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Greg Staples. I really didn't enjoy his early, cartoony, painted Dredd work at all (possibly because I wasn't that fond of many of the stories it was appearing in, stuff like 'Babes In Arms' and the like.) But I think it might have been a Slaine story he did when I thought 'Hold on a minute, something's changed here!', and then he started working in much more detail, style and subtlety.

Doctor Feeley-Good.

That's an inspired choice!

I nominate Mac from Bad Company, Yassa Povey and Dog, and Novar from the Cursed Earth.

In no particular order (apart from Carlos who is the clear and undisputed number one for me):

Carlos Ezquerra
Mike McMahon
Ron Smith
Brett Ewins
Brian Bolland
Cam Kennedy
Ian Gibson
Jim Baikie
John Ridgway (for anything in the Cursed Earth. I'm including 'The Dead Man' as a Dredd story.)
Steve Dillon (though I'm not a fan of his more modern art for US titles, but in his day in 2000AD, absolutely.)

For my sins, I am also a teacher. Have taught a lot of comics-reading kids but 2000AD readers have been thin on the ground. Marvel seems to be the most popular with my pupils, though one of 'em did get me into Kirkman's Walking Dead some years back. Once had a couple of pages of original Slaine art by Mike Collins delivered to work and showed one of my classes, they were blown away by the quality of the artwork and started clamouring to read 'Spoils of Annwn', so who knows, I may have converted one or two...

Well, I have only read up to Vol. 9 of the Dante TPBs, but I have immense trouble believing [spoiler]Viktor has been killed off[/spoiler]. The narration is very clear that [spoiler]his Mrs. is dead[/spoiler], but I remember reading a prog years ago when it seemed like [spoiler]Viktor was lying dead in the snow (with an eagle imprint around him) and lo and behold, he was alive[/spoiler]. C'mon, [spoiler]Viktor's[/spoiler] the best character in the series apart from Dante, even if I haven't read his death scene, I suspect if there's any doubt at all, he'll still be out there. What happened to him this time?

This sounds fun, I have a few suitably disturbed ideas, if you'll have me.

Thought I'd give some comments on Prog 1700 from a Returner's point of view. I've been back for a meagre few progs, ever since the Strontium Dog story, and will confess to having been rather lost in regards to Sin/Dex, Savage and Red Seas, none of which I was ever a massive fan of (the latter two had maybe had a series each when I stopped reading. Savage I didn't enjoy, Red Seas was all right, but is now completely incomprehensible to me.) So...

Dredd – makes me feel happy to be back and right at home. Wagner's characterisation of Joe is as wonderful as ever – I can hugely sympathise with his reaction to being stuck in a meeting when you'd rather just be doing the parts of the job you love. It also reminds me of that story when CJ Volt forced every Judge to have a mandatory 24 hrs downtime, and Joe couldn't handle it.

Defoe – Hard to say at this stage. Some of the Mills-isms are very endearing, others a bit irritating, but it's definitely accessible enough for me, so a cautious thumbs-up.

Age of the Wolf – Again, hard to tell, it's not hooked me so far but I'll give it a few issues before I make up my mind – visually, the design of the werewolves will probably swing it one way or another.

Low Life – This strip baffled me completely, I dimly remember it when it was about a female judge with a bionic arm, but I couldn't make head nor tail of this. Looked it up on Wikipedia – didn't help much. I really would have appreciated much more of an introduction here, since this is supposed to be a 'jumping on point' prog.

Nikolai Dante – About as sharp a contrast as possible with Low Life – absolutely written in such a way that I can get right back into my favourite strip of 'modern' era 2000AD. I have been picking up the trades to bring me up to speed on what I've missed, but while there is a gap between the end of Dante trade No. 9 and this, it's all readily understandable. This strip makes me wish I'd never been away at all – just wonderful. So much has obviously happened in Dante in the last 5 years, but it's so recognisably the same great story and I'm 100% on board.

What's cool (as someone else pointed out on another site where I first saw this) is that they make the first two panels a throwaway joke, just like Watterson used to have to do when he couldn't be sure that any given newspaper would publish the top row of the Sunday strips. It's a nice touch.

I was going to comment on John Smith on Dredd, but then I realised I had neglected to comment on this...

but the solution to it all just seems so... inappropriate. The Sisters Of Death come out of nowhere to move the plot along, the villains of the piece are 1980s slasher horror villains, the artist doesn't do a good Dark Judge (which neuters Death's menace) and the plot is basically City of the Damned II. On paper (like Doomsday) it should be amazing but in print it's oddly lacking and a retread of previous epic plots.

Now, I am not remotely objective on Necropolis. I regard it as one of the greatest pinnacles in 2000AD's history, and while respecting the rights of others to their opinions, my gut instinct is screaming 'BURN THE UNBELIEVER! BURN HIM!' But... let's see... 80s slasher horror villains? Nonsense! The villains of the piece are absolutely terrifying incarnations of ungodly supernatural forces who have corrupted the entire judicial force and bent them to their will. The power of Necropolis is in its sense of atmosphere and scale - when Mortis chases the cadets through the crumbling city (expertly painted by Carlos, some of the greatest work of his career) it is like a trip into hell itself, emphasised by the cadets' relative helplessness. Carlos's rendition of Mortis is utterly chilling (even if he famously forgot his tail!) so I can't agree at all that it or any of the other Dark Judges lack menace.

As for the Sisters coming out of nowhere... I don't see that it matters. Fire, Fear and Mortis came out of nowhere for the 'Four Dark Judges' story - what's the problem? It's not like they come in halfway through or anything. I do have a bit of sympathy that it all ends a little too quickly or that the overall structure has been used before(doesn't bother me personally), and I do think it was never followed up in quite the depth it should have been (no epic betters the Apocalypse War in terms of permanent impact on MC1) but that's 'cos Wagner was handing over the reins.

I remember really enjoying Chronocide, it looked great and had Earl Regan in it. It was a Steve White / Dan Abnett job, wasn't it? I was really fond of Steve White's stuff. I particularly liked the bit where Regan has to return to the surface slowly enough so as not to give himself the bends, whilst a vicious tylosaurus (or whatever it was) is after him. That was inspired.

I just don't get a Morrison vibe from it at all. Its like he sat down to write a Judge Dredd epic, not just write a good Judge Dredd story that happened to be longer than usual. Its not awful (I've read worse, some of those Mark Millar Dredds for one) but it seems almost like a poor parody, which seems odd as I'm a big fan and even in the stories I don't like quite as much there are always plenty of ideas and little flashes of brilliance but I'm not even seeing that here.

If I am remembering correctly, Morrison admitted in interviews at the time that he couldn't really see what to do with Judge Dredd as a strip that would radically improve it. He said he decided just to make it a bit more 'widescreen' (whatever that means.) I can't help but feel the strip basically defeated him, which increasingly makes me think that there's not too many people beyond John Wagner who can actually do it right.

Now would that be Will Simpson or early, larval stage Simon Coleby?

Brett Ewins, man. Always Brett Ewins. 

Cheers for the kind words, guys, jolly nice of you and much appreciated. In retrospect, I think I should have had the label read 'MALCOLM-XL' but that's hindsight for you. 

Well, I am not much of an artist (and even less so when placed next to the genius of JTPegg!) but the competition sounded fun, so here is quick pic following the holiday theme. It is less a snapshot, more a souvenir received by Bad Company's Danny Franks...

Have you been watching Ideal by any chance?

Actually, no, afraid not - in fact, I'd never heard of it until your post. Then I went and looked it up, which made me wish I had heard of it! Sounds suitably mental.