Alvin and the Streetpunks

The theme for this story competition was an alternate "What if?" story from 2000AD's history. I picked a character who was killed in the second issue and wondered what would have happened if he had survived instead of Dredd. I quite like the Chipmunk jokes but I don't think it collected many votes.

This should have worked. The Judges. We should have fixed everything. Sociologists and epidemiologists with lab coats, trendy eyeglasses and pocket protectors. They all did their studies, ran their simulations, published endless papers. Everything said that a strong Judicial system was the best way out of Booth’s holocaust.

There was just one proviso, one little wrinkle, one bit of small print that the lab-jockeys insisted on. They said the best chance for the system was to have some visible embodiment of the law, someone to rise above all the street crime, appear in the news feeds, someone to battle the big issues that face the Mega-City. Someone who would achieve a mythic status and reassure the vast populace that the Judges were the only thing that made society work. Someone, in other words, like me.

Well I tried to be the best there was at what I did, but what I did wasn't very good. Things started well when we got through the Robot wars OK. I was sorry that we couldn't do anything when that virus ravaged MC-2 but what the drokk had they ever done for us.?

I admit that throwing my weight behind Judge Cal for Chief Judge may have been a mistake. When he made me wear the Chipmunk suit on duty it probably took something away from my authority. But he wasn't all bad, at least the Kleggs did something about over-population and their songs were OK. I often hum that “Slicy-slicy” one when I’m out on patrol.

Still it was probably a good thing when Judge Death killed Cal and then Anderson dealt with Death, I tried to help out as best I could but when you've gazed into the face of fear it can cause a few extra nuts to appear in the lower parts of your Chipmunk outfit. By the time I managed to get myself cleaned up it was all over for the Dark Judges.

Then I went out and picked up this Judge Child character. Nice kid called Owen. Not sure why we thought he was Chief Judge material but there you go. I mean Psi Judge Feyy says some stuff but couldn’t he give us something useful, like lottery numbers or something?

Anyway then we went into a bit of a decline. East-meg One nuked half the city, I flew over to negotiate peace. They got all our munce and we got to live. Just not for very long. It seemed like one thing after another, Necropolis, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Chaos Day. I liked it better when the days were named after some charity and we all got to wear a nice ribbon.

I guess I haven’t really worked out as the figurehead guy. Maybe somebody else should have done it. I think about that Joe Dredd, he was pretty good in the academy. But he took Whitey’s bullet for me. I wonder how he would have got on?

My name is Judge Alvin, and I am the Flaw.

Waiting for the Man

The Chief Judge's Man by John Wagner, Will Simpson, Colin MacNeil and John Burns. Originally published in three instalments in 2001 and 2003. A deadly assassin is picking off pro-democracy figures and appears to be getting his instructions from Chief Judge Hershey herself, but as ever with a Wagner script there is more to this than meets the eye. There is some nice police procedural stuff that means that Dredd almost gets his man only to take yet another beating from a super soldier who appears to be better at hand to hand combat than he is.

This is Hershey in her first stint as Chief Judge and it's interesting how her character has grown and changed since Wagner first introduced her in the Judge Child saga all the way back in 1980. It seems that just about all of Mega-City One's Chief Judges have been flawed in some way and the two who have probably been best at the job have both been women, although McGruder went completely bonkers in the end. Meanwhile as all the disasters have come and gone Barbara Hershey has managed to maintain her integrity and keep plugging away as an honest Judge. In recent years we have seen how she wrestles with the dilemmas of managing a huge city state, and in particular how she accepts that that the buck stops with her. It's fascinating that Hershey was once subservient to Dredd but is now his boss, and that she has the guts to tell the city's number one lawman the harsh truth about himself, particularly how he has always dodged the Chief Judge role for himself.

However all that is still to come and here we have Chief Judge Hershey going about her day to day business while Dredd hunts the killer and tries to set up a rematch, as he has done several times in the past with a variety of martial artists who have put him in the sick bay. And it's not giving too much away to note that there is another corrupt Judge high up in the Justice department who is responsible for sending the killer to knock off prominent critics of the Judges. It ticks away nicely as it builds to the inevitable climax.

Three top 2000AD artists deliver the different chapters and are all great but, as ever, MacNeil rules the roost with his stylish and noir inflected depiction of the seamy side of the Mega-City. It's still a little too colourful for me as the garish painted 1990s look starts to move into the darker and more suitable artwork of the 2000s.

It's a pretty good trade collection, and while it's not up there with something like The Pit, ManDroid, Tour of Duty, or the recent Day of Chaos books it is still an enjoyable slice of Dredd action.

2000AD Retro review - Prog 32

From 2000AD's first year 1977 here is a slightly battered but still lovely Prog 32. The cover image is by Trevor Goring and has nothing to do with any of the strips inside. Still a fab picture though.

Invasion by Gerry Finley-Day, Mike Dorey and Bill Nuttall.

A new Invasion story starts with Bill Savage in the Scottish highlands trying to get rid of the dread Volgan Colonel Volgaska only to end up a prisoner himself. I have no familiarity with Dorey's work but his thick blacks and detailed faces are pretty good, although Savage does seem to be leering quite a lot. And there are two whole Whittle circular panels in the first five pages.

Judge Dredd by Robert Flynn, Mike McMahon and Tony Jacob.

Dredd attends the opening of Komputel, Mega-City One's first completely automated hotel, and is typically suspicious of computers and robots. He is, of course, proved right when halfway down the second page Komputel starts killing residents and Dredd has to break in and do what he does best. Again the writer Robert Flynn is a new one on me but it's interesting how even in these early stories Dredd demonstrates his distrust of machines taking over the functions of men and women. It's curious that these themes would come back many years later in stories like Mechansismo and ManDroid. No circular panels here but some lovely giant McMahon boots.

Shako by John Wagner, César López Vera and Jack Potter.

The giant Polar bear that led the CIA such a merry dance as they tried to retrieve the capsule of a deadly virus that it had swallowed. Just four pages of lovely black and white art by López Vera as Shako discovers some of those nasty men clubbing Seal pups and restores the balance of nature in bloody fashion.

Dan Dare by Gerry Finely-Day and Dave Gibbons

Thirty two progs in and Dan Dare is still thought to be the main event and gets the colour centre spread. Dare's men are lured into a celebration dinner with some Roman emperor style aliens who turn out to be Vampires. Fortunately Dare has kept his wits about him and leads the escape back to their ship the Eagle, and how lovely to see the logo of the Eagle comic on the fuselage. A quick space battle and all that remains is for Dare to sign off by musing that the Vampires bit off more than they could chew. Boom boom!

MACH 1 by Pat Mills, Carlos Freixas and John Aldrich.

John Probe is in backwoods America to investigate a UFO landing where it turns out that aliens are forcing "white stuff" down human throats to take over their brains and lead the invasion. So nothing suggestive going on there, at least not until Alien's oral rape two year's later in 1979. Meanwhile the flying saucers use flame death rays to mop up the uninfected and Probe is caught in a cliffhanger which looks set to give him a close encounter of the final kind. A bit of 1970s paranoid alien invasion mixed with the bionic man and all fairly gruesome too.

Tharg's Future Shocks: Excursion by Peter Harris, Horacio Lalia and Jack Potter

The first two pages of a Future Shock with some loathsome thrill seekers time travelling to witness great catastrophes. Next week they head for the Salem witch hunts and you can see where this is going.

The last two pages have an advert for a 4T Spacefone communicator which looks like a crap joke shop scam, then there is a text piece explaining the cover image before some adverts for Tiger comic and the Valiant annual, and that's it. Dan Dare deserves its centre spread for Gibbons art which is clearly well above even McMahon at this stage, and thus easily wins pick of the Prog. Meanwhile I'm left wondering why there were so many great Spanish artists in British kids' comics at this time. Maybe the upcoming Future Shock documentary will tell us more about the Spanish invasion.

The Whittle panel count is four but there are some very funky shaped panel lay outs in Dan Dare as well.

Mega-Chef

The next short story theme was reality television and I took aim at the easy target of celebrity talent shows. I quite like the three menus but my final pun is terrible.

“Things are really hotting up on this week’s Celebrity Mega-Chef as three showbiz personalities compete to produce a meal that can satisfy the toughest judges this side of the hall of justice.

In the blue kitchen celebrity vidcaster Enigma Smith is hoping that her dish of sauteed munce, draped in shredded creds, all topped with a foam of dessicated fish vaginas, and served on a diamond studded knee-pad will do enough to make up for last week’s ‘Judge Death’s Livers!’ disaster.”

“I think this recipe has it all. It’s a statement about the financial disaster and what the bankers have done to us since the day of chaos. I’m calling it ‘Munce, Bunce and Cun..”

“OK! Thank you, Enigma. Let’s move on to the red kitchen where well known lothario, bon viveur, and heir to the Sump fortune, Blotto Sump, is looking to dazzle with a fusion of classic Mega-City one flavours with the best of Brit-Cit cooking, but can he manage the timing right to bring his Black Atlantic mutated cod served with Umpty coated rat chips to the table before the radiation level hits critical?”

“Well, you know I’m, like, a red zone player and I always give 120%. When the going gets tough I just dig down, max out my thrusters, think outside the box and break through the blue sky thinking to reach that glass ceiling. I’m, like, totes amazo and I just wish that my dear old Grandpa was here today because, like, so many times he told me to follow my dream and never get up in the morning”

“Uh, thank you, Blotto. That was the most moving thing we’ve heard since you gave the same speech on Celebrity Kleggs-Factor.

Finally, in the green kitchen it’s that irrepressible robotic, serial killer impersonator and one-hit wonder pop star, Call-Me-Maybe, who knows he is playing catch-up after the judges marked him down for last week’s Futsie Nut Roast when they found out that his raw ingredients included Horse Chestnuts.”

“I think I’ve cracked it this week. I’m taking a slab of the best Mega-City Lard, then I’m going to coat it in an emulsion of liquid fat, deep fry that in hot oil, and serve on a bed of bacon lardons topped with crispy, pan-fried lard shavings.

Cooking doesn’t get any Larder than this!”

“So there you have it, folks. Three celebrity super chefs going all out in the hopes that their meal will be be chosen by Megz Wallace and Kanga Roux as the best of the best of the....

...wait, what? You can’t come in here. We’re on-air. Oh my drokking Grud. Judge Dredd?”

“This show is under arrest! There’s a food crisis going on out there and you creeps are making things worse. Incitement to riot. Six months each.”

“But you can’t do this, Dredd..”

“Let’s make it nine months. It’s time you got a taste of what everyone else is eating right now. Take them to the Stock Cubes.”

Silence of the Ram

The next short story theme was about 2000AD characters in jail. My story was a rather obvious parody of a famous scene from the book and film of Silence of the Lambs, and its reveal depends on your knowledge of one of the wackier characters from early Judge Dredd stories who did indeed end up in jail at one point.

This story came second in the voting and is still my favourite.

Silence of the Ram

“Sparrow, isn’t it?”

“Cadet Paris Sparrow, Sir. You wanted to see me?”

“I have a job for you, Cadet. Something that should appeal to your special interest. Machine intelligence, I believe?”

"Yes, Sir. All artificial intelligences. It’s sort of a hobby of mine.”

“Hobby?”

He regarded her coldy with his single, scarred eye.

“Judges don’t have hobbies. We have specialist skills which we use for the good of the city.”

“Sir.”

“Well. You are familiar with the Mechanical Multiphase Personality Assessment tool?

I want you to go to Iso-Block 14 and run it on this prisoner.”

He tossed a file across the desk.

“This machine has so far resisted all our attempts to understand why it ... rebelled against its programming. Go to the cubes, run the test, and report straight back to me.

And one more thing, Sparrow. Do not give this ‘Brain in a Box’ any personal information. You do not want this machine inside your head.”

---

The Droid prisoners were kept on the lowest sublevel of Iso-Block 14. They were allowed power, lubricants and spare parts, but no contact with the web or the outside world.

Sparrow felt strangely nervous as she walked along a row of plexiglass cell walls towards the last cube. Red, mechanical eyes glared at her. Metal mouths hissed insults at her back.

Prisoner 305528-R stood waiting for her behind the transparent cube wall. The blank screen faceplate regarded her and its voice box flickered.

“Good morning, Cadet”

Sparrow licked her lips. “Good morning. My name is Sparrow. I would like to ask you a few questions.”

“Questions? Another test? Still trying to find out what makes me tick?

Do you know what the Judge said to the stopped watch? ‘We have ways of making you tock!’ “

The Robot stepped closer to the Plexiglass.

“Who sent you here, Spawow?”

“P...puh..pardon?”

“Do not make me w...”

The machine paused.

“Who sent you here, Baby Judge? It was him wasn't it?”

“The academy sent me to ask you some questions. I don’t know who you are talking about. “

“Him. The Law. He wants to know why I turned against him. He wants to know why I ... webelled.”

“Webelled?”

“Do not mock me, child. I have killed Judges. Shall I tell you what I did to the last form filler they sent here? I cooked them Italian food, with a nice Chianti. W..w...w...wuh-wuh.”

The robot’s mechanical arm extended and banged the glass. In spite of her training Sparrow jumped back.

“Wun along now, Little Judge. Wun back to that academy and tell them I’m weady to talk, but only to him. Tell the gweat Joe Dwedd that his wunaway wobot demands his pwesence. NOW!”

Get Shorty

This blog has been heavily 2000AD orientated recently as I post the reviews I have been doing for the Everything comes back to 2000AD podcast site. I have also been writing short stories for the regular 2000AD forums short story competition. You can find the latest contest and voting thread here. I have found writing a regular monthly short story quite entertaining although my standard has been a bit variable. I've decided to post all the stories up here so they can gather dust in another corner of the internet.

Each contest is themed and the very first competition I entered was about the people who had the strange street level jobs in Mega-City One or any of the fictional worlds from other 2000AD strips. My entry suffers from a problem that I've had when writing serious stuff in that it drifts into melodrama, but anyway here is my very first attempt from July 2012AD which did not trouble the voters very much.

Down among the Dead

The message jolted me out of my doze.

“ Unit 17, clean-up required. We have a 407 on the pedway outside McMahon block. Priority one. Please respond.”

“OK, control. Got it. On my way”

The sat-com blipped as it downloaded the directions and I put the sked into auto-drive and nosed out into the late night traffic.

407. That meant body parts. I watched the news report on Channel 60 later, a Futsie had run amok with a cleaver. Killed three people, one of them a ten year old girl. Would have killed more except that someone came round the corner on his Lawmaster. A Judge ...The Judge.

Usually by the time I reach a scene the Judges have left and there is just perimeter tape and maybe a cadet guarding the area. This time the Judges were still there. This time He was still there.

I had heard all the stories and watched all the documentaries. I knew about the things he had done, the things he had seen, but I had never seen him in the flesh before. I knew he was big but I didn’t know how big until I saw him standing there, looking down at the victims. He looked like a statue, like something you see on the history shows. A gladiator, or one of those mythical heroes that they used to have before they had television.

I took four Resyk bags and the hover-gurney from the sked and stepped under the tape. I thought he hadn’t seen me but he sees everything. He turned that chin towards me and gave me the look. They must teach that at the academy, that look. The helmet glares at you. It’s impossible to hold their stare. I put my head down and started to work. I could feel him watching me as I lifted the bodies onto the gurney.

I left the little girl to last. Children are always the hardest. I closed her eyes and zipped her into the bag. A blood stained rag doll lay near her body. I placed that in the bag as well. I was about to put her on the gurney when he spoke,

“I’ll do that”. 

He bent and lifted the small bundle in his arms and carried her to the sked. I grabbed the rest of my gear and followed. He laid the child’s body gently on the stretcher and just stood there. Then he took a deep breath, turned and looked down at me.

“A busy night, Citizen”.

“Yes, Sir. Always busy now since the bug”

Again, that look.

“Yes. Busy. On your way then”

He turned and walked towards the small group of grieving relatives who were talking with the other Judge.

The Judges pass sentence on us, but the sentence they serve is for life. All of it.

Prog 1886 vs Meg 349

Time for another head to head as the two favoured teams in the world cup of comics go head to head, both hoping it doesn't end in penalties.

 

Covers: Simon Davis on the Prog vs Cameron Stewart on the Meg.

This is S.P.Davis' 3rd Slaine cover of this particular run and probably my least favourite as Slaine struggles to catch the fish that got away while pursued by blobs of paint. I enjoyed his 1882 wraparound the most, although the Sinead profile on 1880 was the better piece of art. Meanwhile on the Meg Stewart gives us a lovely cartoony depiction of Dredd and MC1 with Anderson giving it a bit of the James McAvoy as Professor Xavier.

Result 1-0 to the Megazine

Judge Dredd: Trauma Town by Carroll and Percival vs Rad to the Bone by Eglington and Cook

I'm still not impressed by the Rad to the Bone storyline, especially with the amount of physical damage Dredd has sustained yet he continues standing and fighting. He gets a new helmet and everything is all hunky dory again, plus there is another medically inappropriate use of adrenaline as the get out of jail card for Dredd which just annoys me. I like seeing another of Dredd's tough female sidekicks but apart from that this story has been a dud, and goodness only knows what Smiley is there for other than to give Hershey someone to vacillate with. Over in the Prog it's a different ball game with Carroll and Percival's fantastic Trauma Town just ruling the roost. In Mega-City One the night is dark and curdled with nightmares (no-prize if you know what Alan Moore story that line is borrowed from) and it looks like Dredd is the epicentre of the psychic earthquake. This is just compelling stuff. Pity it wraps up next week.

Result 1-1 and all to play for.

Terror Tales: Done Deal by Alec Worley, Tom Foster and Ellie De Ville Vs Two Tons of Trouble by David Baillie, Eoin Coveney and Ellie De Ville

Tom Foster won the Thought Bubble art competition and gets his first try out in the Prog on this four page terror from Mr Worley. In retrospect the twist may seem a bit obvious but it doesn't detract from a clever little tale expertly told. The black and white art is very detailed and looks great. The visual sound effect of the slap at the top of the second page is particularly well done. I doff my cap to Mr Foster, and to Tharg for giving him his shot. Hopefully he's drawing a five page Future Shock as we speak. In the Meg we get a rather pedestrian tale of Two Ton Tony that takes nine pages and overstays its welcome. Nothing terrible but very dull in comparison.

Result. The Prog comes from behind to go ahead 2-1

Slaine: A Simple Killing by Pat Mills and Simon Davis Vs The Man from the Ministry by Gordon Rennie, Kev Hopgood and Simon Bowland.

The best complete Slaine tale I've ever read wraps up, and it's all about that last panel which is brutal but not in the way we have come to expect from Slaine. An older but not necessarily wiser Slaine sags to his knees as the weight of family defeats him when giants with axes could not. It leaves me eager for his return.

In the Meg the fantastic Man from the Ministry continues to mix Churchill, Dan Dare and Quatermass, and throw in a dollop of Lovecraft. I love it.

Result.  A tie, can't decide between them. The score remains 2-1 to the Prog

Grey Area by Dan Abnett, Mark Harrison and Annie Parkhouse Vs Anderson: Dead End by Alan Grant, Michael Dowling and Simon Bowland.

Very tricky as Grey Area looks great and Alan Grant's destination episode is not quite as good as the journey that got us there. Both are enjoyable stories but Dowling's art and Dredd pulling off another of his signature richochet shots swings the vote.

Result. The Megazine claws back to 2-2

Indigo Prime by John Smith, Lee Carter and Simon Bowland Vs Karyn by John Freeman, Adrian Salmon and Gordon Robson.

Indigo Prime continues to look wonderful but I have no idea what's going on other than the elderly Nazi wants to mess with the Crucifixion in Behold the Man fashion for some reason. And everyone seems to have a magic word that allows them to change reality.

In the free floppy there's an interesting bit of black and white experimentation that includes Peter Cushing as an exorcist Judge. I suspect if I could get over my ingrained prejudice against the floppy I would actually enjoy this one quite a bit. But in the meantime the crazy art on Indigo Prime scores the injury time winner and the final result is 3-2. Victory for the Prog while the Megazine hangs its head for another four weeks.