Not sure if it's me or the prog...

[Frank]

Williams is a fantastic writer, but I'm not sure Dredd's any better suited to the house character model than Robohunter or Rogue Trooper were.

How the character's written is less important to me than the stories writers tell. The modern Dredd adventures* I enjoy are essentially cop or cowboy action strips.

Few new writers want to write cop, cowboy or action strips. Which is fair enough - I'd rather they were allowed to develop new stories that suit their interests. Dredd's an anachronism.

I''d rather Dredd was treated like any other strip, and only appeared when its creators are available**, but I wouldn't want to deny fans of ice monsters and secret ninja armies their fun.


* As opposed to stories centred on a citizen, like PJ Maybe. Gore City (1664-1667) and the investigatory sections of Total War are probably the best examples of what I mean by cowboy and cop action stories.

** Dredd would have gone on hiatus between 1991 and 1994, dropped to 20 episodes per year from 1999 to 2012, and switched to 10-15 episodes for the last few years.

[radiator]

How the character's written is less important to me than the stories writers tell. The modern Dredd adventures* I enjoy are essentially cop or cowboy action strips.

I posted something similar a while back on another thread. It's hard to really put my finger on - and maybe I'm off base here (as I say, I'm a little out of touch with recent stories), but my take is that some writers perhaps sometimes lose sight of the fact that Dredd strips tend to work best as variations on fairly simple tropes - ie 'Dredd is on the trail of a fugitive perp', 'a new craze sweeps MC1' etc.

Even when John Wagner was in the midst of a really dense, intricate mega-epic like Tour of Duty or The Pit, he'd always manage to elegantly wrap the continuity and world-building around otherwise self-contained police procedurals, and he's always had a real knack for writing propulsive episodic stories that never feel too 'plotty' or continuity-heavy. Does that make sense?

With the best Dredd stories, you can usually sum up their plot in a simple one-line synopsis, but with some of the bigger stories or plotlines by other writers that I've read in the past, I must confess I've sometimes felt a bit lost. I'm not sure I could really say what - for example - Trifecta was all about off the top of my head.

[Richard]

For me the strength of Dredd is the variety of stories and the versatility of the strip. You can have a story about literally anything at all. Police procedural safe great but I'd be bored if that was all there was to Dredd. The quality of the stories depends mainly on the writer, not so much the subject.

Imagine Dredd without PJ Maybe, without the Dark Judges, without Otto Sump, without Chopper. Imagine no Necropolis, no Mechanismo, no America, no comedy stories, no satire. It would never have lasted forty years.

[Frank]

...  some writers perhaps sometimes lose sight of the fact that Dredd strips tend to work best as variations on fairly simple tropes - ie 'Dredd is on the trail of a fugitive perp', 'a new craze sweeps MC1' etc.

... With the best Dredd stories, you can usually sum up their plot in a simple one-line synopsis, but ... I'm not sure I could really say what - for example - Trifecta was all about off the top of my head.

That's fair comment.

The biggest influence on newer writers seems to be US TV, which means they're most comfortable with dense plotting and Joss Whedon dialogue.

That works great in their own strips *, but Dredd sitting still for 2 pages of exposition and quirky interaction without shooting someone doesn't ring true.

Tellingly, the two most significant Dredd stories of recent years ** have either made the title character a passive bystander or removed him from the story for months. ***


* ... and in Dredd world strips that don't feature Dredd. Without Dredd's impatient, sceptical presence, strips like Low Life and Lawless can sustain a ton of Buffy talk and multi-season arcs. Makes me think the future of the Dredd strip might be the Taggart option.

** Titan and Every Empire Falls

*** It's difficult to imagine how a story that doesn't feature the character for ten weeks would pass the author's own 'does this HAVE to be a Dredd story' test. To be fair, Dredd was removed from the story by editorial mandate.

[Magnetica]

You might not be able to sum up Trifecta in one sentence, but surely that was the whole point. It wouldn't have worked if you could.

For me it is the best Dredd story since Tour Of Duty.

[SIP]

You might not be able to sum up Trifecta in one sentence, but surely that was the whole point. It wouldn't have worked if you could.

For me it is the best Dredd story since Tour Of Duty.

Didn't do much for me as a Dredd story, but appreciate that readers liked the "event" of it all. Haven't felt the need to reread it or buy the collection.

[Dark Jimbo]

You might not be able to sum up Trifecta in one sentence, but surely that was the whole point. It wouldn't have worked if you could.

For me it is the best Dredd story since Tour Of Duty.

Didn't do much for me as a Dredd story, but appreciate that readers liked the "event" of it all. Haven't felt the need to reread it or buy the collection.

It worked really nicely as an epilogue, of sorts, to Day of Chaos - and the Dredd part of it, The Cold Deck, was one of the very few non-Wagner post-Chaos stories that fully realised the potential of the new setting. It gelt like a city on its knees, moments away from breaking point.

[Magnetica]

As well as the event of it, Bullet to King Four and the Cold Deck are just great Dredd stories, with fantastic Henry Flint art. I bought the Mega Collection Trifecta edition and it is right up there as one of the best volumes (to my taste anyway).

[TordelBack]

Trifecta was just superb, start to finish: three great strips becoming one brilliant one. I doubt there's ever been a rug-pull so complex that worked so flawlessly, and certainly not in comics.

[Richard]

I can't believe that was nearly five years ago already! I feel like reading it again now.

[Frank]

Good for everyone who loves Trifecta: the last five years of Dredd have certainly been much more like that story than the epic that preceded it*

I thought the Dirty Frank/Overdrive section was a riot, but the rest is the original secret ninja judge army story. And JUDGE SMILEY. **

I'm clearly in the minority, though. I should have posted this in the I'm sure It's Me, Not The Prog thread.


* Which, ironically, was written with the express purpose of providing a template for the stories which followed/tying the hands of other Dredd writers (delete according to your reading of John Wagner's personal psychology)

** The way Smiley was introduced was very clever; the decision to have him hiding in the walls through three previous coups, less so. Rob Williams repositioning Smiley as a villain makes much more sense.

[TordelBack]

All good points Frank, but inna final analysis, he who is tired of Big Barry Penge and Dredd kicking his way into other characters' strips is tired of thrills full-stop.

Plus one invisible ninja army is allowable. It's when they start to proliferate...

[maryanddavid]

True, but when a great tale ends with some guy coming out of a cupboard it is a bit WTF!?

Then again I cant see what the fuss is over Carousel is. Dredd is 70+, its not the green beans and bananas keeping him in shape enough for busting heads, tech has to be keeping him on the street. The rejuve will not have done away with any doubts or changes in personality that have come in those 70 years.

[jacob g]

The biggest influence on newer writers seems to be US TV, which means they're most comfortable with dense plotting and Joss Whedon dialogue.

Actually, when I read stories like Titan I felt more 80's kind of b-cinema feel than TV and Whedon.

[JoFox2108]

I posted something similar a while back on another thread. It's hard to really put my finger on - and maybe I'm off base here (as I say, I'm a little out of touch with recent stories), but my take is that some writers perhaps sometimes lose sight of the fact that Dredd strips tend to work best as variations on fairly simple tropes - ie 'Dredd is on the trail of a fugitive perp', 'a new craze sweeps MC1' etc.

Even when John Wagner was in the midst of a really dense, intricate mega-epic like Tour of Duty or The Pit, he'd always manage to elegantly wrap the continuity and world-building around otherwise self-contained police procedurals, and he's always had a real knack for writing propulsive episodic stories that never feel too 'plotty' or continuity-heavy. Does that make sense?

It certainly makes a lot of sense to me.  I can only agree.  I love the simple but effective classic Dredd strip's more than anything.  I do really admire the way Wagner can build more complex longer term stories in without losing that simple brlliant basic Dredd which hangs together on its own merits. 

I think the problem with some (very few for me actually) more plotty continuity heavy, modern stories for me, is that they occasionally push the story outside of the Dredd I love into something else.  I guess it's not an easy line to walk being creative in a way that's interesting and full of thrills and yet not losing the original simple genius of the strip.