1409 - Leapin' Lizards!

[Oddboy]

The cover was absolutely fantastic! This screams "THIS IS A COMIC!" better than writing "THIS IS A COMIC!" on the front cover!
Brilliantly crafted Gibson picture, great action shot - Giant robot dinosaur kidnapping heroine acompnied by a robot, a cigar in a cage and a head in a jar! Wonderful.

Judge Dredd was brilliant too - great the way it cut between the sports stadium & the Judge-action.. (and a great new sport as well!)
That explosion, perfect! Loved the hand of Dredd & handlebar in the corner.

Past Imperfect wasn't great, but it was okay. It really suffers from being in the Caballistics, Inc. slot (and to be honest, the whole prog feels weaker without Rennie & Reardon's horrorfest).

Asylum 2 continues apace... I think I preferred book 1 myself, both in story & artwise (although everyone on the letters page seems to disagree!) The new art style is really good, but I happened to like his "puppyfat cartoon" style.

Robo-Hunter - Sheeshers! This is standing clear ahead as the top of the prog this week, against some real stiff competition from JD & SD. See above comments on the cover - just class!

Strontium Dog - Go Johnny! Really groovy episode this week. Except for that last panel - his Brother!! Not a-sodding-gain! I suppose Ol' Kreelman was eager to make up for his mutant son by producing as many other bastard offspring as possible?

[GordonR]

Erm...Jack the Ripper and Lewis Carrol/Charles Dodgeson aren't fictional characters.  Although Jack the Ripper feels like one, because he's been done to death so much.

The play I was referring to was Grant Morrison's rather wonderful RED KING RISING, which featured Alice and Dodgeson, and then went into nasty 'dark side of the Victorian psyche' Ripper territory.  It won an award at the Edinburgh Festival, and then went on to play in London.  Admittedly, this was all rather a long time ago.

His follow-up play, DEPRAVITY, about the relationship between Aleister Crowley and one of his acolytes, was mince, however.  Performing genuine Chaos Magick rituals on stage does not gripping theatre make.

[Dudley]

Erm...Jack the Ripper and Lewis Carrol/Charles Dodgeson aren't fictional characters

Conceded.  Should've said "character" rather than "characters".  Though if you're going to get picky, it's "Dodgson", not "Dodgeson".

[Banners]

On the basis of this week's episode, it looks as though I was wrong, and this has potential to be one of the darker things in 2kad's recent history, right up there with From Grace.

Can't agree with that - the writing in "Asylum 2" is nowhere near the magnificence of "From Grace" IMHO.

The situations portrayed thus far are awfully contrived, the machinations of the relationship between Holt and Adam are nonsensical, and the dialogue is often clunky.

That said, the blurring between who are the 'goodies' and 'baddies' of the piece is very well done.

M@

[Floyd-the-k]

It`s a good prog.
  I agree that Asylum has taken a mighty leap in quality since the first one, both in art and story. I never thought `From Grace` was that fantasic myself. It`s good but I don`t rate it that highly.
  Loads of Gibsony fun, with good colours.
 The Dredd story really has impact, despite a lot of its` component parts being old hat (huge numbers of cits dying, city and Judges at risk), it feels really dangerous. I can`t wait for the next installment.
  Stront Dog - good but feels a bit warmed over to me.
  Despite being warned about the Future Shock in the chat room, it was a nice little break, good art. I didn`t know about the play so it reminded me of `From Hell` a bit.
 No Droid Life!
Troy Watkins has a point - I think there`s been enough repeating of greatest hits. A bit is good, then there`s spoiling us, then there`s overdoing it.

[Trout]

Yeah! Bring back Droid Life!

My unsolicited opinions:

I loved the cover, which will surprise no-one, as I'm the arch-fan of Ian Gibson.

Total War remains gripping stuff - with added Vienna! Hooray! Nice way of introducing her, too.
I foresee ten more weeks of identical comments on this board about perfect scripting and stunning art.
Which is no bad thing.

The Past Imperfect didn't hold my interest at all, I'm afraid. I didn't really follow it; couldn't be bothered.
Maybe I'll try to re-read it later.
However, I fully approve of b&w art popping up in the prog.

I'm very glad to see Asylum pick up a bit, having gained a direction now (Holt's mission).
What I really want from this is more variety in its depictions of aliens, instead of just having wholesale slaughter of anonymous refugees.
I'm sure it's all very worthy and relevant, but it's not so engaging.
Also, I agree with the letter-writer on the development of Boo's art. It's damn good stuff.

On Robohunter, see my comments on the cover, and Oddboy's on the lunatic elements involved, which I endorse fully!
This story's all sorts of fun. It makes me happy.

Finally, I really enjoyed Strontium Dog until the very final panel.
It was indeed terrific to see Johnny and Wulf dishing out lumps in such a clever way, and the high-quality art is matched only by the top-notch pacing of the script.

Again echoing Odds, I must confess my reaction to the reveal was: "Not again..."

But I'll try to keep an open mind.
Maybe someone can have a quiet word with John this weekend and ask him exactly how many siblings Alpha officially has.
There's a continuity from audio plays or books, too? Agh. Urgh. No. Please, no.

Overall, another high-quality prog!

- Trout

[Trout]

"I suppose Ol' Kreelman was eager to make up for his mutant son by producing as many other bastard offspring as possible?"

Or maybe he was just a rampant old shagger?

- Trout

[Leigh S]

"Strontium Dog - Go Johnny! Really groovy episode this week. Except for that last panel - his Brother!! Not a-sodding-gain! I suppose Ol' Kreelman was eager to make up for his mutant son by producing as many other bastard offspring as possible?"

Well, if you discount all the non-continuity spin offs, and even ....(whisper it) the Final Solution.... you have exactly zero secret relatives for Johnny - hurrah!


"Can't agree with that - the writing in "Asylum 2" is nowhere near the magnificence of "From Grace" IMHO.

The situations portrayed thus far are awfully contrived, the machinations of the relationship between Holt and Adam are nonsensical, and the dialogue is often clunky.

That said, the blurring between who are the 'goodies' and 'baddies' of the piece is very well done."

I'd agree with all that, cept the last line - I can't see any blurring between goodies and baddies - looks like the entire Navy have all had bumps on the head too!  Very disappointing following on from "Low Life", which seemed like a much more subtle piece of writing, but I'm now wondering if Henry Flint did his usual trick of making me liekl the story no matter what.  

[garyp]

Really enjoying Dog, Dredd is looking to be great, Robo-Hunter was a pleasent read and the Alice story was pretty good as well. Not really in Asylum but 1409 was still a great prog ('nother letter printer).

[petemaskreplica]

A cover by Ian Gibson featuring a babe, some robots, a dinosaur and a head in a jar? Can't go wrong, really, can you? I suppose it might have been better if he'd chucked in a couple of nazis or a monkey in a hat.

My credulity was slightly strained this week by Dredd not dying instantly when caught in the blast, but that's a minor niggle, this is top stuff. Didn'y your heart leap into your mouth when you saw that spread of the bomb going off? Wonderful.

PI: yeah, well the whole Ripper thing's been done to death as Gordon says, and you shouldn't touch the subject with a bargepole unless you've really got something new to say about it. having said that, it was well done enough.

Robo-Hunter: Robots! Dinosaurs! Babes! hurrah! Nice Hoagy moment too ("nope, it just reminds me")

Asylum: seemed to pick up the pace a bit this week, yeah it's a bit clunky but it's holding my interest, and Boo's art is great, of course.

"but did anyone else feel that the last panel of Stront kind of showed Wagner doesnt give a stuff for what happened in the Final solution?"

I think it's been made fairly clear in the past that JW doesn't really give a stuff about any continuity if it gets in the way of the story he wants to write. And quite right too, if the result is something as great as this.

Of course, Tharg should never lean too heavily on old characters at the expense of coming up with new thrills, but I don't see how anyone can object to old characters showing this kind of quality. The important thing is, not whether they're new or old characters, but whether they're good stories. And right now, they most certainly are.

[Trout]

"The important thing is, not whether they're new or old characters, but whether they're good stories. And right now, they most certainly are."

Well said.

- Trout

[paulvonscott]

Judge Dredd continues to make yer eyes gawp open.  Something is actually happening in judge Dredd, and it's epic!

Loads of great stuff, but the nuke 2-page spread was beautiful and horrific.  Well done Flint!

A prog with three stories by Wanger and Grant still remains my highlight of the year.

[Wake]

Did any subscribers get Magic cards with 1409? What about in the shops?

Wake

[Smiley]

No card in my shop copy. (No great loss, BTW.)

[Dudley]

I don't think anyone got their cards.  

But shouldn't we stay quiet about this so Rebellion can keep the insert revenue?

Who wants a bleedin' card game anyway?