New Poll: Should "Father Figure", Paul Glasswells pitchfest winning Dredd story, see print?

[2000AD Online]

Should "Father Figure", Paul Glasswells pitchfest winning Dredd story, see print?

Link: Click to vote

[Art]

For those not present it went roughly like this:

JUDGE DREDD: SINS OF THE FATHER

Dredd is finishing a hard day's patrol and calls control to book himself into a sleep machine. Control tells him he has bigger fish to fry - he has been named in a paternity suit.

DREDD: I get about a dozen a week. What's so special about this?

CONTROL: This time we've got a DNA match. Congratulations Dredd, you're a daddy.

Back at the Grand Hall, tests have conclusively proved that Dredd is the father of this child - it's not Dolman, Rico or one of the other clones and it is a Dredd baby rather than a clone. Worse - another
three paternity suits arrive.

A grinning Hershey sends him off to investigate; "And be careful what you do with that daystick"

Dredd interviews the manager of the Fertility Clinic where all of the babies were conceived. Dredd doesn't like the idea of Fertility clinics in his overcrowded city but the manager of the clinic disagrees. "Come on Judge - some people really want to have a family even if you don't!"

As it turns out, the sperm donor for these cases was anonymous and can't be traced. "We have a lot of homeless and hard-up people give us samples in exchange for a square meal."

Dredd spots something on the office wall as he leaves. "If I find any evidence of impropriety, you'll be eating cube meals".

Back at the Grand Hall, Dredd heads down to the sleep machines. Just as he is about to climb in, he spots a cleaner.

DREDD: "You! Halt. You're under arrest!"

The cleaner doesn't run but squares up to Dredd "I seen what you're really like Dredd. You take your "U"s off one leg at a time like everyone else".

Dredd batters him about the head with his daystick and a lot of test tubes and pipettes fall from the cleaner's coat. (a watching Judge comments: "He's got a lot of spunk!")

The Cleaner is the brother-in-law of the bloke that runs the fertility clinic. Dredd recognised him from a family photo on the office wall. The cleaner has been collecting "samples" from the sleep machines where the Judges get through a whole night's sleep in fifteen minutes. Judges are, after all, human and some of them ejaculate in their sleep, including Dredd.

As the cleaner is dragged away he shouts; "A lot a rich women pay to have a Judge as the daddy of their child. I got a lotta samples but yours always seemed to win the sac race, Dredd. You got another twenty three children"

DREDD: Bring in his brother-in-law. Fifteen years.
DREDD: And reduce the power in the dream stimulators - should stop
the problem happening again.
GIANT: And cut down on cleaning bills.

This only leaves one problem. What do we do with all of the baby Dredds?

HERSHEY: Termination is still an option. Or the Catholic Lost
Children's Sanctuary in Pat Mills block takes special cases like this.

DREDD: Don't be ridiculous. I am the children's father. There's only one place for them to be brought up.

And all twenty three children are duly inducted into The Acadamey of Law. The final picture is of Dredd laying a small baby (complete with Judge's romper suit) down in a Justice Department cot.

HERSHEY: You know, I think he's got his daddy's chin...

oO The End Oo

[Trout]

John Wagner's comments on it went something like this:

"Nobody is fucking milking Judge Dredd's sperm!"

Hurr, hurr, hurr.

- Trout

[Wils]

"Nobody is fucking milking Judge Dredd's sperm!"

That's the slogan for next year's Shedcon t-shirts sorted. ;)

[Trout]

That comment should not suggest the story can't be used somewhere.

If nothing else, it demonstrates very well indeed that Mr Tips can tell a damn good tale.

- Trout

[Art]

I still maintain it could, and would, work, though it would have to be played relatively straight in order to work, with most of the gags being deadpanned.

Would the story work as a generic tale without Judge Dredd? Maybe, but it'd lose a lot of it's point.

[Trout]

My feeling - which Paul disagreed with - was that it wouldn't need to be Dredd being "milked".
He could be investigating the same crime being perpetrated on others.

Frankly, if the "Dreddverse" can have organ leggers, then why not sperm thieves?

- Trout

[Art]

If it can contain  "The Blood of Satanus II" and "Helter Skelter" and that Crystal Skull one without losing it's credibility and integrity I'm pretty certain it can contain almost anything...

[Trout]

"If it can contain "The Blood of Satanus II" and "Helter Skelter" and that Crystal Skull one without losing it's credibility and integrity"

Hmmm. But did it? :-)

- Trout

[Art]

(flicks through the last few Issues of "Total War")

Yes!

[Art]

(Please use this poll and thread rather than the other one, which seems to have was created by accident and doesn't work properly, like a freakish malformed genetic twin)

[Oddboy]

Recently re-read the Megazine story "The Girlfriend" - I don't think Tips' story is *too* far for the Megazine, but probably shouldn't get printed in 2000AD.

[Buddy]

Didn't it end with something like:-

'the nurse asks Dredd if he want's to hold the baby'

Dredd replies 'Hold him, what's the charge?'

A genus of a punchline, even faced with the prospect of fatherhood Dredds mind is still in LAW mode. Just great.

I think this could be re-written (toned down a bit) and could easily make it into the megazine. Someone in the pub afterwards asid ther the Meg published the Heavy Metal Dredds, so why not this?

[Dudley]

I assume everyone ticking the co-writer/editorial box actually means "yes, it's just need to be toned down a bit"?

[Proudhuff]

great story , should be in the Meg, I suggest the cleaner looks a lot like a certain Irish C4 late night presenter... just for added frision


Huffty