Helter Skelter

[Colin_YNWA]

'Helter Skelter' is my favourite Beatles song. Nowt to do with the strip or my review there of but thought I'd share hey.

Actually go on I'll make a laboured link. The song is such a dramatic exciting ride full of passion. The strip could have been but ended up a little damp. Well that's not fair its was fun and entertaining all the way through. It was clear that Ennis was trying to write a love letter to the early days of 2000ad, yet strangely at the same time his heart didn't quite seem in it. In this 'letter' he express so much more than he managed in the Dredd story

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2009/08/24/garth-ennis-when-2000ad-was-the-future/

I think this is what he was attempted to place in the story and some of the exchanges between Dredd and Kenzie seem to try to explain quite why Dredd is the hard ass he is. To be fair they're pretty good and do a fair job if it the trouble is would Dredd feel the need to make the 'speeches' he does?

That's not the stories biggest problem. For me that lays in the fact that it offers so much yet fairs to quite deliever. Just like Judgement Day the concept is there, all the elements seem to be in place but did doesn't quite come off. The appearance of 'Old One Eye' sums it up best for me. I was so excited to see here in Mega City One, it was a fantastic way to have a brillant romp without having to worry about the consequences. After all who was to say it was the Old One Eye from the dimension Mills wrote about. Perfect. Except she gauges herself and falls asleep. May, kinda, just like Ennis does. He gets all the toys out the box but can't quite decide what to play with and say doesn't really have much fun and before you kow it he's got to out them all back again.

Close but no Stogie.

[TordelBack]

Well summed up, Colin. There's a lot to like in Helter Skelter, but Dredd's lectures are tiresomely out-of-character, none of the villains really get enough to do to justify their presence, and Don Uggie doesn't really cut it in the lineup of inter-dimensional superfiends.  Doesn't help that Carlos' art is as weak as he ever gets, so much so that the Flint episodes shine by comparison. Wasn't he dogged by a catalogue of family disasters during this period?   As you say, it's a nice try but ultimately disappointing.

[Colin_YNWA]

Doesn't help that Carlos' art is as weak as he ever gets, so much so that the Flint episodes shine by comparison.

Actually yeah great point I meant to mention that. Was it this story that his house fell down around his ears or something?

[Jared Katooie]

Yup.

I think he'd just moved in too.

[Jim_Campbell]

I spent the whole of Helter Skelter hoping, desperately, that it wasn't going to be the complete disaster that seemed to be unfolding -- episode after episode of Dredd riding around on his bike and not actually doing anything.

And then there's the moment when Cal (or someone) says something like "We mustn't get distracted from the plan -- we all know the REAL reason we're here."

And I thought: please, please, God, let there be a sub-plot, let there be something more to this ... it can't be that they're all here to get even with Dredd, it just can't be that fatuous.

And, of course, it was. I'm sorry, I know Garth is well thought of, but Helter Skelter was unmitigated shite of the highest order.

Cheers!

Jim

[The Cosh]

It seems to me that Helter Skelter is really just an extended form of that love letter to the comic that Colin linked to. When Kenzie talks about "the worlds they've seen" or whatever it was, I'm sure she even says there's 2000 of them. I can understand why people wouldn't have liked it reading it week on week as that year's mega-epic, but I quite enjoyed it as inconsequential fluff.

On that double page spread of all the twoth characters, were they just cut and pasted or did Carlos draw them all himself.

[Buttonman]

I'm in the 'it's alotta shite' camp but to be fair to Garth he was quoted as saying (in Thrill Power Overload I think) that he only wrote it so he could regain the copyright of a couple of characters from one of his earliar strips that Fleetway held.

In my befuddled mind this and Inferno aren't part of the Dredd cannon. And Crusade, that was pish also.

[The monarch]

Troubled souls was the reason this garbage existed

[Jim_Campbell]

I'm in the 'it's alotta shite' camp but to be fair to Garth he was quoted as saying (in Thrill Power Overload I think) that he only wrote it so he could regain the copyright of a couple of characters from one of his earliar strips that Fleetway held.

Well, here's the thing, though -- Garth has said he doesn't think it's very good, and that he wrote it as part of a deal to get the copyright back on Troubled Souls, and all this is fine. Except that what he's saying now isn't what he was saying then.

Except that I think Andy Diggle recognized that it wasn't very good but when he attempted to edit it, Garth told him he expected the script to be run exactly as he'd submitted it:

"We were already contractually locked into it and Garth isn't big on rewriting. If I so much as changed a comma to a full stop, Garth rang up and asked me to change it back. Literally.

So, sorry, Garth, but saying "Yeah, it's a bit shit" doesn't really hack it.

Cheers

Jim

[radiator]

Except that I think Andy Diggle recognized that it wasn't very good but when he attempted to edit it, Garth told him he expected the script to be run exactly as he'd submitted it:

"We were already contractually locked into it and Garth isn't big on rewriting. If I so much as changed a comma to a full stop, Garth rang up and asked me to change it back. Literally.

Hm. Had no idea it caused such a fuss when it first appeared, but then I didn't really know what an internet was back then, so had never been on the old newsgroup.

I enjoyed HS until Cal showed up, and I thought it was regrettable the way it just descended into a big fight at the end - I found the treatment of Rico to be a little disrespectful, tbh - it cheapened him a bit, and I think that character should be out of bounds to all but Wagner.

Ultimately I thought it was OK - readable, but nothing special. It's too one dimensional and lightweight, and seems very silly and anachronistic compared to most Dredd material from the last 15 years. Certainly not as bad as anything Millar, Morrison or 'Sonny Steelgrave' did with Dredd, and Ennis is always welcome on back, AFAIC - if he could dial back on the action a bit and do something more character-based, I'm sure he could write an excellent Dredd epic.

[Buttonman]

I found the treatment of Rico to be a little disrespectful, tbh - it cheapened him a bit, and I think that character should be out of bounds to all but Wagner.

Or Pat Mills.

Had a quick trawl for 'return of rico' on that Google thing and the first non-taco restaurant is for this colour retake of the classic tale - any takers?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JUDGE-DREDD-The-Return-of-Rico-Orig-Colour-Comic-Art_W0QQitemZ200403036842QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_3?hash=item2ea8f3aaaa

[Colin_YNWA]

[if he could dial back on the action a bit and do something more character-based, I'm sure he could write an excellent Dredd epic.

I'd love Ennis to have another crack at Dredd. Hopefully with a little more commitment this time. I enjoyed his early Dredd stuff, while it is often seen as too referencial it showed he could do the character. If he wanted to, and I guess that's the key, he could defo turn in a great Dredd story.

[Pete Wells]

Can someone (Jim?) explain the 'That would be an ecumenical matter' thing to me please? I've heard it bandied about a fair bit on this board and always wondered what it was referring to.

[Jim_Campbell]

Can someone (Jim?) explain the 'That would be an ecumenical matter' thing to me please? I've heard it bandied about a fair bit on this board and always wondered what it was referring to.

It's a reference to Father Ted, in which Ted attempts to teach Jack how to behave in the company of some Bishops visiting Craggy Island. He manages to teach him two responses to replace the usual "Drink!" "Girls!" and "Feck!" ... these being "Yes!" and "That would be an ecumenical matter!"

This quickly became the standard response to any question to which you didn't wish to give a useful or definitive answer!

(However, it also took on similar connotations to Francis Urquhart's "You might think that, but I couldn't possibly comment" from House of Cards.)

Cheers!

Jim

[Pete Wells]

Aaaaah, cheers Jim.