Messages

I can't recall my first experience of 2000ad; it was either a Sci-Fi Special, Complete Judge Dredd or Best of 2000ad Monthly which I liked because the stories were self-contained, or at least started all-new quite frequently. I wanted to read the weekly too but was put off by everything being a continuing episode - I'm far too anal to just dive in mid-way through a story! It was also a fair amount of money each week, around 70p! What eventually swung it was the Rogue Trooper poster in 873 - even if I didn't enjoy the strips I'd got a cool poster for my money - which I've just realised is by Chris Weston. THE Chris Weston! I'd have it back on my wall in a flash, only I can't find it. 

My first impression was, I think, that I'd been missing out for a long time and wanted to catch up (something I'm still doing after 20 years as my collection of back issues extends ever-further into the past). Looking back, I wasn't aware of 2000ad through any friends from which I can only surmise that nobody I knew was a reader. Which seems strange when you consider that this was the 1980s.

Why is volume 3 of the Nikolai Dante saga still out of print? Sort it out Tharg!

Ewing, Spurrier and Williams beat you to the punch(line) with Judge Bachman, Mr Turner and Mr Overdrive.

I genuinely cannot believe I hadn't noticed that yet.  That's going to make me hugely happy every time I read these stories from now on.

I hadn't noticed the Bachman/Overdrive link until DanDon'tDare's comment above, then I had to check this week's prog to find Mr Turner.

It's chuffin' brilliant stuff though, isn't it?

Bachmann goes into overdrive in Dredd.

Will Dredd turner in?

Drokk it!  I was trying to think of something with Turner for ages as well.

Ewing, Spurrier and Williams beat you to the punch(line) with Judge Bachman, Mr Turner and Mr Overdrive.

On a side note - I'd really want to see a range of 2000AD Elseworlds stories - not just Dredd. One offs featuring other characters. Rogue Trooper hunting for the Traitor General in the American Civil War - Strontium Dog as a bounty hunter in the Wild West - Nikolai Dante in the swingin' 60's...

This is a fucking brilliant idea. Tharg! Make it happen!

Cheers

Jim

Wow! Someone actually read something I posted!! Thanks Jim! I loved the Batman Elseworlds - particularly the Dracula/Batman ones - and have often thought 2000AD one-offs would be good. Not printed in the Prog or Meg , but actual one-shots.

The last of the Judge Dredd Mega Specials did this in 1996. I believe the two Judge Dredd stories (The Incorruptibles and Dredd of Drokk Green) are in Restricted Files Volume 4.

The spoof album covers (Faith with Devlin Waugh, Parallel Lines with Judge Anderson, etc) are ace too. Does anybody know if they made it into a gallery section in Restricted Files 4?

I'd definitely like to see something like that again. It might make a good back-up strip for the Meg, like Tales of the Black Museum.

Seeing as "The Blind Watchmaker" was the one clever turn of phrase that Dawkins has conjured in his career as an anti-religion pundit...

In fairness to Dawkins, he coined that phrase as part of a defense of (and sequel to) his book The Selfish Gene, which was itself a serious piece of scientific thought, albeit presented in a popularising format.  Dismissing Dawkins as 'an anti-religion pundit' ignores his significant career as a biologist in the 1970s, and his important role in popularising key scientific concepts.

Dawkins was also referring back to Bishop William Paley's Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity.

It took nearly 15 years but I knew it was worth keeping those undergraduate essays! It's also interesting to note that when I wrote said essay I had to book a period of time in the university library's 'old and valuable books room' in which I could carefully read the book and take notes. Now the whole text is online and I could read it on the bus if I wanted to. It's this kind of thing that causes futsies.

Aaaaand... apparently "this project has been deleted". So it's a no-go I suppose. 

Can someone please tell me when we first learned about the [spoiler]clone of Kazan[/spoiler]? I don't recall him at all and I get the feeling a Thargnote has fallen off that page. Apart from that jarring introduction I thoroughly enjoyed this week's instalment, especially Hershey's outburst.

The [spoiler]Kazan clone[/spoiler] first appeared in Gulag(Progs 1383 - 86), but hasn't been featured for a very long time(I think the last appearance was pre-Origins?). One of the story threads left dangling when Gordon Rennie left, nice to see it finally getting picked up again.

Thanks Goosegash. I'd actually read that story a few months ago but without episode 1 I didn't really get what was going on and promptly forgot. By remarkable coincidence a second hand copy of prog 1382 arrived from Oz this week so I'll catch up.

[Grey Area]

Can someone please tell me when we first learned about the [spoiler]clone of Kazan[/spoiler]? I don't recall him at all and I get the feeling a Thargnote has fallen off that page. Apart from that jarring introduction I thoroughly enjoyed this week's instalment, especially Hershey's outburst.

Grey Area continues to be a good read but I feel it needs a 'big' storyline soon to cement it's foundation. That's a minor point that's meant in a positive way as I really like the strip, but maybe the plan is for it to remain a sci fi cop soap...

It's funny you should say that. When they tried to [spoiler]arrest the ambassador[/spoiler] I thought to myself "this is the big story that Grey Area's been lacking." I take it you didn't see it that way?

I think that in response to Tharg's editorial about the "whole eleven volumes" of Nikolai Dante we should all contact the nerve centre this week and point out that volume three is still egregiously out of print.

Loved the cover, and I too assumed it was a McNeill piece. If Mr Willsher's reading this, that should be taken as a compliment! 

I thought the Twisted Tale was a good story but the actual story-telling was a bit fractured. Could somebody please tell me what that thing in the foreground of panel 6 is supposed to be? It looks like an old boot but has no relevance to the scene. It's just jarring.

ABCs, Grey Area and Brass Sun were much as they were last week; like them or not according to personal taste. I would like to see more of Clint's old fashioned drawing though.

As for Dredd, his reflections on 30 years ago (coupled with the fact that it was that long ago in real time) is very powerful and something I want to see explored further. I predict an attempted military coup in MC-1 before the year is out.

I hope that makes sense, I'm a bit drunkled.

Hrm, the first one gives me the middle of the Med Sea, or Sudan if you swap the Lat and Long over. Or am I being daft?

Have you recently upgraded to iOS 6? 

[Important:]

You are correct, you need to paint them, or get someone else to do it

Excellent! In that case I just have to decide how much I want to spend. I'm not sure how I missed this on the Kickstarter page:

Important: Models are metal and/or resin, and are supplied unpainted and unassembled.

It doesn't reflect well on their in-house painters that I thought they'd been done by a machine in Taiwan.


Ahahaha-ha! My modify button works. 

That's what I thought as well Tombo. It's clear this guy is taking pains to make it hard to connect the killings. PJ Maybe, despite his genius, tends to kill people he knows who irritate him which leads to Judges knocking on the door.

Well, we've still got Kingdom,

Well I hope so, but I asked my Inside Source the other day and she said it's proving hard to lure Richard Elson away from DC and their bottomless pcokets, so book 3 is still some way off.

So just publish Dabnett's scripts. I'd happily just read the text to find out what happens next.

French Anderson is very foxy indeed. I'm in love.