Prog 1500

[Emperor]

Dear concerned pedant,

I can understand the issues you have with it but your interpretation does have the rather unfortunate effect of completely removing all flatus-related elements from the theorising. So I have used a pin to scratch away a little bit of the black paper to eliminate any "confusion." If anyone else has similar concerns I can highly recommend this course of action and am prepared to offer a similar service to anyone who realy, really can't be bothered (just make sure you include a SAE so I can return the "corrected" version).

Yours,

Mr Frank Bough

[Jared Katooie]

PROG 1500!

Dredd: Okay so I'm the only one who doesn't think Kevin Walkers art is great. It's not nearly as detailed as it used to be (see prog 2000's ABC warriors for proof) and his colouring really doesn't help.

None of which affected my enjoyment of the story which was excellent. I hear Origins is over 20 parts in length. I thought it would  be around 15. I am VERY, VERY happy now.

8/10

Malone: New droid, fresh story idea - and no melodramatic cliffhanger! I enjoyed this a lot. Some real promise here. Hope there'll always be room for regular one-off thrills from now on...

7/10

Stone island: Another original and involving story. I was enjoying the prison stuff so I was almost annoyed when the monster appeared. Still, could be good.

6/10

Dante: More of the same. I race through this now. Dull and endlessly repetitive. What has happened in 15 or so episodes of this could easily have been handled in about 8.

3/10

One sour note in an otherwise great prog.

[Dog Deever]

Cover: Does nothing for me at all.

Dredd: Love Kev Walkers art! Love atmospheric colouring and the simplicity. Inspired and utterly brilliant. His old ABC's work was brilliant too- it's a pity he can't clone himself and work in both styles on seperate scripts. This has some of the intensity of Mandroid and I think Wagner and Walker are an excellent team for this type of Dredd story.

Malone: I'll reserve judgment until it's going but it seems ok so far- decent artwork, though the story hasn't revealed enough to know what's really happening.

Stone island: Simon Davis' art is always welcome in my prog. Again, too early to say but this one strikes a chord already- kinda reminds me of work (without the head devouring monsters). But where are all the key chains and utility belts on those screw... I mean prison warders? And the endless infernal lists? ;)

Dante: I like Dante, and I like Burns's stuff too. Though this arc does seem to be horrendously drawn out. I keep thinking 'whats happened to those bloody kids? Are they still relevant?'

This was a good prog- much better than last weeks outing, apart from the cover, which i thought could have been better for a landmark issue like this.

[Carlsborg Expert]

The cover looks like the life of Brian cover before I double take on it. Love the bike designs.

That headless guy, he's a bit well hung is n't he? Oh wait this is why she did the dirty...
Have we all connected the blood connection thing yet in this story?

I have loads of silly questions about the Dredd story like; Doesn't his head ever itch? What sort of spot check was that on the West wall on finding the names of the truck drivers didn't scan? Full body search surely?
What's the connection?

Anderson mentioned for 2007. With new artist.Hmm.

Malone's another one. Why has she been ignored for the past two days?
Dante has sixties comic retro appeal. Great golden skyships Batman!

[House of Usher]

Best Prog of the year so far, surely!

Judge Dredd - I'm not enjoying Kevin Walker's art as much as some. the last pge especially was unclear, but I've now sussed out what's what.

Malone - I like it. It's like one of those underdog strips that makes up for the lack of action and forward momentum by having good writing and believable interactions between people - and I use the word 'people' rather than characters deliberately. So far, a bit like one of those computer games where you go up to people and talk to them (like in Shadowrun)instead of just shooting everything in sight. What a coincidence, the first two strips have protagonists being given 4th floor rooms in hotels with broken elevators!

Stone Island - The best strip in the comic (okay, helped by having a double-length opener). I hadn't expected the full-frontal nudity, or the language, which was all appropriate to its context and made an impact for being something different. This is the best artwork I've seen by Simon Davis, and he's certainly had his moments before now. We've seen so much of his work we've got used to it, but this has such a quality of realism it's marvellous. He should get more firelit scenes to draw. Although you won't get many of those in a prison thriller. It was a pity to see the monster so quickly, but it did come at the end of part 2, and in the long run probably better to just get on with it, or you might get awkward storytelling if Grice didn't mutate until part 3. So... it's because Grice got splashed with Sorrel's blood, isn't it?

Nikolai Dante - As many others have said, it's not like we need to care about Dante any more. Can't Robbie Morrison just kill off this Akita Sagawa witch and have done with it, and then get Dante to do something more interesting?

8/10. Best story: Stone Island.

*I think there have been other 'cocks' seen in 2000ad. I thought that of an alien hurled through a hotel window by Mean Machine in The Judge Child was implied (but not graphically depicted), and I think the conveyor belt at Resyk may have shown up a few, from a great distance.

**'Smooths' is fine for a brand name. Smooth, as a noun, in plural form. 'Smoothes' would be a verb, third person singular, present participle.

[Dark Jimbo]

The earliest willy I've seen in a prog was in 1213, but then I've only been reading since prog 1212. The Horned God sounds like the most probable earliest willy pic. When was the first time we saw bare boobies?

[House of Usher]

Well, there's a challenge! The hunt is on. I'd suggest starting from Prog 1 and working up from there, and a new thread for reporting the results.

Here's your starter for ten: first bare arse (male), M.A.C.H. 1, Prog 1.

[ThryllSeekyr]

I like the Cover:)

Is that the Blitzsphere flying across the top of it.

[Rex Banner]

The first time I remember seeing boobs was also The Horned God. Can't remember which prog but it was a picture of Medb.

[Leigh S]

There are (famously) boobs in the Carnival in Ant Wars

[Devons Daddy]

but it has to be said
PROG 1500

wow,2000ad deserves its place in comic book history next to beano and dandy. and just above the EAGLE. which is certainly something to be proud of.

[Buddy]

Actually only got a hold of this today...

Cover is terrible, never been a fan of Boo Cook's art. Such a landmark prog should have had one of the greats on the cover (Bolland, McMahon, Ewins, McCarthy, Gibson etc...).

Dredd is fantastic. Really love Kev's art on this (and indeed all his recent art) and you just know Wagner's got the tale of all tales to tell here. Looking forward to the collected volums already, I suspect it'll read better as a collection than five pages a week for howevermany weeks it'll run.