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Ah, bugger - I'd probably rate him with Robbie & Ian.

"true alan grant doesn't write dredd with a passion and from recent interviews seems to regard comedy strips as a good thing, but teamed with wagner, they wrote some epics"

Emphasis on "wrote", IMO. I can't think of one really good Dredd from Alan Grant since the Grant/Wagner partnership split.

"garth ennis may not have a handle on the character like some, but his era on dredd had the novelty of trying things that even joh wagner hadn't thought of"

Like comedy Irish judges? ;-)

I don't doubt that he loved the character & was trying his best, and I do rate Garth highly, but I just don't think his work on Dredd was very good.

"i omitted pat mills from my list, but feel that he is a better dredd writer than gordon rennie"

Really? His last couple of Dredd stories were very mixed. The "Whatever Happened to Tweak" was OK, but Dredd didn't feature much. The Satanus tale was an absolute stinker, though. I can't see how you could rate him highly based on those two alone.

If we're talking about people who are writing, or have written Dredd in the past couple of years, I'd put them in this order - best to worst:

John Wagner
Gordon Rennie
Alan Grant/Garth Ennis
Robbie Morrison/Ian Edgington
Pat Mills

If you're talking about *all-time* best, based on their total contribution to the strip, that's a different story, but I'd still place Gordon Rennie very highly.

Completely disagree on Alan Grant & Garth Ennis being next best. When he's on form, Gordon Rennie is fantastic on Dredd. I think he missed a little with Gulag, and it was a little too "action movie" for my tastes, but he's got the character nailed in a way that Garth Ennis never did. On the shorter stories - and I'm thinking of the recent Dredd/Giant tale in the Meg - he's almost up to Wagner's standards.

Alan Grant can be a good Dredd writer, but I don't think he's got the same passion for the character as he does for a strip like Anderson, and it shows. His "comedy" one-offs have been generally awful, and it's been a while since I've read a Grant Dredd that I'd want to revisit.

Well, I remember when the whole prog was turned over to Sin/Dex for the penultimate episode of Eurocrash. That was a smart move, IMO, and I certainly didn't miss Dredd for that one prog.

Dropping the big man for a few progs a year, perhaps to make way for a one-strip issue or just for a break isn't too disturbing, and as you say, the character lineup is certainly strong enough to do it.

I don't want to see large gaps without Dredd, but for a few weeks every year, I'd be happy to see Tharg experimenting with a Dredd-less prog.

Courtesy of Lying in the Gutters:

"Frazer Irving, the 12 year old telling people he's 32, is working on a Frankenstein graphic novel with Gary Reed (cover logo designs by Jim Steranko). 144 page book, manga digest sized, black and white. Aimed at a "younger" market, it's bookstore distributed by Penguin, and published by iBooks."

Looks very interesting, even if it is going to keep him away from Tooth for a bit...

You absolute SHIT, Tips! I've just spilt my coffee & had foul looks from everyone in the office because I was pissing myself laughing!

Anyway, I like the idea & I think I'll have to nab it :-)

Thanks to everyone else who's offered advice - I'm going to take it all on board, and I'll sit down this weekend & try and beat the dusty notes into some kind of interesting shape.

That's an interesting suggestion, but it means I'd be making stuff up out of whole cloth. If possible, I'd like to try to stay within what's in the strip itself. Anything that was published in 2000AD, specials or annuals is fair game, but I'd like to avoid having to invent stuff.

I'm still working on the story summary thing for all of the Rogue tales up to the end of GFD's run on the character, but I'm running into a problem.

I've got loads of straight info - things like character names, locations, weaponry - and I've got detailed story synopses, but I'm having trouble putting it together into something someone would want to read. It's very, very dry - "xxx arrives at Nu Paree, then XXX happens. While XXX is talking to..." etc.

Any tips on how to write a punchy synopsis, and any ideas on what you'd like to see in a Rogue story guide? Would it be worth putting together a separate "Nu Earth Encyclopaedia" for things like equipment & locations?

This is going to be aimed at fans who want a reminder of events in old Rogue tales, but who want an easier way of checking than pulling out hundreds of progs, and at newer readers, so they can get an idea of the character's history & maybe be encouraged to hunt out the classic Rogue stories.

MM -

I'd like one, and I'd rather send off now, as I won't be at Dreddcon.

...and for the poor bastard who can't make it to Dreddcon? :-(

"The artwork here is the cover."

Ahh... so that would explain the "dead" space along the top.

How would I go about getting a copy of the mag?

"Club Magazine?"

Heh - probably not *the* Club Magazine...

;-)

Is that an educated guess or a bit of Nerve Centre insider info?

:-)

Can't access Gamespot because of work filters - can anyone summarise the story? Is there going to be an adaptation of Ironstorm: World War Zero in 2000AD?

Heh. Better than this would be a good idea, as well:

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