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Whats the Mega City Situation in Canada?

Started by Rogue Judge, 10 December, 2016, 12:26:48 AM

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Rogue Judge

I've read up to case files 14 so far, and Canada hasn't been mentioned (nor do I really expect it to).
The US has Mega city one and two, and Texas city, cursed earth, etc. UK has Brit city, Asia has Hondo city, Australia etc...

Whats happened to Canada? Is there anything going on up there other than Judges in the snow (Mega Igloo 1)?  :D Inquiring Canadian mind would like to know!

JOE SOAP


Dark Jimbo

Unlikely to be/have a Mega-City as such, and less likely to have a Judge force.

'Canadia' has so few in-strip mentions (the last, and closest we ever got to actually going there, was during Mandroid) that it seems to be a tiny player on the world stage. Perhaps they didn't invest in any anti-missile shields before the Atom Wars and paid the price accordingly.
@jamesfeistdraws

Colin YNWA

Is it my imagination but in DNA Man (Progs 113-115) the baddie makes an attempt to escape by crossing the a bridge over the Canadian border... its certianly a border outside Dredd's jurisdiction... I've read it recently but might be misremembering...

Frank

Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 10 December, 2016, 12:09:37 PM
Unlikely to be/have a Mega-City as such

Yep. Present day Canada has a population 2/3 that of England; almost half that of the UK [1].

Also, the Dredd strip's outings to foreign countries have been based on those nations' potential for (a) exciting stories, and (b) cheap laughs at national stereotypes.

Nothing exciting has ever happened in Canada. That makes it a lovely place to live, but a crap setting for an action strip [2].


[1] ... and a lower population growth rate too

[2] Same reason Cal Hab and Brit Cit stories are rotten. If MC1 had been based on Portland, Maine, rather than New York/Chicago, the Dredd strip probably wouldn't have made it past prog 7

sheridan

The first mention of territories north of MC1 must be the Northways Bridge that Professor Milton D Frankenstein took to try to escape the city.

Trout

Quote from: Frank on 10 December, 2016, 02:49:34 PM
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 10 December, 2016, 12:09:37 PM
Unlikely to be/have a Mega-City as such
Nothing exciting has ever happened in Canada. That makes it a lovely place to live, but a crap setting for an action strip [2].

Astonishingly ill-informed. Toronto is the closest thing to a mega-city I've ever seen, and the trends in population density, city planning and housing are fascinating (and disturbing) to me as a 2000 AD reader.

I suspect the reason Canada rarely gets a mention in Dredd stories is that Dredd writers don't have connections to the place. Let's not over-analyse these things.

Frank


Richard

QuoteLet's not over-analyse these things.

You're on the internet, remember. On a forum about comics.

Rogue Judge

Thanks for the input guys - so Canada is basically a frozen waste land with a low population...looks like nothing really has changed all that much!  :lol:

Quote from: Frank on 10 December, 2016, 02:49:34 PM
Nothing exciting has ever happened in Canada.

Hey! What do you mean nothing exiting has ever happened in Canada?  Vancouver Island is home to an annual bathtub race that would challange even Supersuf contestant Chopper, and our Mounties wear costumes that would make for an interesting Judge uniform...I guess you have a good point there Frank.

Frank

Quote from: Rogue Judge on 10 December, 2016, 08:29:49 PM
I guess you have a good point there Frank

Only as sarcasm. My brother's in Ottawa; on his last visit, he regaled us with tales of all the murders that happen round the back of the bar below his girlfriend's apartment.

Despite Trout's breach of his own injunction against thinking, he's right probably right that America just had more of a hold on the imagination of baby boomer comic creators than Canada [1].

In the Brit psyche, Canada is just more USA/UK. Although if 1st world liberal democracy continues its collapse, your socially conscious ways and shaggable PM may seem exotic enough to warrant satire.


[1] Although Grant had family in Canada.

Trout

Quote from: Frank on 10 December, 2016, 03:41:49 PM
Quote from: Trout on 10 December, 2016, 03:29:54 PM
Astonishingly ill-informed

See (b) cheap laughs at national stereotypes.




There's a difference between playing on a stereotype, and making authoritative statements that are just plain wrong. Footnotes don't make you right, even if you add comments like "injunction against thinking". But, since that's where we are, let's cite some footnote-free evidence.

Canada's overall population isn't relevant. Instead, look at the enormous, and growing, population concentrated in the Greater Toronto Area, where the fourth-largest city in North America sits at the tip of what might one day be a real-life Mega-City One.

Given the increasing emphasis on planning (and this is a real phrase) vertical communities, the woefully congested roads running above ground level very near residential buildings, and the marked change in many downtown neighbourhoods as high-rise buildings are developed at an alarming rate, there are plenty of parallels. Just recently, there was a public outcry against a change in the colour scheme for Toronto Police Service vehicles, because the dark grey they chose was seen as too sinister.

People were comparing it with Robocop. Honestly.

JOE SOAP

Quote from: Trout on 10 December, 2016, 09:41:47 PM
there was a public outcry against a change in the colour scheme for Toronto Police Service vehicles, because the dark grey they chose was seen as too sinister.

People were comparing it with Robocop. Honestly.

It was always a mistake shooting that film in leafy Vancouver.


Rogue Judge

Regarding our PM, east Canada loves him, and the majority of the west hates him (from Manitoba westwards). His public speaking, for the most part, is atrocious. It will be interesting to watch him and Trump fight, as their views are so different...this might explain why Canada didn't survive the atomic war!  :o

Frank

Quote from: Rogue Judge on 10 December, 2016, 09:58:42 PM
It will be interesting to watch (Trudeau) and Trump fight, as their views are so different...this might explain why Canada didn't survive the atomic war!

Arf! If Trudeau chose to settle their differences with a push-up contest, rather than trading missiles, Trump would get a state funeral and Canada would have to work out what it was going to do with all that new territory.