Monday, August 17, 2026
Here's where my little Humble Bundle read count goes off the rails, since I'm unsure of the exchange rate of British progs to American issues...as from the pages of Judge Dredd, we start with from 2004, the Simping Detective, written by Simon (Si) Spurrier, art by Frazier Irving.
"Simping" has taken, shall we say, a different connotation in recent years; but for 2000 AD/Dredd fans, 'simps' are adherents of the Church of Simpology, who "embrace the absurdity of life in the (Mega-)City by dressing and behaving in an outrageous and ridiculous manner. They're usually nutso. Undercover Judge Jack Point dresses like a clown, but it's camouflage for his work in the Angeltown district, as well as being exceptionally helpful as far as hiding weapons...
While he himself was often drunk and miserable, Jack's stories are stylish, sarcastic fun; even if they were set squarely in Dredd continuity. This does cause him to get dragged back into the plot every so often, doubtless kicking and screaming: he has had stories set after the Day of Chaos event. I read that as well: a rogue Sov agent, seeking revenge for Dredd's retaliation in the Apocalypse War (wherein Dredd destroyed East Meg-One) unleashes a virus on Mega-City One. It's a bloody one, that will remind of a lot of the pandemic, except it's the absolute worst case there, and it was written several years prior to it! Day of Chaos is also a long one: 48 episodes, the longest Dredd story to that time. (The first chapter was in 2000 AD #1743 in 2011; but reading it the other day I would've sworn it was post-COVID.) I think Wagner pulled a trick he's used a few times: a Psi-Division Judge has a premonition of doom, that ultimately doesn't help the Judges the least little bit.
But, while Mega-City One lost 350 million in Day of Chaos, Jack Point and his supporting cast made it out okay! He would go through a couple later plotlines, and I'm not sure he's still simping. Although, that might depend on Spurrier or Irving coming back to him. Anyway, we add like 75 progs to our count here, for whatever that's worth.
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4 comments:
Oh yeah, it’s DEFINITELY got a different meaning compared to back then, though either way he’d be laughed at & ridiculed for wearing what he wore. I’m curious what he’d be called now in the modern era.
There are still Simps- they did a story about them a couple years ago. I’ll say this- 2000 AD sticks to its guns, even if a word takes on new meaning.
Okay- so a prog is the whole issue. Most stories in the prog are 5-6 pages each, so it’s probably 4 progs for one American issue. Megazine stories (which The Simping Detective was) are about 8 pages each, so it’d be about a 3 to 1 ratio for those stories.
So far as I know, Jack’s only appeared in one story after Day of Chaos. It was called Trifecta, and the details about what to read and how are a bit too complicated to get into here. The biggest thing to know about that one is that a lot of the major 2000 AD writers of that era (Spurrier, Al Ewing, Robbie Morrison) left afterwards and have only come back for special issues.
Oh, and Day of Chaos wasn’t the longest Dredd story at the time- it was Tour of Duty. It just got spread out over a bunch of stories in the prog and meg. It’s actually a lot better than Day of Chaos as far as I’m concerned- check it out if you can. Lots of reading though, because it’s basically the culmination of a plotline that’d appeared sporadically for 2 years. Most collections include the relevant stories though so you don’t have to do much if any hunting.
Urg, that sounds like a lotta math! (The other joke I always make, is that I have no idea about British money.) Some wiki might'a steered me wrong, since it's claiming Tour of Duty was second-longest, but I still wanna read that eventually; since I know maybe Dredd realizes it's not fair to prosecute mutants for being born. (And he has mutant relatives, sort of? I know that wouldn't affect Dredd's judgement.)
I'm also looking forward to that reprint project, whatever it was called, with the smaller, cheaper books. Long time to get to here, though!
Oh yeah, the Compact Crimes- that’s just the Case Files but about half as much (price and content) and manga-sized. The only real advantage is it’s more portable. I’d definitely recommend getting the Case Files unless you’re planning on reading it while traveling.
Tour of Duty is actually two or three storylines that directly lead into each other, even though they weren’t published one right after the other. Pretty much everybody agrees you should read them all though. There are two trades (that are out of print but you could probably find them digitally) that cover all the main stories.
And actually, Dredd finding out he had mutie ‘cousins’ was the impetus for this whole thing. That was in the big storyline right before Tour of Duty, Origins. I can’t recommend it as much as Tour of Duty though- it gets a bit dry in places and the relatives thing is the only part that ever came back up.
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