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Prog 1848: Gods and Monsters!

Started by Richard, 31 August, 2013, 01:43:33 PM

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Richard

REALLY???!!! Has nobody bagged this thread yet? If they have, I can't find it... So here goes.

Mike McMahon Slaine cover, eye-catching, but I can't see why they didn't use Nick Percival's Slaine Star Scan which is astoundingly good.

Judge Dredd: Bender takes an unexpected turn. Still not sure how this is going to end. Good fun.

Age of the Wolf: A bit of a twist here too. If I had been paying more attention, I might have been able to predict where this is going, but I have no idea. But for the first time since this series began, I am looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Steve Bisley back on Slaine for the first time since 1990. Much better than that awful Prog 1800 cover., and 3ight pages! Good stuff.

A mediocre Past Imperfect.

ANd The Ten-Seconders: Godsend, still with Ben Willsher, is really moving along, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. [spoiler]Two major characters die![/spoiler]

A pretty good prog this week.

Darren Stephens

What a week!

Cover : terrific McMahon Slaine portrait. Simple but beautiful.
Dredd: Some great art from Willsher on this, as ever. Cracking script, too. Lock looks very much like Death at the end of this episode ha.
Age of the Wolf: Yeh, it's OK but needs to finish soon. The wolves are far too cute to be menacing, though, taking away some of the tention.
Slaine: The Biz is back. Wow, so good. A colourful feast for the eyes.
Past Imperfect: Mmm, OK, but uninspiring. Bit filler-esque.
Ten Seconders: Nearing the conclusion. Still my favourite thrill despite Mr Bisleys sterling efforts on Mac Roth. CRACKING.

And that star scan....wow.  :D
https://www.dscomiccolours.com
                                       CLICK^^

McNulty

Sorry for the duplication: I will post my review here, because Richard did bag the thread a few minutes before me...

Cover: Beautifully rendered if simplistic art from an old master in McMahon

Dredd: Judge Bender continues to take things further and further. In the old days, I would think his first infringement would have led to a trip to Titan, but what with the pressures on Justice Dept, he is literally getting away with murder.

Age of the Wolf: The prospect of a great fight for the future of the world peters out into one page. A little disappointing.

Slaine: The stand out for this prog with some great Bisley art. Not the glorious painted effect of the original but very worthwhile nonetheless.

Past Imperfect: The art in this story didn't really do much for me. Interesting ending though...

The Ten-Seconders: I've found it hard to get into the series this time round. [spoiler]Basically, we're down to three characters, everyone else is dead or missing.[/spoiler]

Star scan: An older Slaine depicted by a very talented artist in Nick Percival. Haunting eyes; he's seen a lot in his life.

Colin YNWA

Well the cover is beautiful at least...

Well that's not fair, but while the Prog has been going through a bit a low for me in the last few weeks this must surely be its nadir. Dredd is great. Executed really well and while the scenario is tired its moving really nicely.

Age of the Wolf I'm skipping now alas and not in the returning once its all done way. I have to be honest and say I didn't enjoy the Past Imperfect at all, it was poor on both levels, art and story, both felt bland and uninspiring. Even the logo looked like something from '96 when people realised you could use WordArt to create logos for the first time

Slaine I'm afraid was another dud. The story, for what its worth, continues as a lukewarm retread of whats gone before and while in previous parts this has been saved, somewhat, by some astonishingly good art I have to be honest and say this new stuff from Bisley just isn't for me. I find it messy, cluttered and hard on the eye, which confused the storytelling. Frankly its more akin to the many less talented people who followed in his wake when he first shock up the scene than the brilliant work he produced to inspire those lacklustre imitators.

Thank God for Ten Seconders which while missing Edmund Bagwell's art is astonishingly good still and saves me, with Dredd, from being a complete grumpy chuff this week.

Oh and back to that glorious cover (if we get a better one this year I can't wait to see it), when I opened by Prog this morning I have an envelop on the table that had been sealed by masking tape. To my horror the vicious tape latched onto my Prog with its stickly evil. Dread filled my heart and even trying with great care as I removed said adhesive I knew it'd take off some of the cover's top layer. To my delight when done and seeing a damaged area across the S and T of MONSTERS I found that it improved the cover, not detracted from it. Adding to the wonderful retro vibe it has. So while I would never advocate actively harming a Prog... you know if you did...

Alas the ugly damage inside didn't improve the rest of the Prog and this really was a bum note for me. Possibly the worst Prog I can think of since I returned to the fold some six years ago.

IndigoPrime

I quite enjoyed the Prog, but it's not quite firing on all cylinders for me. Gods Go Crazy continues to be the highlight of my Prog reading, with some great twists and turns, and I'm happy enough with the art switch. When Judges Go Bad (Again) shows Wagner's mastery of his own creation, as always, but I do hope there's some kind of twist coming. It seems quite... run of the mill. Rip-Out-Your-Spleen Wolf seems the Prog's Marmite, but I'm enjoying it. Sure, the wolves aren't well designed, but the strip itself is a bit different, and, frankly, 2000 AD could do with more protagonists that are women.

On the flip side, the Past Imperfect read to me as grey as the art. It wasn't bad, but I felt no need to go back to it. As for Slaine... I still don't see the point, although there were at least hints this run might affect the character (albeit in the sense of it being a major ret-con). I thought the art was pretty good, at least in design and execution, and not so much in terms of storytelling prowess. The script, though, again left me wondering: why?

Frank

Quote from: Richard on 31 August, 2013, 01:43:33 PM
Steve Bisley back on Slaine for the first time since 1990.

Fully embracing my inner nerd, I'm going to point out that Richard has made the same error here as whoever lettered the credit box of Bisley's first published strip work on The ABC Warriors (555). Since I spent the next week obsessively studying the inking technique and copying individual panels of that strip, the name STEVE Bisley made an indelible impression on my formative consciousness.

It didn't realise the error until I decided to spend the next few weeks drawing a biro pen reproduction of the final splash page of Hammerstein on A1 paper. I noticed the artist has signed that page Simon Bisley '87, and I went back to check subsequent progs, which credited him with his real forename. It still took ages for me not to automatically think of Bisley by that other name, and I had to instantly autocorrect myself before the name travelled from my brain to my mouth for years afterwards.

Well ... I bet that was fascinating for everyone.


The Enigmatic Dr X

We have patches where the prog is great. Others when it isn't.

Such is the joy of an anthology.
Lock up your spoons!

The Enigmatic Dr X

I'd add - what is the point of this Slaine?

For old readers, it's a jerky retread. For the new, it is incomprehensible gibberish. The draw of great artists is a double edged sword when the prog is on a low. And is there an expected influx of American readers, hence the American style Dredd that panders to the one dimensional fascist cop school of Dredd?

Lock up your spoons!

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 31 August, 2013, 04:34:43 PM
I'd add - what is the point of this Slaine?

For old readers, it's a jerky retread. For the new, it is incomprehensible gibberish. The draw of great artists is a double edged sword when the prog is on a low.

I'm with you there; I said exactly the same thing last week, and yet paradoxically this week Slaine was the only thing that made the prog worth reading for me. Ten Seconders just isn't the same without Bagwell, Age of the Wolf was given up on long ago, and while Dredd has done nothing wrong it feels a bit... 'less than essential.'

The Past Imperfect, sad to say, was full of problems. There was altogether too much 'nudge-nudge, wink-wink' to the reader with almost every historical reference, not least the final line, and yet it managed to be full of anachronisms at the same time - would Englishmen of 1836 really have used jarring americanisms like 'Help me out here?'  The fourth panel on page one makes the cardinal error of first speaker's balloon coming after that of the second speaker; and the dialogue on page four just has words missing altogether. 'We [had] better get out of this place', 'Would you do [me] the honour of returning home...' It all leads to the feeling that this was comissioned in a rush to fill a gap - and having bashed the script and lettering I might as well complete the hat-trick and confess I wasn't particularly keen on the art, either. The writer ought to read Rudyard Kipling's 'Mark of the Beast' as a great example of were-beasts in the time of Empire.

And so to Slaine, which I've struggled to see the point of week after week beyond the nice art. Best thing in the prog by a country mile. For the first time this series we actually have a new story, and that makes all the difference; this isn't an inspid retelling of Horned God, but a new sequence of events set just after the point in the original story in which Slaine killed Feg. For once I didn't know how things were going to play out, so it actually kept my attention, and Ukko and Nests's little asides were great comic value. The art was gorgeous - recognisably Bisley but a clearly new and evolved style.

A marginal improvement on last week overall, but still not the finest example of Tharg's craft.
@jamesfeistdraws

Bolt-01

Can I just say that as much as I love McMahon, why did he put Billy-Ray Cyrus on the cover.

UncleBaal

Judge Lock is totally the gate for Judge Death's return, a good Judge forced to embrace the brutality and then turn...

A.Cow

I hate to be so negative but Past Imperfect's artwork sucked the life from the story.  I haven't seen such frozen, statue-like, soulless figures since Robin Smith worked for Tharg.

Sorry to be down on your work, Mr New-Artist-Whose-Name-I've-Forgotten (apologies, haven't got the prog to hand).  You clearly have talent and potential but please try something more dynamic next time!

O Lucky Stevie!

The sublime genius of Mick McMahon! Can you name any other artist who could give a flagship character a Royston Valley Job Centre makeover that simultaneously maintains their Antediluvian  Cool As All Thwok swagger?

Stevie's going to be sorely disappointed when Diamond finally ship this  if Simon Bisley hasn't drawn Earth goddess Danu "as played by Steve Pemberton" on the interior pages.
"We'll send all these nasty words to Aunt Jane. Don't you think that would be fun?"

PsychoGoatee

Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 31 August, 2013, 04:34:43 PMAnd is there an expected influx of American readers, hence the American style Dredd that panders to the one dimensional fascist cop school of Dredd?
I always find this kind of post odd. Any Americans reading Dredd aren't Marvel/DC zombies, they're fans who do enjoy indie comics and stuff outside of the standard formulas. There is all variety of indie comics in the US, Saga being a very popular sci-fi one, etc etc. So it's odd to suggest the kind of US reader who'll check out an anthology like 2000AD is only interested in "one dimensional fascist cop" stories. Just saying.

PsychoGoatee

Plus, I assume at this point John Wagner runs the show pretty much how he sees fit, which is a good thing. We have no reason to assume his artistic freedom isn't pretty strong on this book, I doubt he's giving much mind to the sales numbers and demographics etc.