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Been slowly working my way through much of King's work of late (along with quite a few other writers).  It's interesting how he has shifted in some respects but also remained quite consistent in others.  I sometimes wonder how much of his having been pigeonholed as a horror writer is down to struggling to find a category for his work.

Granted there are seriously disturbing aspects to his books at times but quite often the themes and ideas are actually more fantastical than horror, it seems to me.  You've got books like Carrie, the Dead Zone and Firestarter that are all about psychic powers.  Talisman and the Dark Tower could more accurately be classified as fantasy.  To an extent the same can be said for The Stand.

Cujo is an absolutely fascinating piece of work for me.  The focus on the dog by so many folks ignores the plethora of monsters that inhabit the novel.  It's almost like a psychological thriller.

In defence of the Dark Tower I would say that the first novel is probably the weakest (at least of those I've got through so far).  Once the Gunslinger picks up with his fellow travellers it becomes far more interesting.  Of course it is going to be interesting to see whether this holds for the last few books ...

Feel a little that this thread might stray into some rather disturbing territory if we're not careful. If nothing else is does highlight that the currently blended social and legacy media spheres are reacting in dangerous ways. 

Trial by (social) media is becoming too commonplace.  It is leading to tragic consequences too often. Ultimately only a handful of people know what really happened.

Perhaps something best left alone other than acknowledging the passing?

[without]

... and a fella without a shovel in his head is called ...

I can appreciate that.  Some of the best tales I've read over the years have been the short one and done.  I'm on constant record as absolutely loving Wagner and Dillon's Alone in a Crowd which is such an amazing piece of work on absolutely every level.  The run of crazy crime stories before and after Judge Child Quest and even after Apocalypse War.  Both the Chopper stories are great (although much prefer Midnight Surfer ... Cam Kennedy artwork ... 'nuff said).

That's possibly the best aspect of Dredd, there's just so much variety to it.  I just wish we could move away from these interminable "there's something rotten in Justice Dept" stories though ...

I do think that is where Rebellion have got things right with some of the more recent reprints cherry picking Dredd tales.  Granted Apocalypse War has been reprinted more times than I can remember but as a starting point it is fantastic.  it captures everything that is great about Dredd - the sheer brutality of the world, Dredd's indifference to citizens and almost obsessive approach to the Law / MC1, Ezquerra, Grant, Wagner ...

Ultimately Dredd is one of those strips that can, to a certain extent, be read in whatever order you want.  True, the repercussions of earlier strips carry through but at the same time you don't always need to fully understand the history in the way you do with some other strips.  There are so many tales that are almost like vignettes rather than part of a continuous narrative.

As for reading Calvin and Hobbes in bulk ... is there any other way?  It's more addictive than Uncle Ump!

From what I've seen trade paperpacks can often be pretty easy and cheap. I'm selling at a mart this weekend (Sheffield come buy my stuff - normally not listed here as the stuff I talk about here is the stuff I'm keeping damnit!) and you'll get all sorts of offers on trades. There are of course exceptions. Its the bigger hardcover, deluxe and omnibus type things that seem to go wild in price.

Bit of a slog from here in South Wales (having done it several times to visit my sister who lives in Loxley), otherwise I would ...

I think it does depend on what you're looking for, you're right.  Marvel Omnibuses tend to have odd runs / reprint patterns so they can be a bit crazy.  So Secret Wars 2 or Hickman's Avengers stuff can be bleeding daft in prices.  Others have gone through multiple reprints so are relatively sane.

Maybe my problem is that I'm looking for relatively (okay, possibly insanely) obscure stuff like IDW's reprints of the Star Trek Gold Key and TV21 strips or Titan's third Flash Gordon book.  Sort of stuff that didn't have a massive print run in the first place and has now dropped off the radar.  I've nearly completely Boom Studio's Do Android Dreams in hardback and that has been a challenge too.

What I find with conventions now is that they are so tied up with film / manga that they're not really worth the effort any more (especially when you've been collecting for a few decades and have insanely eclectic tastes).

[TL:DR - fairly standard multi-dimensional scrag match. Decent artwork. Links to Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. Final Crisis works well as a standalone.]

... and finally reached the end of Final Crisis.  I say finally because of the time spent wading through 52 and Countdown to Final Crisis.  After the bafflement I felt reading Infinite Crisis the first time, I figured it was worth working through the prequel material.

Taking Final Crisis as a piece on its own, it's a bit difficult not to be distracted by Morrison's 'go to' plot devices.  A borderline omnipotent multi-dimensional creature wants to recreate reality in his own image?  Teams of heroes and villains pulled together from across different dimensions?  Is it just me, or is this the plot of Zenith?

That said, it is told with panache.  Can't fault the artwork either.  It hangs together quite nicely and you could probably get away with reading it without picking through 52 or Countdown.

Treating it and Infinite Crisis as linked stories works quite well too.  One of the nice things about 52 is the fielding of characters that don't often get much attention.  With the 'big 3' (Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman) out of the way, so much more rests with players that would to a large extent be consider B or even Z listers.

Countdown does see the return of the big 3 but not to a massive extent.  There is also a growing focus on the antics of the Monitors as well as Apokalips.  So it is really only towards the end that they come into play.  We also see nods towards Identity Crisis so there is quite a bit to unpack.

Overall it's not a bad read, whether in isolation or as part of the larger whole.  Personally I felt it worked better being familiar with Identity Crisis and the other pre-Infinite Crisis series. 

They do suffer from repetition though.  Big-bad-multiversal threat ... all got to gang together ... bit of a deus-ex ending ... Other than that, they are slightly above a lot of the output of the Big Two (Marvel and DC).

TL:DR - fairly standard multi-dimensional scrag match.  Decent artwork.  Links to Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. Final Crisis works well as a standalone.

[Part 5]

Part 5

Where to find it

Liberty Meadows doesn't seem to be as available as it once was. It's all been collected but I'm not sure it's all still in print and some seem to be getting a bit pricey. I'm not sure the collections are available digitally either?

One thing I've noticed since the pandemic is that graphic novel prices have risen quite a bit on the 2nd hand market.  Used to be that they were cheap as chips and easy to track down.  Now though, you see crazy prices being asked.

Some of this is the print runs towards the end of series.  That's not always the case though.  I do wonder how much of this is algorithms slowly pushing prices higher and higher.

Lou Gossett Jr is one of those criminally under-rated actors who appeared in so much back in the day.  Totally agree with Angry Vince on Enemy Mine.  That was a cracking film. 

The other series I remember him for is the Iron Eagle films.  An absolutely bonkers idea, that a teen could effectively steel a fighter jet to go after his dad after he'd been shot down in the Middle East.  Back in the day when pretty much everyone was making "America is the greatest military nation in the world" films with whatever bat-shit crazy idea they could angle in to it.  Crazy as it sounds, it worked.  Largely because a) LGJ and b) nobody took it too seriously.

With Jim on this one.  Not read the original source material beyond the first book which I found boring as hell (and this is speaking as someone currently working through the Oxford History of England!)

That said, this aspect of the storyline really didn't gel.  I'm not sure what the writers were thinking at this point. Making sense of the multiple story arcs didn't figure though.

It was up there with Lost as a series that ran out of steam.

What are you bribing Tharg/Royal Mail with to get all these Saturday Progs?

Given we're getting our progs (and Meg which is amazing) of a Saturday, it is clear that the bribes are on a randomiser. 

[Dredd's]

I'm with Colin for the most part on this prog.  There's definitely a lot to like about the quality of what we're being given.

Dredd's a cracking, albeit predictable one-shot.  Visitors to MC1 fall foul of the law. We've seen it from dimensional, alien, chronal ... pretty much every type of traveller going.  The city is stark staring bonkers and the Judges top the list.  Currie's artwork though really lifts the piece.  Loving the European vibes with shades of Moebius.

Full Tilt Boogie back on the core issues at play makes a little more sense after the last few weeks.  Well, insofar as we're sat staring at whatever is at the heart of the quest our protagonist has been gulled into.

Now Fall of Deadworld is an interesting one.  As the current run ends we find ourselves faced with issues that start to tie things together.  Ultimately this is about how Deadworld became the world we know from our first exposure to Judge Death.  Necropolis introduced us to the Dark Sisters who have featured significantly in more recent runs.  We see that they are far more significant to Death's development than we were first led to believe.

The 'errant sister, Enomia' is curious.  As the Greek goddess of law, good governance and order, it is curious that she is linked to Phobia and Nausea.  Then again, maybe it is worth considering that ultimately Deadworld is utterly devastated.  After all, the point of the Dark Judges is that they stand as completely opposite to Dredd's perspective and his world.

Certainly this is a series that merits a re-read.  There is a lot that just doesn't seem to work properly for various reasons.  Possibly because so much is going on?

As Colin says, Thistlebone delivers that earie, creepy, mind-alteringly queasy Hammer Horror style as always.  Davis is the perfect choice for this strip although Lee Carter would be a close second after his performance on Cradlegrave.  Where will this land?  Given the penchant of Eglington for rooting this series in deep, dark British mythology, my money is on plenty of blood and gore.

I'd be a little more excited about the return of Rogue Trooper if I knew the creative team but I think that is because we've had some absolutely dire runs over the years.  Here's to hoping it is up there with some of the stronger offerings we've had since they've tried to revise the strip. 

Overall though, this is a cracking prog.

Nah, pretty boring in all honesty.

(JBC, did you get the tickets to Stonehenge yet?  Know they're only one way and don't worry about luggage, so long as you've got your robes, you'll be fine ...)

Lorenzo makes an excellent point. Where were people like me while all this was going on in the past?

Personally I didn't really understand the situation, thinking it was some ancient and complicated religious feud I simply wasn't informed enough to comment on beyond the most basic blanket condemnations of human-on-human violence.

On one level this is not a wholly inaccurate understanding.  There certainly is that dimension to this conflict although it has grown inevitably far more complex over time.

There is the small matter of the Crusades to factor in as the massed ranks of European chivalry answered the papal call to 'free the holy lands' (again, this doesn't accurately describe events during this period).

If you skip forward several centuries, quite a bit of the current conflict is rooted in the machinations of the late 19th Century and the post WW1 dismantling of the Ottoman Empire.  This is where Britain really comes into its own as a villain of the piece with its chicanery around many of the nations currently involved in the conflicts and tensions of the region although America and France are equally implicated with their manoeuvring around oil.

Skip forward to the post WW2 decisions in the wake of the Holocaust and you add another layer of challenge.  The establishment of Israel once more as a distinct nation, rejection of a two state solution and general indifference towards Palestinians even among other nations in the region, coupled with the approach of Israel to how it approached Palestinians as well, is arguably the latest phase in this age-old problem.

Another jump to the tail-end of the 20th Century with the Iranian and Iraqi revolutions and the establishment of two nations implacably hostile to Israel ... well, you can guess how that worked out, really.  The obvious hostility of both nations to America, and by default to the nation they sometimes see as America's regional proxy (although in Iran's case there is also a profound thread of Anti-Semitism) has only really been tempered by the decades long feud they were engaged in.

In Iran's case though, taking a leaf out of the Russian and American playbooks, proxy fighting has become the preferred approach over the years.  As a relatively low-cost approach with limited exposure, provisioning 'freedom fighters' and other assorted groups has kept the conflict simmering.

Of course the rather aggressive approach of settler groups in Israel has not helped either.  To argue that this is all the fault of Iranian-backed groups misses this dimension.  In allowing such activity, the Israeli state has given credence to the grievances of groups like Hamas.  As circumstances in places like the Gaza Strip have become increasingly dire, Israel has almost become a recruiting sergeant for its own enemies.

Even this is a gross over-simplification of an insanely complex issue that the greatest political minds of the last few generations have been grappling with.  It is highly doubtful that these issues will resolve themselves shortly.

To be honest I've always preferred V for Vendetta over Watchmen.  The latter seems a bit pretentious at times, trying to do too much and be a bit too clever.  V, on the other hand, is far more nuanced.  Or maybe it is the way that it delves into the unsavoury aspects of the 'great and the good' of our nation.  Peeling back the covers on the hypocrites who claim to be our moral arbiters.  It also seems disturbingly prescient in the current climate.