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Hi Scojo, I've been self employed this year and now i've decided to go back to another soul devouring job in the new year (somebody please save me!), I have too much time on my hands.  hence me hanging around here talking about everything from the 'amino acid content of a biochip' to 'does Dredd use PerpOff boot shine'.

I don't think you are taking this post seriously Scojo, it's all i got I tell you!  

I'd like something that wasn't about people trying to be cool with guns, in 2000AD this genrally means boring with no guns.  I'd like something set in a dystopian near future, political intrigue, maybe even a murder mystery investigative story.  Main character, a complete loser who doesn't have much of a chance of staying alive never mind finding out what is going on.  A slowly unravelling story that reveals a really big picture at the end.  Tightly written, lots of suspense, something that makes me want to break into the 2000AD offices to find out what happens next.

I don't know, maybe that sounds like crap to you, what does anybody else want?

I've just spent twenty minutes harping (screech) on about old series, what do people want from new series?

I've heard that the movie rights for School for Snobs were bought about five years ago by a millionaire cotton heiress, but she died alone with her cats and nobody else has shown any interest since.

AH my lovely figures... never mind that those little foriegn children in the slave factory didn't paint you properly, Poppa loves you...

He also bought you when he had a proper job and was paying for 2000AD (as it had Nemesis the Warlock in).

Now all climb into my bag and we'll go on a big adventure to WHSmiths where we will have a leisurely read through the Megazine without paying for it, and yes, perhaps even tear out some of our favourite pictures and write 'jelly' on the front cover in marker pen.

Matt, I'm willing to believe that there never was a Friday  if you do.

Scojo, I don't want to be a shopping channel, but I have this terrible urge to...

"Diamante bracelet with Zircon heart-shaped  cluster only ?29.99 phone now...  Hedge-away!  the revolutionary shrubbery poison that is completely undetectable in the soil after three days.  Posion you neighbours plants in privacy, ?42.50 for 3 litres, or buy 6 litres and get this pruning fork shuriken free!"

Somebody shoot me... I'm not a shopping channel, I'm a human being!

Anyway I think I'll stop all this churning up the past, the sediment is starting to cloud my vision and there are things down here, vile things, things that shouldn't ort to be rightly there if you cartch moi drift moi lovelies.

"Frog eye-sponge only ?12.80, but that's not all-

bang

fade to black

Yeah, obviously Mr Grant thought Anderson had more depth than just a wise cracking judge and decided to do more with her.  That's fair enough I guess.

I think it's a bit odd the way it has gone but if people like it that's okay.  I've just had a quick read through the end of the Satan story, I loved the closing sequence with Dredd and Anderson.

The original Rogue Trooper had a proper ending that was pretty good(and put paid to a few years worth of duff stories like the Hit Series).  There was also a very good epitaph for the series in Prog 2000.  Though I could have done without the referecnce to Tor Cyan even that made something interesting from a character I never liked.

Then there was David Gibbon's reinventing the comic as a more mature anti war statement, which was pretty good too.  Unfortunately it went from a one off experiment into a continuing series that quickly became pretty childish and spoiled all the good work.  Does anyone know how that strip ended?

Good Robohunter had two endings, I enjoyed them both, but at the time I never wanted it to end.  I never wanted Bad Robohunter to start.

This is a good example of a character who has been shifted out their original context.  I'm not convinced this is always a good idea.  Mega City One is poorer for not having her and the New Adventures of Judge Anderson are, well, a bit odd, they could happily have a different lead character and make no reference to Mega City One (which the stories don't fit very well with).

Original comments repeated.

"Alan Grant also changed the nature of Judge Anderson, I'd rather he had just written the same stories with new characters."  PVS

"Yeah, Anderson was originally meant to be a wise cracking character (although not quite in the Dredd movie Fergie league, thank god!). Alan seemed to forget that when he wrote Anderson.  Psi judges are meant to be more flippant. It is the by product of being psychic. " SCOJO

What the Watcher said, that's wot I wish I'd said.

I's like to see Dredd live his life out on some cursed earth farm with a good woman.   It was someone's mum writing into 2000AD that suggested that, I've grown rather fond of the idea over the years.

I wasn't talking about bringing Johnny Alpha back from the dead (of course the ever dreadful Ennis had a go), Wagner was right, everyone has to die, I'd just like him to die in a different story or retell the story differently with Carlos drawing it.  That last story was a complete abomination in my eyes, though a lot of people here seem to like it, so maybe I'm one of the deluded minority.  

I wouldn't even mind if it was made a more futile death as has been suggested, Johnny Alpha did die to save all those mutants, as long as it is a great story.  But as I said before, that last story just seemed like an entirely different comic strip to me.  Alan Grant also changed the nature of Judge Anderson, I'd rather he had just written the same stories with new characters.

I think these new stories are to be read as a seperate body of work, a sort of mythic series on Johnny Alpha.

As for Wagners comments, well he probably has no intention of rewriting the end, but in this new style for SD, he could.  Just that possibility is enough to keep me reading it, even if I have more chance of winning the Betelguisian Lottery.

Anyway, the original point I made was that Strontium Dog didn't have a decent ending befitting the strip.  In fact if you had changed some of the characters names I bet you would never have realised it was Stronitum Dog.

It seems odd that he should return for to a strip he hadn't written for some time and introduce an uncertainty element.  You could write an awful lot of Strontium Dog stories without having to do this and it seems to me that the big problem is having Johnny's p*ss poor death hanging over them all.

Anyway you are probably right, I don't think my judgement is very clear on this, all I can think about is a decent conclusion for Johnny Alpha.

I havn't heard that he is in prog 2002, so he probably isn't.  A shame.

No Scojo I don't follow you, I am either way ahead of you am completley lost altogether, only time will tell.

Have you noticed in the new Strontium Dog stories (which have never looked so good) how Wagner has introduced a storytelling method for saying that events as we knew them may not have been neccesarily true.  I am talking about the perspective of the historical writer here who comments over the stories.  

It may be that Wagner has no intention of rewriting the end of Johnny Alpha, but if that is the case why should he introduce, for the first time, this storytelling device that would allow him to do just that?

Have a think about it, I could be wrong, but what if I'm right?  

For me, Halo Jones just seemed to give a glimpse of how little of Halo Jones' life we had really seen.

Nemesis and torquemada, who never could beat each other in the comic (duel by elctric guitars anyone?) finally settled for a no score draw.

Strontium Dog died on a rock at the hands of Alan Grant.  Can we have him wake up in the shower with Ronald Reagan and Durham Red and realise it was all a dream.  Good on Wagner for rewriting it (in a plausable way to boot) I say.

There must be more.  Send in your tragedies!

Have fun

pvs

For me Halo Jones never ended properly.  I would wash Alan Moore's moss encrusted feet (no seriously, if that's your thing Alan, I'll do it) if he could bring it back on the high level it was before.  She still had so much to do.

Original Robohunter ended quite well, then it started again then they ended it again.  Then they brought it back in the nineties, 'they' being some complete f*ckwits, not Gibson & Wagner I hasten to add.

As for feral, well, a good winter would have killed him off hopefully.  Apparently you can get some sort of spray.

Thanks for posting McNulty, I feel someone else out there has some opinions I agree with.

pvs

p.s. I don't think Grant Morrison should be allowed to 'interfere' with any more comic characters.  Isn't there a register for that kind of thing these days, the warped freak.