You wouldn’t think a new comic by John Wagner & Alan Grant, the duo who wrote Judge Dredd, Strontium Dog and almost every other British comic strip you enjoyed in the eighties, would be a hard sell.
Yet with the Kickstarter to fund the second original graphic novel of Rok the Arkadian’s adventures closing on Thursday (31st October), the big red alien’s currently falling just short of the target Wagner, Grant & artist Dan Cornwell set themselves.
There’s only one reason for that – FOOTBALL! What should be the book’s strongest selling point turns out to be a handicap when persuading the core nerd constituency who back Kickstarter projects that Rok’s for them.
That perception problem persuaded the Kim Kardashian of 2000ad fandom, John Burdis – a social media influencer with a big arse – to produce a video explaining that Rok is a story about an alien, rather than a story about football:
Readers who overcame their memories of being picked last at PE and took the plunge into the first series were delighted to find Rok has more in common with Wagner & Grant’s Doomlord work for Eagle than Roy Of The Rovers.
The preview comic Wagner & Grant released of Book 2 (available here) shows this story in particular has more in common with something like Thor, with Rok reluctantly returning to his homeworld only to learn his queen is abdicating, putting him in the firing line of the various rivals to succeed her and take the throne.
Go support this great Kickstarter here…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wagnerrok/rok-the-god
Everything Comes Back To 2000AD 
The concept or storyline for series 2 can’t be that great otherwise BHP Comics would have published the sequel. Their website is still promoting the first series!
Speaking of not so great – the current Dredd story Guatemala has hardly any Dredd action in it. In fact, *none at all*. Dredd turned up, saw some resistance members shoot at the robots, he visits them in the waterfall base and returns to the city. No conflict or suspense. Compare this ‘nuclear threat/crazy villain’ story with Pirates of the Black Atlantic. That strip had full on action. Absolute classic.
Guatemala has zero suspense. It’s just people talking all the time (or rather people and robots talking all the time!). Part 6 is all dialogue, nothing suspenseful or dramatic happens. I fear Wagner has lost his mojo for writing suspenseful stories. Lots of dialogue alone can’t create suspense. You need a decent plot. For example, Beeny being captured by the robots and used as a bargaining chip would more suspenseful than a subplot about Hershey’s kids that we’ve never heard of before. Anyway, let’s hope the end has a little more drama.
Guatemala might the only Dredd story in history where Dredd has done nothing. Literally nothing. He chatted to crazy robot President and said “we’ll think about dropping the sanctions.” He’s done nothing else. Nothing. And Beeny is just walking around looking for Hershey’s kids. I thought Judges weren’t supposed to have children. When did Hershey have the time to get pregnant? Wouldn’t that be kind of obvious. She was a street Judge for decades. Don’t you think someone might have noticed she was… er… pregnant?
And since when do crazy despotic robots find it impossible to walk through doors? And why did the Mechanismo tell Beeny to not go into a house which clearly looked empty? She’s a street judge with 15 years or so in the academy. You think she’s scared of a near empty building?! “Oooh, I can’t go in there, the windows might attack me.” 😛
And to make things even worse – John Connor is dead!
I do think the story is well written in terms of dialogue and mood, Mr Wagner is a master at all that stuff, but I did think the scene with the robot referring to the building: “we’re too big to enter” (or words like that) was a bit silly. The greatest threat to crazy robots isn’t Judges and their nuclear arsenal….
It’s narrow door frames.
Unless Hershey’s pregnancy is explained in.a clear way I can’t see this story making any sense. If Mr Wagner doesn’t explain how she had a daughter it wil feel too contrived. Also, I feel ‘Hershey with a daughter’ spoils the character. We thought Hershey was a loyal, upstanding Judge but she was having sex and produced a child? And no-one knew or cared? No reprimand? How did she pull that off!