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Messages - Muon

#1
Prog / Re: Prog 2178: Not all heroes are apes
22 April, 2020, 05:17:23 PM
Kenneth Niemand's stories take me back to when I first started reading Dredd and the world of Mega-city One seemed huge and heaving with possibilities. There's something in the way whoever it is revels in the world of the city that makes the stories a joy to read. It also makes me think it's a long-time fan. I reckon it's Frank from this forum.
#2
Prog / Re: Prog 2083 - Fame in the fifth dimension
02 June, 2018, 04:37:38 AM
Fun prog by the way. It's in "solid and dependable" mode at the moment.
#3
Prog / Re: Prog 2083 - Fame in the fifth dimension
02 June, 2018, 04:36:13 AM
Quote from: Frank on 01 June, 2018, 09:30:02 PM
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 26 May, 2018, 02:43:07 PM
Silent bob

You mean Jay*, and it's not Jay!




* Time travel, see. I accept I'm the only person still interested in playing Where's Wally.

Yeah, I spent ages looking for Kevin Smith dressed in a long coat. Seemed likely as a possibility as I've heard there's been a trend at US cons for a while for the more portly guys to rock a beard and a long coat or hockey jersey and either say they're Silent Bob or get all meta and say they're going as Smith himself. So then I thought the blondie might be Jay/Jason Mewes. But this makes far more sense and fits in with the time travel theme.
#4
Prog / Re: Prog 2075 - In the Field of Battle
08 April, 2018, 12:06:12 PM
I'm enjoying everything in the prog at the moment after a while of only really looking forward to Brass Sun and Savage every week.

The mention of the "Astral Union" in Strontium Dog this week cracked me up. It struck me as classic 2000 AD satire in that it acknowledges the ridiculousness of the current times, then takes a step back and leaves the reader to respond in whatever way he wishes. I'm enjoying Carlos's art, too. I can tell he still loves the story and the characters.
#5
Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
18 December, 2017, 10:31:54 AM
It is true that the First Order seemed pretty incompetent in this film. The rebels were pretty shite at their jobs as well.

At the same time, it's easy to forget how ridiculous some of the stuff in the first movies was. I accepted it as a kid, but I remember my dad laughing his ass off at some of it or just getting bored and going out of the room to get a cup of tea.

Just off the top of my head, there's the cream of the Empire's troops failing to find a load of people hiding under some floorboards on the Millenium Falcon. Then there's the Falcon escaping with a load of space trash in the second movie. Then of course there's the Storm Troopers getting bested by some cute bears in ROTJ...
#6
Film & TV / Re: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
16 December, 2017, 04:42:58 AM
Definitely didn't hate it but weirdly unsure if I liked it either. The flashes of Pythonesque/knowing humour were really jarring for me. Also, the tone was different to the Star Wars I grew up with. They seemed to be trying to frame the nature of the struggle in a more complex way than in the past, but at the same time they kept a lot of the characters mysterious and offered few insights into them. That was clearly on purpose, but it made it less satisfying for me.

Having said all that, it's possible my objections as a baldie who was born around the time the first one came out will actually be seen as this film's strengths in future years. This is the point at which this new series of films has broken away from the past and found its new voice. It's reframing the struggle between good and evil and giving it a bit more complexity that's more fitting for the world we're in now. Also it's asking more questions of how the rebellion can be sustained. These things are still jarring for me, but I can accept the need to move away from the fan service of old and establish a new tone for the whole thing.
#7
Prog / Re: Prog 2060 - Fighting Torc!
08 December, 2017, 03:53:51 PM
I'm really looking forward to the Christmas prog.
#8
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 07 December, 2017, 09:49:04 PM
Quote from: Muon on 06 December, 2017, 02:38:23 PM
...or is it more a case of a changing of the old guard challenging people's ideas about the kind of comic 2000 AD should be.

I still think this. Its still really good stuff, just there's been a real shift over the last couple of years. Neither better nor worse persay but clearly a difference.

I was pondering whether the belief that the first 500 are the golden age is based on how broad your comic reading is? If someone was 2000ad focused I could see why the shift would be jarring and the difference wouldn't work for you. If your comic reading was from a broader church this shift was happening around you so 2000ad change more sense????

That could well be poppycock but it occured to me. Nor view would be wrong but might influence the person tastes and reflection people have of this period. For me 1986-1988 really started to see me shift as a comics reader so what was happening in 2000ad just seemed to reflect my 'world' view.

And Crisis was the next logical step too! But thats for a different threadt (one I'm not starting I should say to the relief of you all!)

Yeah, I guess it's inevitable that squaxx's views on what 2000 AD (and I guess by extension, comics as a whole will be shaped by the period in which they really get into the prog. The post-Watchmen world of comics, about the time I graduated from cheeky chappie comics, was an eclectic time looking back, and that was reflected in the prog. At the same time I guess, things could get pretty pretentious and random at the expense of storytelling. I'm a product of that time and I think it's influenced my taste in comics, for better and for worse.

I eagerly await your Crisis re-read thread! In fact, I'm tempted to do a Revolver one.
#9
So Colin... You're over a year's worth of progs past 520... Would you give any credence at all to the idea that some kind of gradual dip in quality started then, or is it more a case of a changing of the old guard challenging people's ideas about the kind of comic 2000 AD should be.
#10
Quote from: AlexF on 16 October, 2017, 03:58:38 PM
I agree on finding Hicklenton's work on Nemesis Book IX hard to follow, especially in terms of which character was which, but to be honest this is overwhelemed by the tone of his work. His versions of both Torquemadas in Book VII are just so magnificently grotesque that it shines through any clutter or sloppiness with storytelling. As pointed out his version of Nemesis's neck is a thing to behold in itself. I don't how much it was his choice as editor, but I do applaud Burton for getting the likes of Hicklenton and Harrison in to shake things up.

There's no getting around it - the shift in artists played a major part in making 1988 something of a transition year for the Prog. Really curious to see how Colin assesses the year by the time he gets to the end!

Completely agree with this. I wasn't always sure what was going on in Hicklenton's Nemesis strips, but they always had a brutal, gory fascination to them that had me hooked. It was like he'd genuinely tapped into an alternate universe where everything was even more grimy than the one we had here and where weirdly contorted creatures punched the shit out of each other and sprayed black, oily blood all over the place. I remember going through a spell during Nemesis Book 9 when I thought of Hicklenton as my "favourite" artist. I also remember liking Simon Harrison's art on Strontion Dog. Not sure what I'd make of these things now, but that's how I felt at the time.
#11
Interesting takes here.

I've been thinking a bit more about the cosmology of the show. This is probably bollocks, but it was fun thinking about it today at work.

I've started to think that the entity "Judy" is not necessarily an evil, violent spirit but some kind of personification of death. When Gordon Cole talks about it, I noticed that he doesn't use the word "evil" or anything like that, but instead calls it "an extreme negative force" or something like that. That's a bit like death: there's no good or evil intent behind it - instead, it's just an absence.

A lot of commentary I've come across seems to gloss over Laura Palmer's role, but to me this had been about her just as much as Cooper. When the bomb is tested in New Mexico, that unleashes something and makes "mother" or "the experiment" give birth to BOB, a personification of man's evil. The thing that gives birth is probably not Judy but some kind of bad, lesser entity that is always on hand to pour pain and suffering into the world. The Fireman counters that by sending Laura into the world. Interesting here that BOB and Laura seem to be the same kind of spirit, sent into the world in a sphere.

It may be a bit cliched, but to me that makes Laura a bit of a Christ-like figure, or the nearest thing to Christ the TP universe could have. Maybe her function is to soak up some of the pain and suffering BOB can inflict on the world. It seems BOB is not aware of her real nature and neither is she while she is living. I guess all BOB can see is some kind of being that's stronger than anything else he's encountered, and that makes him angry and makes him obsessed with taking her over. When Laura dies in Fire Walk with Me, she seems to achieve some kind of grace and reslization as she watches the Angels float in front of her. Apparently the famous "faster and faster" scene where she talks about the Angels all having gone away was deliberately filmed from above to give the impression of angels watching over what is happening, contradicting what Laura thinks in her despaired state of mind.

Then maybe The Return is Cooper embarking on his quest to "kill two birds with one stone", which to me seems to mean the twin aims of defeating BOB and defeating the negative force of Judy (i.e. death) by cheating her of one of her victims (Laura). He manages to defeat BOB, but when he tries to cheat death, he manages to alter time but Laura is snatched away from him. This could be not only because death can't be defeated even by a hero like Cooper, but also because Laura's entire existence was predicated on her death at the hands of BOB (which in turn freed Leland of his influence and seemed to condemn BOB to life without a host for a while).

This disruption of the order of things sends Cooper spinning off into an alternate reality where he loses his identity and Laura becomes a woman without purpose. This still seems to be part of his plan, but Cooper seems out of his depth here, alternating between Mr C, good Coop and even Dougie. He seems to have a vague idea of something he needs to do but doesn't seem to have much awareness outside of that. He takes Laura's other self (who should never have existed) to the house, which jogs some vestigial memory in her and makes her realise what she is (as the Log Lady says, "she is the one". I think even James says that in the first season). Anyway, the realization prompts the blood-curdling scream that always happens when Laura is summoned back to where she belongs. This time everything shuts down and the screen turns blank because both her and Coop are whisked away.

Then the whole thing end with Laura whispering the truth into Cooper's ear in the waiting room or the Black Lodge or wherever that place is meant to be.
#12
Awesome series finale. Not what I wanted to see, but then again I don't know shit.

I've seen theories making the rounds that Cooper successfully changed history, so all of the final episode is a bizarre dream the young, saved Laura (in 1989) has safely tucked inside her bed instead of going off and getting murdered. What do you reckon?
#13
Quote from: JOE SOAP on 01 September, 2017, 08:47:22 PM
Quote from: Muon on 01 September, 2017, 12:46:09 PM
I hope it's not a downer. I don't think I could handle another scene of Coop headbutting a mirror and laughing as the credits roll.

The reason for the season is the retrieval of Dale Cooper and possibly Laura Palmer  – to save the town by shovelling it out of the shit – so I think it'll be more an ending of Blue Velvet style closure featuring Julee Cruise singing at the Roadhouse.

Really hope you're right! That would be my preferred ending. I want redemption for both Cool and Laura for all the shite they've been through.

I can't help worrying that Coop might be killed off, though. Like maybe he'll sacrifice himself so Laura can live again or something like that.
#14
Quote from: abelardsnazz on 01 September, 2017, 12:17:18 PM
Quote from: Muon on 01 September, 2017, 11:59:25 AM
Anyone else tumescent with anticipation of the two-hour Twin Peaks-fest on which we're about to engorge ourselves?

Any theories about how it might all turn out? I myself am happily clueless (and of course tumescent).

Yes. Can't wait. I hope to get up early on Monday morning to watch the finale before going to work.

As to how it will end, I think it has to involve the two Coopers meeting and maybe a fight/supernatural battle/vortex in a cup of coffee confrontation to determine who returns to the Black Lodge. Of course I could be completely wrong and it may just involve golden shovels and Jerry in the woods.

It could be anything, couldn't it? Pretty much nothing has transpired as I expected it to in this season, and that's been refreshing. My only thing is, I hope it's not a downer. I don't think I could handle another scene of Coop headbutting a mirror and laughing as the credits roll.
#15
Anyone else tumescent with anticipation of the two-hour Twin Peaks-fest on which we're about to engorge ourselves?

Any theories about how it might all turn out? I myself am happily clueless (and of course tumescent).