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

[The Adventurer]

For my money the Pat Mills slot (and lets face it's 90% of the year there's at least one Mills strip running) is the dud slot. Some are worse then others, but they are blur into each other these days. The latest Defoe ended with Defoe telling a kid not to trust the press as its controlled by the government, and Grey Suit starts up talking about how the truth will be suppressed by the government and only exist on the dark web.

They're all just different variantions on the same theme! I guess I just don't see the appeal any more.

[Taryn Tailz]

For my money the Pat Mills slot (and lets face it's 90% of the year there's at least one Mills strip running) is the dud slot. Some are worse then others, but they are blur into each other these days. The latest Defoe ended with Defoe telling a kid not to trust the press as its controlled by the government, and Grey Suit starts up talking about how the truth will be suppressed by the government and only exist on the dark web.

They're all just different variantions on the same theme! I guess I just don't see the appeal any more.

I generally enjoy Pat Mills present-day contributions to the Prog, so I really don't mind his being a frequent name in the credits box.
That being said, Grey Suit is utterly woeful. You can't please all the people, all the time, etc...

[Richard]

It's not very often that we see a thread take up five pages in a single day! Quite a debate!

I'm a bit late to this one, and IndigoPrime, Gordon Rennie and Jim Campbell have already said what I would have said if I'd got here in a timely manner. But I would add that Matt Smith has been brilliant for the prog and Rebellion should give him a raise, even if they already have him one yesterday.

I suspect that much of the cynicism that has been expressed on this thread stems from nostalgia for some past golden age when everything was better, rather than anything that's seriously wrong with the prog today. That's entirely natural and normal. But for every Slaine: The Horned God there was a Junker, and for every Firekind there was a Trash.

In an anthology there'll usually be something that a particular reader won't like. But overall 2000AD has been brilliant since 2000. Rebellion would be mad to let go the editor who has been responsible for that level of consistent success over the last 15 years without at least threatening to massacre all his family and friends if he doesn't stay.

[13school]

One thing I think the prog has been lacking for a while now is strips built around simple, memorable, crazy concepts. Not every story's concept should be able to be summed up in one sentence, but 2000AD isn't firing on all cylinders when there isn't at least one strip per issue (aside from Dredd) with a strikingly out-there tag line.

[TordelBack]

Some one-line concepts for recent stories:

Immigration officers patrol an alien refugee camp on Earth.
A sceretive cult threatens the survival of a post-apocalyptic orbital diaspora, but are the dark gods they worship real?
Genetically engineered dog-soldier caught between his scheming human Masters and the insectoid Them he was created to fight.
Zombie hunter wages secret war against magic-powered ruling elite in 17th London.
Invading aliens harvest the magic from a fantasy realm, but an unlikely alliance of former foes oppose them.
An ancient Order of scientists, warriors and an armour-clad AI fight the reality-destroying Wyrms across millennia of shifting history.
A girl and her protector try to find a refuge from corruption and catastrophe as Death and his minions create Deadworld.
Some bollocks about superpowered government assasins, Public School paedophiles and sheep.

[Fungus]

True. But I think that 'memorable, crazy concepts' can be simplified further to plain throwaway 'fun'. Ulysses Sweet and the much-missed Zombo had that in shovels. The wacky (infrequent) bonkers Dredds are more welcome than ever.

Listen to us tell our granny how to edit    All Hail Tharg! 10 More Years!

[Darren Stephens]

Listen to us tell our granny how to edit    All Hail Tharg! 10 More Years!

[Proudhuff]

Deadworld, Kingdom and Defoe have a ratio of action to chat that would have found favour in any era, while Brink, Hope, and Indigo Prime allow Tharg's droids to hang with Image and Boom at the convention bar, instead of staying at home out of shame, like whoever edits Commando.

I can tell you now Frank, the men who write and edit Commando do not stay at home out of shame but lead the charge to the bar at Conventions and indeed drink the half-pint craft beer hipsters from Image and Boom under the table...

Not that I would do anything like that or encourage such, irresponsible, macho behaviour 

[Proudhuff]

There are only so many stories, Smith, some say as few as seven basic narratives (for example, the story of Gilgamesh is basically identical to any number of James Bond stories and Beowulf is virtually the same as Jaws), so the only things that can be changed are the characters and settings and, I suppose, the weirdness quotient. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you will never read a new story, only an old story told in a new way. When you recognise the story, I think, that means it hasn't been told in a unique enough fashion and not that the story form itself is old - all the stories are old. A cloak of weird is just one of the tricks writers use to dress up these ancient forms and sometimes, I agree, they can go too far - or not far enough.

And there is always the same story from a different PoV... Beowolf from the Grendel's mother's PoV becomes a Revenge story... James Bond from the redshirt's PoV  was quite touching in the Spy who shagged me, etc

[JLC]

Needs to get back the fun satirical bite it used to have. I don't really see that much anymore in the comic.

[Colin YNWA]

Needs to get back the fun satirical bite it used to have. I don't really see that much anymore in the comic.

In this weeks Prog alone there'll be Grey Area, fun and awash with satire and Grey Suit, violent fun and awash with Millire (which is just like Satire but a little bit repetative and telegraphed). That's before we get anything in Dredd which we often do (not read this weeks Prog - its a fashion thing to comment before reading / watching apparently) and I'm sure the Alienist can rattle something up as well  beyond the sexual politics thing which underlines the whole thing.

[Jim_Campbell]

I don't really see that much anymore in the comic.

Like all those efforts to attract new readers you maintain the comic isn't making, despite being presented with multiple examples that demonstrate how patently absurd the statement was?

[sheridan]

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.

** 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.

I may be biased because when I started reading the prog it was 'called' "2000AD featuring Judge Dredd", but if the staple character only appeared in one in three progs, would there be a prog after a few years?

[JLC]

Needs to get back the fun satirical bite it used to have. I don't really see that much anymore in the comic.

In this weeks Prog alone there'll be Grey Area, fun and awash with satire and Grey Area, violent fun and awash with Millire (which is just like Satire but a little bit repeatative and telegraphed). That's before we get anything in Dredd which we often do (not read this weeks Prog - its a fashion thing to comment before reading / watching apparently) and I'm sure the Alienist can rattle something up as well  beyond the sexual politics thing which underlines the whole thing.

Maybe I'm just not finding these examples as much fun or fresh as the stuff back in the day. Would we ever see anything like The Burger Wars again?

[sheridan]

No, I'm sure Garth (editorial experience: nil) would jump at the chance to take a huge drop in income to move from New York to Oxford to edit a comic he probably hasn't read regularly in decades.

But surely the lasting gratitude of 2000AD's loyal readers would be enough...

Considering what happened to Judge Dredd when Garth was put in charge, I wouldn't hold out much hope of the prog under his editorship (anyway, I'm sure he's busy executive producing (or whatever his official title is) the Preacher TV series).