Dredd Reckoning blog by Douglas Wolk

[douglaswolk]

So glad you folks are enjoying it!

This week, Mairead Case and I take on "The Complete P.J. Maybe," Adrian Mole, Tom Ripley, Orin Scrivello, etc.

http://dreddreviews.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-complete-pj-maybe.html

[Frank]

Wolk promises it's mostly epics or major stories on the blog from now until after Christmas. This week's definitely fits that description, Satan's Island. During the course of it, he posits two interesting questions; best single prog ever, and had we ever seen or heard of Muerte before he turned up on Sin City?

I'm drawing a blank on the second question, but (off the top of my head) I'd nominate prog 686 - which features Alan Grant and Colin MacNeil killing off Johnny Alpha (with a great wraparound cover featuring Johnny and Wulf beseiged by the series' major villains), Dave Gibbons and Will Simpson resucitating Rogue Trooper in War Machine, and John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra making you wonder why anyone else was ever allowed to write or draw Dredd, in Necropolis. It's got Harlem Heroes and Medivac 318 in the black and white slots too, but there's always something a bit shite isn't there?

http://dreddreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/satans-island.html

[radiator]

99% sure that El Muerte had never appeared before.

[Jim_Campbell]

...but (off the top of my head) I'd nominate prog 686 - which features Alan Grant and Colin MacNeil killing off Johnny Alpha (with a great wraparound cover featuring Johnny and Wulf beseiged by the series' major villains), Dave Gibbons and Will Simpson resucitating Rogue Trooper in War Machine, and John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra making you wonder why anyone else was ever allowed to write or draw Dredd, in Necropolis. It's got Harlem Heroes and Medivac 318 in the black and white slots too, but there's always something a bit shite isn't there?

Off the top of my head: Prog 330. Wagner/Grant/Smith Dredd; Finley-Day/Kennedy Rogue Trooper; Wagner/Grant/Gibson Robo-Hunter; Moore/Baike Skizz; Mills/Kincaid Slaine. No chaff there.

Frankly, you could pick just about any prog between 300 and 400. How about 335?

Wagner/Grant/Smith kick off Graveyard Shift in Dredd; Mills/O'Neill with Pt1 of Nemesis BkIII; Finley-Day/Ewins on a fairly so-so Rogue Trooper; Mills/McMahon on Slaine - Warrior's Dawn; Grant/Ezquerra starting off Strontium Dog - The Moses Incident. Even a fairly cringeworthy Rogue is marginally redeemed by Ewins tracing pictures out of skin mags for Venus Bluegenes...

Cheers!

Jim

[Frank]

99% sure that El Muerte had never appeared before.

Thanks Radiator. Muerte does feel as if you should know him, though, doesn't he? The look of the character reminded me of Judge Sladek (The Falucci Tape, 461 - 463), gone to seed and with a touch of the male-pattern, but the dialogue makes it clear that's not the case. The little homunculus that sits at Muerte's shoulder, doing all his talking and thinking for him, reminds me of the dynamic between Kurten and Little Mo too.

I suppose it's great character work on the part of writer and artist which means the character deliberately evokes alumni of the strip, and is perfectly believable as a returning character from Dredd's past. It's another example of how Wagner's unprecedented length of tenure on the strip allows stories and characters conceived extemporaneously (and years apart) to feel as if they are part of a contiguous, ordered, overarching narrative.

[Frank]

Off the top of my head: Prog 330. Wagner/Grant/Smith Dredd; Finley-Day/Kennedy Rogue Trooper; Wagner/Grant/Gibson Robo-Hunter; Moore/Baike Skizz; Mills/Kincaid Slaine. No chaff there.

Frankly, you could pick just about any prog between 300 and 400. How about 335?

Wagner/Grant/Smith kick off Graveyard Shift in Dredd; Mills/O'Neill with Pt1 of Nemesis BkIII; Finley-Day/Ewins on a fairly so-so Rogue Trooper; Mills/McMahon on Slaine - Warrior's Dawn; Grant/Ezquerra starting off Strontium Dog - The Moses Incident. Even a fairly cringeworthy Rogue is marginally redeemed by Ewins tracing pictures out of skin mags for Venus Bluegenes...

Ewins's art on that story was a revelation; I don't think anyone could complain about the blatant cheesecake when it's so technically accomplished. The height of my own intense period of reading the prog as if it was a holy text was actually long after what most folk would consider the Golden Age; from after 520's change of size and paper stock, until around the end of Necropolis and The Horned God - which is why I went for one of the progs from that period which reads to me like everything that made the last decade so great coming together for one last moment of exellence.

It's probably more of a challenge to come up with a candidate from the slow, strange near-death of the prog in the Nineties. The closest I can think of - and there won't be many who agree - is prog 848, the apogee of Morrison and Millar's Summer Offensive. It sported the first Bolland cover in an age, Carlos drawing muscular crazies galore in (the otherwise pointless) Inferno, John Smith finding his narrative clarity and hilarity mojo in the actually quite good Slaughterbowl, and the utterly brilliant depictions of Diana and Fergie in Big Dave. I quite liked Yeowell's art on Maniac 5 too, and that story was probably Millar's only worthwhile contribution to 2000ad.

[vzzbux]

Frankly, you could pick just about any prog between 300 and 400.
Cheers!

Jim

Yes.
Stronium Dog was on fire around these progs. I don't think there was a duff panel. The Killing, Outlaw and The Moses Incident are the top dog stories for me.




V

[Jim_Campbell]

The closest I can think of - and there won't be many who agree - is prog 848, the apogee of Morrison and Millar's Summer Offensive.

I don't disagree with any of that, TBH. I don't revile the Summer Offensive as much as some and the issue you point to is a good illustration of that. I think the weakness of Dredd as a strip taints the overall perception of a prog like that, coupled with the presence of Big Dave.

Don't get me wrong: I fucking loved Big Dave, particularly under Parkhouse's gloriously scratchy pen. I thought it was absolutely razor-sharp in skewering its targets and often made me laugh out loud. On the other hand, I can see the arguments that it wasn't a 2000AD strip, but isn't one of the delights of 2000AD that it can find room for strips that "aren't 2000AD strips"?

Cheers

Jim

[Frank]

The closest I can think of - and there won't be many who agree - is prog 848, the apogee of Morrison and Millar's Summer Offensive.

I don't disagree with any of that, TBH. I don't revile the Summer Offensive as much as some and the issue you point to is a good illustration of that. I think the weakness of Dredd as a strip taints the overall perception of a prog like that, coupled with the presence of Big Dave.

Don't get me wrong: I fucking loved Big Dave, particularly under Parkhouse's gloriously scratchy pen. I thought it was absolutely razor-sharp in skewering its targets and often made me laugh out loud. On the other hand, I can see the arguments that it wasn't a 2000AD strip, but isn't one of the delights of 2000AD that it can find room for strips that "aren't 2000AD strips"

I couldn't agree more strongly concerning Parkhouse but, judging by his comments in Thrill-power Overload, I don't think he feels the same way about us. When you re-read the majority of the strips that were packing out the prog between '91 and '93, the fact that Big Dave is nothing like them seems like a definite bonus. I'm never sure exactly what folk mean when they say something isn't a typical 2000ad strip anyway; it's one of the beauties of the anthology format that you're continually exposed to different kinds of stories by different creators. 

Slaine, especially the McMahon story you mentioned earlier, stuck out like a sore thumb; and I defy anyone to find any anthology where Zaucer of Zilk would conform to the house style, but both were the best stories in the progs in which they appeared. Mentioning Halo Jones is probably the equivalent of Godwining any discussion of stories that troubled conceptions of what kind of stories and what kind of readers 2000ad was for, so I'll just remind everyone that the superb Button Man was rejected from Toxic, and was considered a risky proposition by 2000ad, because it didn't fit in with the general tone of those publications.

To paraphrase and recontextualise your traditional sign-off; cheers, Jim.

[Leigh S]

when you used to be able to vote on Barney, the top ten progs were pretty interesting... seem to recall there was a thread dedicated to it....

[Jim_Campbell]

when you used to be able to vote on Barney, the top ten progs were pretty interesting... seem to recall there was a thread dedicated to it....

This one?

Cheers!

Jim

[Frank]

This one?

Cheers, Jim. Can't argue with 662; any prog with three Wagners, a Mills and a Morrison is going to be gold. Song of the Surfer, the two Dead Man stories, The Horned God, and Zenith would make my list of top strips, and the artists drawing them were doing the best work of their lives. As the comments on the thread you linked to point out though, shame about the otherwise excellent Steve Cook's cover - but Glenn Fabry's back page image makes up for that.

[douglaswolk]

This week, the remarkable Laura Hudson and I go head-to-head over Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens: Incubus. Discussion topics include Dredd's two pregnancies, the concept behind Dan O'Bannon's original Alien screenplay, Xenomorph-ish power towers, Sanchez as Castillo II, Todd Akin, what the absence of a female lead character does in this context, etc.

http://dreddreviews.blogspot.com/2012/10/judge-dredd-vs-aliens-incubus.html

[TordelBack]

This week, the remarkable Laura Hudson and I go head-to-head over Judge Dredd Vs. Aliens: Incubus.

You secure that shit, Hudson!

Fascinating as always, but I think Laura (a writer whose online writings I've always enjoyed) comes across a bit John Byrne there with her insistence that the Alien franchise is about one thing and one thing only, and can never be anything else.  While she makes a lot of really excellent points, I think that the 'core concept' ship sailed when they got Geiger to design a big rubber willy with which to threaten Ripley.

Spot on about Sanchez, mind. Interesting that when Sanchez next appears (Origins), it is to raise questions about the wisdom of judicial celibacy.

[Frank]

I was still buying 2000ad every week at the time Incubus ran in the prog, and it was the first Dredd story I'd ever skipped reading. The crossovers with Batman, Lobo, Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, Devlin Waugh, Shimura, Predator and the addition of The Megazine, The DC Dredd, Lawman of the Future and that film had stretched the character and the central concepts of the strip - and my patience with any further exploitation of them - to absolute breaking point.

It wasn't long after Incubus that I jacked the weekly in altogether, and the genuine points of interest Wolk manages to find in the book haven't convinced me to add it to the list of stuff I need to read to understand how Dredd and Wagner managed to turn things around so spectacularly in my absence. That's it man, game over.