an 8 for script and an 8 for art,  But that person could go change it.  People could still just vote an overall score if they wished.

On another point I think it is fair enough to say that X script is good and X art is bad, however rating actually droids themselves seems a bit harsh.

Now I must return to fashioning my fantabulous spacecraft from the innards of a gigantic croccodile.  I shall travel to new worlds, made of all manner of dairy products (see my essay: The Milky Way - Is it really made of Milk and if so what are the effects on that milk of solar radiation).

So I depart, but I shall return and bring with me cheeses that mankind cannot even dream of!

ETC

According to somethinging or other at:

7pm, The One Louder Zone, MTV2, a nu-metal show...

"The Dark Judges of Mega City band will be playing, featuring Death on vocals and Fire on Drums."

Er... I reckon it would be safer to watch it on TV rather than get tickets.

Design a Classic Female 2000AD Character.  

Yes, the last one produced such a good character (rumours are Shoreline have switched from production of the Dredd movies, to a Bin Man Bernie epic) that it is now time to design a classic female character in the mould of Halo Jones, Cassandra Anderson, and, er... the rest!

Not many rules, just add one or two things to the list, until everyone who wants to has a go.  Then we have a second round.  I'll be on hand to try and make sense of it all.

Finally just two points to make, leave them alone.  She has exactly the right amount, they aren't too big, too small and there is nothing unusual about them.


NAME:
 
HEIGHT:

WEIGHT:

EYES:

HAIR:

SKIN:

WEIRD BITS:

POWERS:

WEAPONS:
 
ARMOUR:

TIMELINE:

GENRE:

PROFESSION:

HOBBIES:

COMPANIONS:

FAMILY:

CATCHPHRASES:

ENEMIES:
 
VEHICLES:
 
ADVENTURES:

WRITERS:

ARTISTS:

WEAKNESSES:
 
BACKGROUND SUGGESTIONS/NOTES:

Bernie - Classic New 2000AD Character

Hi Tharg, all done, obviously the bloke is a classic character and deserves his own strip, possibly the title Bernie's Megazine would work? A 100 pages of bin man antics.  Ooh.  Just imagine that?  Forget yer Dredd, Forget yer Slaine.  This is the dawn of the Bin Man!

Brendan McCarthy seems to obvious choice for artist and writer is equally obviously going to be Scojo or Wagner (Your choice, but I wouldn't mix the two).

(Here is the result of the recent 'design a new classic 2000AD character' posts! Contributors included:  JimCampbell, Kertap, MrWhit, PVS, Stu, & Wood.  Additional Wombat data supplied by Jim Campbell and Wake).  

Visit Bernie at:

http://members.netscapeonline.co.uk/innsmouth/binman1.jpg

"There were a lot of strange folk out in the Western District and many evil things that went by many strange names.  But one man fought them all.  His name was Bernie, and they called him the meanest Bin-Man in the Western District..."

Bernie is bald, 4' 3" (though mighty of spirit), dirty, has reddish eyes and three nipples as well as being incredibly strong.  Which is essential when you are a part time bin man and occasional bounty hunter, who lives in a post apocalyptic environment where the local council rules everything with a rod of uranium.  He has his weaknesses too of course, a rather nasty shin infection caused by spilled liquid waste.

He is armed with a large mace, bin lid and assorted scavenged goods. When you hear the words 'it's time for the killin' to begin' or 'Time to take out the trash' you'd better start to run or start dying.

While on his bounty hunting assignments for the council (or anyone with the money though he can often be conned into taking a job to help someone out) he takes his talking camel that he has taught to say such things as:  "He don't like you laughing.  You see he gets this crazy idea you're laughing at him."

The world is a grim nightmarish wasteland that is dominated by the 'Councils' the only organised powers that survived the great apocalypse who are ruled by the all-powerful Councillors.   Bernie lives in, and works for, the Western District Council.  Here the prime produce is trash, mined from landfill sites and delivered by the bin men to the 'trashies' who live underground and recycle rubbish into useful items (sort of post apocalyptic wombles) in return for a meagre ration of food.  The trashies have underground homes and have a rationed trash delivery every week.

The strike of '04 was caused when the council decided to reduce the crew on the garbage trucks from four down to two.  As the council brutally crushed the strike, all of Bernie's buddies, Phil, Scott and Vernon bought the big one.  Bernie carries their spirits around with him, or their nipples anyway.  He has a nipple from each of his fallen comrades grafted onto him so one day they may be re-cloned and live again.

With the unions busted and shunning a human partner, Bernie now works with Rosco, his 'social dysfunctional' robotic partner that Bernie had built from salvaged parts and housed in a blue kids puppet from the late twentieth century.

BERNIE - THE FACTS

NAME:
Bin Man Bernie
HEIGHT:
4'3"
WEIGHT:
180lbs
EYES:
Yes - Reddish "It's not a mutation, its conjunctivitis!"
HAIR:
Bald
SKIN:
Dirty
WEIRD BITS:
3 nipples (see notes below)
POWERS:
He's tough and strong.  Like all bin-men should be.
WEAPONS:
A big mace and a bin lid shield
ARMOUR:
Festooned with all sorts of scavenged, oddball household appliances. Some may double up as weapons. "Eat MaxiBlend 4000, scumbag!  Dice or slice?  Your choice."
TIMELINE:
Post Apocalypse, the early 22nd Century. 2113 Approx.
GENRE:
SF/Horror
PROFESSION:
Part-time bin man and occasional bounty hunter
COMPANIONS:
Rosco (see note below)
FAMILY:
?
CATCHPHRASES:
"It is time fer the killin' to begin" & "Let's take out the trash!"
Other inspirational sayings:  "Go bin-man-go!"
ENEMIES:
The Council "I don't like 'em, I just work for 'em"
Rad Wombats "There are many evils in this world, but wombats?  The worst!"
The Garbage Highwayman "Stand and deliver, your garbage or your life!"
Garbage Raiders.
VEHICLES:
A camel (1 hump). The camel talks, but he isn't intelligent, more like a parrot.
Access to a post-apocalyptic bin truck (no name yet).
ADVENTURES:
"Bin There, Done That"
"To Bin or Not to Bin?"
"Zen and the Art of Garbage Disposal"
"A Fistful of Crap"
"The Good, the Bad and the Bin Man"
"The One Magnificent Bin-Man"
"The Four Bin-Men of the Post-Apocalypse"
WRITERS:
Scojo or John Wagner
ARTISTS:
Brendan McCarthy
WEAKNESSES:
Too good-hearted.
Skin Disorder (shins only)

Well if you add up the scary amount of time I've been on here and compare it to the five minutes a week it takes to read my 2000AD then I guess that's a yes from me.

It's a bit odd and disturbing that

(But PVS, you ARE odd and disturbing.  No I'm not.  Oh contrare.  What do you mean?  Well, for a start you are talking to yourself.  Oh, I get your point, anyway, shall we continue?  Of course, you first.  Cheers PVS.)

I suppose that really the enthusiasm and the demand really does outstrip what we have delivered through the mailbox.

There have been some pretty good discussions recently with lots of people in the board, some of them fairly new.  Now it's hit Friday and it's turned into a right old spaz fest.  

I can't believe I got involved, what was I thinking?  Is someone drugging the water?  Oh that's right, my medication.  It didn't warn me about this on the side of the packet.

"Warning, do not use the internet while taking this medicine or you may suddenly be involved in an eight way punch up about total gibberish"

Scojo.  Reply to this and I'll shoot you*

Cheers

Paul

p.s. I'm not saying you shouldn't have the spaz fests on the board, just I'm going to try and keep out of them in future :)

* Intent to murder is a seroius crime, hence I'm pointing out my use is purely for humorous intent.  Yeah.

Why I like Tharg

by paul

Aged 29 and 11/12th's

No, I'm not talking about the droids here but Tharg himself, I've often thought that editor droids have often resented the Big Green One, in that they couldn't have their ego more prominently displayed.  Of course when they've made a huge cock up they can hide behind the betelegeusian jumpsuit.  

I like the cocky arrogance that insists everything is all right.  He takes the praise and the damnation with equal coolness.

I alwasy find it somehow disturbing to see pictures of editor droids.  Why are they always disguised as humans?  Are they trying to integrate into our society!?

Has anyone else read that column by ex-droid Bishop in Comics international?  I thought it was pretty funny, I've been told it's usually as bitchy as hell.  very entertaining anyway.  Then there is all the Diggle stuff on the newsgroup.  Why it's almost as if they are human.

Maybe I'm just tired, but I was just thinking about 2000AD fans and a comparison with cattle came to mind.  A rather stupid and stubborn lot (okay, not you guys, just me) that blindly carry on consuming what the farmer gives them, while they produce the meat and milk that gives him his living.

Even if they do think, it isn't really important what they think about as long as they keep earning him the money.  Sometimes he skimps on the feed and gives them infected foodstuffs and then just fails to report it when they all go mad.  A half hearted attempt is made to recover those who have escaped and the whole industry just churns on with fans stuck in unhealthy conditions and not being able to do anything other than the odd rather miserable moan.