FFT - Semi Final 1 - Lawless vs Strontium Dog

[maryanddavid]

Stront.

[Southstreeter]

Strontium Dog. Lawless is great, obviously, but it's one long continuous narrative, so I'm less likely to pick it up and just read a few episodes than I am with Stront, which is endlessly rereadable (well, anything after Journey Into Hell, anyway) in whatever order.

Mind you, I will deploying the same argument in reverse when I vote for Dante in the next semi, so what do I know.

[Funt Solo]

I need to emphasize that a vote for one doesn't mean the other one is bad - perhaps it's obvious, but at this stage we're choosing most best, and we have to hit on a reason - because it's most best out of great stories. They're both very important in their respective eras. I'd like to see both rock up in the next issue. Both have wonderful art lavished on them. I can't fault Ezquerra's easy-seeming knack with action storytelling and character design - it's superlative. In fact - it's really his character design that's being riffed in Lawless. I was also really into Simon Harrison's relatively short tenure on the strip - it was exciting and visceral.

Historically, I lucked out with Strontium Dog - because I started reading it at The Schicklgruber Grab, which is perhaps where it's at the maddest and most confident. The enemy isn't the target - it's other bounty hunters after the same prize. Wulf is played for brutal laughs and the Gronk, sensibly, is mostly a background figure. All the formation work had already been done in the earlier work, so this seemed like highly polished genius straight out of the gate. There then followed what I consider the golden age of the strip, with few misfires, all the way through to Outlaw.

Everything after that, for me, is a law of diminishing returns. The strip could still be good and certainly deserved its place in the prog - but it was never great again. The Kreeler Conspiracy & Top Dogs were the most interesting things that happened after Outlaw. (Perspective is key, here - a new reader coming in at Blood Moon might get blown away by the setting and the characters in the same way I was when I first came to it.)

For Lawless, I think the key is the characterization. That Nerys and Rondo bonded over gun practice provides a deeper tragic element when he later comes to threaten her. In terms of storytelling, there's nothing braver than Ashes to Ashes, where we end up jumping from the climax of a battle to a bitter potential future (but with no indication for the reader that this is anything other than what it first appears). Whereas anything new in Strontium Dog must rely on a sort of character bible, it feels like Lawless can do almost anything within the structure - as long as we're in Badrock.

Lawless gets my vote, says boarder Funt Solo.

[Aaron A Aardvark]

In time Lawless may also grow inconsistant, reach a natural but unsatisfactory conlusion then come back with variable results but right now it's perfect.

Lawless

[Rogue Judge]

Not sure I buy into the concept that Strontium Dog has been patchy. I think it has been one of the most consistent long running series. Comments last round about some the epics being weaker than the shorter stories notwithstanding; and those are the stories I suspect a lot of fans hold up as the best.

So I'm voting Stront. It's probably the strip the Prog misses the most. At first glance it is a simple formula, but no other strip has managed to replicate it, even though a few have tried. For me it's absence leaves a big hole.

Strontium Dog. I was going to start explaining the reasons SD should win, but Magnetica summarized a lot of great points here already.
Strontium Dog: Endlessly re-readable and irreplaceable.

[Colin YNWA]

Lawless gets my vote, says boarder Funt Solo.

Nice - can't believe I've not done that... or maybe I have who knows...

[BPP]

strontium Dog

2000ads greatest action artists greatest strip. Don't buy any of the criticisms. The odd duff story in 40 years worth is something other strips can only dream of.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Stront

[Dark Jimbo]

Fascinating voting. Especially this sudden groundswell opinion that 'Well, Strontium Dog was alright, I suppose...'(!)

Anyway, I can't vote as I've never read Lawless, but I feel more than ever like I need to rectify that!

[Leigh S]

Lawless is the other Abnett dud for me I am afraid, which I understand may be more me than the strip.
I must confess I have read the last series or so, as I mean to go back and see what the fuss was all about, but I can;t see that missing information being anything that could swing it above the finest strip and character(s) that the comic has seen - Strontium Dog

[Dash Decent]

Strontium Dog

[Timothy]

I love Lawless, but not against Stront

[IndigoPrime]

Fascinating voting. Especially this sudden groundswell opinion that 'Well, Strontium Dog was alright, I suppose...'(!)

But tastes change, right? For me while growing up, Strontium Dog was the urgent and essential strip: more than Dredd and far more than Nemesis. I bloody loved it, until Reagan showed up. The Final Solution was shocking, but not amazing. But I'm voting on what I care about now rather than what I cared about then. And while Strontium Dog remains an objectively solid strip for much of its run, with many high points, I wasn't that enamoured when I read it through. Perhaps it's over-exposure and the same would be true if I'd read Lawless so many times across the years.

[sintec]

Lawless I was hooked from the first time I saw it in the MC and it keeps getting better.

[Colin YNWA]

Unlike the other vote we know where this is going don't we so with a day to go there isn't much to play for. But show your love get those last minute votes in and I'll wrap this up in the morning.