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Messages - Blue Cactus

#16
Prog / Re: Prog 2366 - End of the Road
23 January, 2024, 05:29:41 PM
Well, I didn't understand Droid Life either. Glad it wasn't just me!

Great Dredd, feels very packed with plot and characters and I hope it's a good long run. You almost don't need to mention Flint's art. He's just always stupendous.

Enemy Earth does its thing and I'm happy enough, for some reason it doesn't feel quite like 2000ad to me but I don't really see why not. It's pure energy and I genuinely don't know where it will go next.

Part of me was foolishly expecting a 'happy' resolution to Devil's Railroad (if Constance being reunited with that wazzock Palamon could be considered happy). Instead we got a hugely miserable and cruel ending which perfectly fits the rest of this horrible series. Constance has felt reduced to a secondary character throughout and here we don't even get an insight into her thoughts - it's up to Palamon to sum things up for us but because I just don't like him, I don't really enjoy him having the last word. The fact that he's smiling at the end, knowing the abusive family his child and partner will now be trapped with, it's just grim. But it also annoyed me that that grimness actually seems appropriate for the series. In looking at (I won't say 'tackling') the refugee crisis in this strip, it seems Milligan has focused instead on two refugees who ended up in very unlikely and exceptional circumstances. It doesn't therefore really do justice to the typical and, sadly, everyday experience of refugees (and was too cartoonishly written to really do that anyway). The ending left me with very mixed feelings - it suits the theme of the story for it to just keep getting more and more horrible, and maybe it is human nature (sometimes) to find a small positive in almost any circumstance. Maybe not. But I just really, really didn't enjoy this story, and I can't work out if that was the intention.

This is my favourite series of Thistlebone so far (well, three episodes in). I didn't find the Scottish accent very convincing - having lived in in various parts of Scotland all my life I've never heard anyone say 'ye' in the same context as 'let me hold ye handbag while you carry your drinks'. If he's saying 'you' and 'your' in the same sentence, why's he saying 'ye' to mean 'you' as well? Actually now I'm overthinking it and since this series is playing with truth/ artifice / films / reality / myth etc, maybe it was intentionally 'off'. Such is the power of Thistlebone! Anyway, great series so far and it looks sensational.

Feral and Foe - Abnett zooms out to the bigger picture as he often skillfully does. Looking forward to this returning. Apologies if I've said this before but I wonder if Elson regrets giving Wrath chains for hair? Must be such a faff to draw!

And finally, thanks for your incredible work, John M Burns. What a tremendous artist.
#17
General / Re: Things that went over your head...
22 January, 2024, 06:09:52 PM
The name Rico has always (well, often) made me think of Captain Ric, the gun-toting spaceman mascot of the breakfast cereal Ricicles. You're welcome for this insightful post.
#18
Other Reviews / Re: Which thrills have you skipped?
22 January, 2024, 01:18:38 PM
Quote from: Barrington Boots on 22 January, 2024, 10:19:16 AMDynosty! That's possibly the first strip I stopped reading and never went back to. Hated it.

Not well loved, is it? I'd still kind of like to read it one day! Not sure what Langley's style was like early on but I loved that slimy oozing work he did on the three-part Nemesis story shortly after.
#19
Other Reviews / Re: Which thrills have you skipped?
22 January, 2024, 10:16:32 AM
I don't skip any comic strips, although a few things recently have made me come close - Tin Man, lots of Regenened, City of Courts. There are very few things published by Tharg that I find so annoying or unenjoyable that I think about not continuing.

There are still a few thrills I've never read, or not fully - MACH 1 and 0, Angel, Dynosty, Universal Soldier come to mind. If they'd turned up in a Megazine floppy I'd happily have read them but I wasn't collecting the prog weekly at certain points and haven't gone out of my way to track them down. The second collection of Dan Dare is another. Thats not really skipping though, just I've never had them in my hands in order to skip.

I do skip a lot of the Meg text articles - they can be quite repetitive, or as Magnetica says about creators and comics I've not heard of and am not likely to read. Or quite often they're basically extended adverts for upcoming Rebellion products, which, if I'm interested in, I'll be buying anyway.
#20
General / Re: Things that went over your head...
21 January, 2024, 10:23:13 PM
Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 19 January, 2024, 05:40:38 PM:D

Let's try hard to forget Susan Bananas.

Oh lord, I already had!
#21
General / Re: Things that went over your head...
19 January, 2024, 01:56:56 PM
Let's not forget Joseph Pineapples.
#22
Prog / Re: Prog 2365: Battle for the Planet
18 January, 2024, 09:24:11 AM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 18 January, 2024, 08:48:05 AMGiven ongoing shifts in the Overton window, I hate to think what 'leftie' might mean by the time we get to Dredd's timeline in the real world. 

That's a disturbing but good point!
#23
Prog / Re: Prog 2365: Battle for the Planet
17 January, 2024, 05:46:48 PM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 17 January, 2024, 12:36:22 PMFlint is starting to remind me a bit of McMahon. Not in terms of style, but in terms of his willingness to shake up his style quite dramatically and try new things. And for those new things to be excellent. (D'Israeli of course deserves a mention in that realm.)

As for Judge Dredd, I hope this brings a conclusion to everything Red Queen. But I also hope I'm wrong in how I expect this to turn out for Mega City One and Maitland and that Williams is doing some cunning card tricks, with a strip that will in some way (whatever way) at least challenge the status quo.

One of the things I love about Dredd in terms of the strip and the lead is that things can change. Sure, the lead – as described IIRC by Wagner – moves like a glacier. But he does move. The Dredd we see today is not the same one from the 1980s. Similarly, the city itself has shifted and changed in response not only to major events but also its leaders.

I'm not suggesting I want to see A Better World end and for Tharg to be all: "Well, the judges are gone now. I HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAPPY WITH YOURSELVES!" But it would be great to have a series that has some kind of lasting impact, as per America, Apocalypse War, etc. And that sense of tension and topicality in A Better World is more heightened than I've seen and felt in Judge Dredd for a long while.

Quite what that impact could be, I've no idea. Upending the strip's entire set-up would be a massive risk and arguably unnecessary for future success. So I'll be gobsmacked if the series ends with a return to something resembling current-day democracy, and the judges 'relegated' to being a police force. By the same token, different 'states' operating in different ways might be sustainable, although I imagine a Sector 304 enclave wouldn't quite cut it!

I suppose if nothing else, kudos to Williams for making me care about a MC1 accountant, and not wanting the conclusion that's currently in my head: her plan being destroyed by nefarious types, possibly including her being badly injured or killed, and Dredd rocking up and angrily growling that "at least you tried", before being instrumental in dismissing half the council and possibly the CJ, without taking up a role of responsibility himself. (I do also still wonder what spanner Beeny might be in the works of whatever goes down.)

Anyway: this is all great. Nice to see such a strong Dredd in the prog.

I agree with all this but feel I should point out this story has two writers - Arthur Wyatt is scripting too rather than Williams alone. I like the way 'Robert Glenn' has such an ordinary name, posing as an everyman like he is, but I did find his mention of 'leftie ideas' a bit on the nose - Dredd quite often has some ludicrous future slang term for this kind of thing that allows us to see the contemporary idea it's referring to. Whereas just using the same phrase that gets thrown around on social media in 2024 pulled me out of the story a little. Still, this is great Dredd, I really like Maitland as a character - if her experiment does completely fail I'll be interested to see how she responds in future. Wouldn't be the first time Williams had a character I loved really fall from Grace - I still feel bad about how things ended for poor Aimee Nixon.

Elsewhere Enemy Earth zooms along and I'm happy to zoom with it.

Thistlebone is already oozing that queasy feeling that all isn't right and it is absolutely playing to Davis's strengths - the facial expressions are pretty much the best in comics.

Broodblik upthread really hit the nail on the head for why I don't like Devil's Railroad - it's just people being cruel to each other, week after week, with no hope, no laughs, no glimmer of light, but also no real depth. It's horrible. Dayglo is great and I did want to say that Jose Villarrubia has done an incredible job on Sister White's face in the first panel. He could easily have done her all a blanket green but he's done the lighting on her every wart and crinkle amazingly. Giving her way more dimensions than the paper-thin character itself.

And finally Feral and Foe - this strip has won me over now and this has been my favourite series for it so far. Weird optical illusion on page one panel two where I thought they were fighting their way down stairs rather than up a pyramid! But awesome art and a cracking balance of action and humour. Roll on the next series! (Once this one's done).

Lovely tribute to Ian Gibson from Rufus Dayglo. Oh and a nice cover too. Good prog - very glad Devil's Railroad finishes next issue.
#24
This is the kind of series I would now hunt down but I'm just not a single issues collector (other than 2000ad/Meg. Maybe one day they'll collect the lot.
#25
General / Re: Best 2000 AD strips of 2023 (non-Dredd)
11 January, 2024, 07:08:33 PM
Quote from: Funt Solo [R] on 11 January, 2024, 06:59:54 PM
Quote from: Blue Cactus on 11 January, 2024, 05:43:33 PMMaxwell's Demon was good but the fact that the Newcastle woman was named Jordy Coquet makes me wince every time I think of it.

Oh, I just got the Jordy/Geordie bit. It's not Coquet as in "coquettish", is it? Because, y'know, vomiting a little into my cup of tea if that's true. The actual character in the story seems like she'd stab you in the eye with a fork if you called her coquettish.

I think it's probably pronounced the same as 'coquette'. I could be wrong but that's how I read it anyway.
#26
General / Re: Best 2000 AD strips of 2023 (non-Dredd)
11 January, 2024, 05:43:33 PM
Maxwell's Demon was good but the fact that the Newcastle woman was named Jordy Coquet makes me wince every time I think of it.
#27
Hine and Kane are a great combo. Loved The Bulletproof Coffin in particular.
#28
Intriguing one there Colin. I've looked at this series once or twice but never read any. The name always puts me in mind of All-Bran unfortunately and I think that's subliminally put me off by flavouring the series like a bland breakfast cereal in my mind.
#29
Games / Re: Gamebooks
05 January, 2024, 07:17:30 AM
Quote from: Barrington Boots on 03 January, 2024, 11:07:20 AMGot this for Christmas. Turns out my brother knows more about FF than I realised:



Incredible!
#30
General / Re: Best 2000 AD strips of 2023 (non-Dredd)
02 January, 2024, 05:29:12 PM
1. Azimuth.
2. Rogue Trooper.
3. Hershey.