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According to the 2000 AD shop:

2088–9: Elevator Pitch (Williams/Weston)
2124–5: Unearthed (Williams/Weston/Goddard)
2134: Pets (Williams/Flint)
2184–95+97–99: End of Days (Williams/Flint/MacNeil)
2200–2205: Carry The Nine (Williams/Wyatt/Cook)

Pets was in the Small House trade. End of Days is collected in the self-titled trade. From what I can tell, the rest have not to date been collected.

[Dredd]

A good one overall, with one exception, I thought.

A nice cover by Dave Taylor, and further confirmation The Out will be getting a book four, before Dredd shows the vice closing on Asher. The Niemand/Foster pairing is a really good one, and I hope they work together more in the future.

Portals has for me shifted to "give this a chance" to "does nothing for me". The storytelling is messy. The art is fine, but feels very muted, like everything is in flashback. I don't remotely care about any of the characters. I hope it improves, but at this point it's read-and-forget.

3rillers is an interesting one, in giving is another short burst with a set-up I very much enjoyed last time. I wonder if this is now a pilot, with Tharg seeing if this bunch can justify a longer run? Still, this first part worked well for me, and I'm keen to see more.

Hershey has a big twist in that final frame, which I wasn't expecting. Good to see the rescue earlier. "Joe, brutally attack the nasty man" was a great line. Best thing in the Prog right now.

Finally, I've got over the Azimuth bait-and-switch, which leaves a story that's among the more interesting Sin/Dex. that means I'm happy to read it, even if I rarely give a hoot about the strip.

In all, four hits and a miss for me this week, then. Hershey > Dredd = 3thriller = Azidex > Portals

The Taito one is pretty great value, assuming the emulation is solid. And the things being compatible with the Evercade catalogue is smart. Natch, some are griping about there being no Taito cart for Evercade consoles, but it's pretty clear that wasn't an option. I would have thought widening the ecosystem to make the entire Evercade range more viable would be a good thing, but fandom is strange.

(I'm not talking about response here, note, obvs.)

Sure. FWIW, I wasn't suggesting an error. It's just I found it odd that a strip centred on that country was in that location. (Mind you, Mrs G, who's Icelandic, read a bit of it and was more broadly <narrows eyes> at the entire thing, so...)

Havn being up Akureyri way is an odd one. I never realised that was the case from the strip. (I don't remember much about it, TBF.)

Nice map though.

"a real coup with the inclusion of a brand new Tyranny Rex strip, written by character creator John Smith and drawn by Will Simpson"

That really is a coup. Slightly weird that isn't in the Prog, mind, not least given the people behind it.

Even in not amazing condition, the first few issues will have reasonable value and be worth holding on to. But even then, you're not talking retirement funds – more in the £50–150 range. Anything up to Prog 20 or thereabouts might fetch a tenner or so. 71, 72, 77 and 78 being the 'banned Dredd' issues have curiosity value, although less so now Rebellion's decided to reprint all that stuff anyway. Even so, they might be worth hanging on to.

If it's a complete run and you have the sleeves, perhaps board and bag the first hundred issues, and dispose of the rest on eBay in chunks of 50 or 100 issues?

[White Christmas]

I just got through White Christmas, which is a very special kind of dystopian hell. Easter eggs linking the episode to others, to drive wonks mad over the years, and quite the line in various levels of torture. But also: this isn't the first time even by this point we've had a woman be unfaithful and it send a toxic man off the deep end. Hmm.

[Dredd]

Given how long I've had this Meg, I'm surprised there isn't already a thread. So I'll kick one off now.



The Death cover is suitably horrific, but the first strip is an oddball Dredd that in terms of script and art feels quite old-school in nature. The visuals reminded me of late 1980s annual strips (McCarthy, perhaps), and Dredd's casual indifference to all the people dying on the last page was odd. Still, a solid enough one-off.

Spector continues to be readable but also in its own way feels quite old-school. Bit weird that Stevens is the only woman in the entire episode. Then we get some Clash of the Guards reprint, which was smartly self-contained. And Death Metal Planet ends with a Furmanism, which is quite apt, I suppose. But I'll be quite happy if that mob doesn't come back again for a long time.

Anderson ends well but made me a bit sad this team didn't do a bunch more of these. I really enjoyed re-reading this. Johnny Red, meanwhile, ramps up the action, with a brutal and bloody action-packed episode.

Lawless isn't quite grabbing me in the way it once did. I'm not sure why. I imagine it will at some point will revert to some kind of status quo, and so it feels like we're on a bit of a side quest of sorts.

Dreadnoughts continues to be horrible, in being too close to home. And it sets things up for a nasty confrontation next month.

In all, a solid Meg. It looks like Mega-City 2099 replaces the Death strip next month, and IDW Rogue Trooper grabs the baton from Anderson. I'll enjoy reading that one again, for sure, albeit again with that hint of melancholy on knowing there are only four issues in total.

Anderson > Dredd > Dreadnoughts > Spector > Lawless > Clash of the Guards > Death Metal Planet

Niemand has a good handle on 'retro' when it comes to Dredd, picking and choosing the best bits and merging them with modern sensibilities. I know there has been criticism of his dialogue, which for Dredd could perhaps sometimes be more terse. But for me, his Dredds remain the closest in feel to Wagner scripts.

Hershey: I do understand people's upset with this strip's existence. But I must say it's also refreshing to have a middle-aged woman in comics who looks like a middle-aged woman and who is kicking arse. And, hey, at least it's better than the Angel Gang being resurrected.

[Dredd]

Lovely cover, despite, you know.

Dredd shows more assured writing and art from Niemand and Foster. The black humour and horrible city feel quite classic Dredd, albeit shifted into this more mature era. I'll be amazed if Asher survives this arc, mind.

Portals still feels really messy. Maybe it's Tomlinson's writing style, but from a storytelling perspective it feels quite disjointed. I don't care about the lead. So this feels like a "fine, it's there" strip for now.

Void Runners feels more end-of-arc than end-of-character. Surely the last line from the narrator confirms that. In all, this one was a short blast that was quite fun. Not a classic for me, but I'd happily read another series to see where it might go.

Hershey remains top-notch, in my book. I get that it's divisive. But for me, this pairing of script and art just works. Again, I do suspect we have a main protagonist who's not going to survive the arc. Although Frank might have better luck.

Azimuth was... fine. I mean, at this point it's basically Sin/Dex if Sin had magic powers. It looks lovely. I just still wish it could have been something else. But as an imaginative rug pull, it still outmatches anything else I've seen from this strip in a long while.

Hershey > Dredd > Azidex > Void > Portals

I'm pretty sure a collective groan / eye-roll from a lot of the board wasn't the reaction Abnett and Bettin were hoping for here.

Yeah. The board is its own thing. I imagine the wider market won't care. But for me, it just felt like an opportunity squandered. Here was something that felt and looked like nothing else in the Prog, and it's effectively now nothing more than sleight of hand. A trick. I mean, fine. If Sin/Dex needs kickstarting again, OK. And perhaps there's another twist here. I really hope so.

[The Waldo Moment]

I'm continuing my very slow re-watch. The Waldo Moment wasn't nearly as strong as I remembered, being packed full of tropes and undercooked writing, and the epilogue has all the subtlety of a brick. But it again feels quite current, in the sense people are increasingly glued to broadly inconsequential stories and ignore all the horrible political shit going on at the same time. (Days of Huw Edwards stories while the govt essentially outlaws asylum.)

[Droid Life]

On the Prog itself, Droid Life might have become in this case a little too convoluted for its own good. Dredd starts well, but Asher's dead, isn't he? Azimuth... I mean, it's still good, but...

Portals has something going on, although it feels quite messy from a storytelling perspective. They'd best not kill the vamp to make the lead all fired up.

Void Runners continues to blaze along at breakneck speed, and Hershey nicely heads back in time before returning to an equally intense present for the protagonist.

A solid prog in all, I thought, and even if nothing quite hits a dizzy high, everything was at least good this week. Dredd > Hershey > Azimuth > Void > Portals

How many times have we had this trope now – surprise! It's a different strip?

- The Dead Man – blew my mind as a youngling, and still has a solid set-up when read today
- Dead Eyes – start way to reboot Indigo Prime that worked pretty well
- The Vort – lovely art, and a quite good way to bring back Lobster Random
- Malone – the one quite a few folks clocked early on, and didn't do anything for me

And now Azimuth. Am I missing any?

Honestly, Azmimuth annoys me on multiple levels. I don't really like Sin/Dex anyway. It's rarely done anything for me throughout its entire length and I kind of wish it would go away. But Azmimuth felt different from everything else I'd seen in 2000 AD, bar the puns/names (which in hindsight... yeah).

I hope Colin's right and this can somehow work. But I fear what we'll end up with is ultimately lots of Sin/Dex shooty bang bang taking the strip back to something resembling a status quo, with all that great worldbuilding tossed out of the window. I hope I'm wrong.