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QuoteI think the reboot/redesign idea seems to have legs - let's do it!
So, if 2000AD was being launched today, or was a Marvel comic, or was a boys comic in the 50s, or whatever, how would you have designed your favorite thrills?
Quote from: Steve DentonMixed up 2000ad, the greatest crossovers that never happened. Nemesis and Dan Dare together for the first time, Nikolai Dante and the Space Girls? Dredd taking out Big Dave? no? Well if you think you can do better you think of one!
QuoteThe Way of Flesh
In the distance, jagged mountains stood dark and grim against the dismal skies like eerie monoliths built by some extinct race of giants. A biting wind drove the falling snow against a countryside already stripped bare by endless winter months.
Deep into the earth burrowed the cold, and far and wide did it spread, freezing trees at their roots and seeds in their coats until it came to an ancient burial ground and seeped into the bones of the dead that rested there, and causing them to shiver. So long had it been since Mother Earth felt the twinge of life She mistook the shivering of the dead for birth pangs and heaved them forth from her womb.
The dead were hungry for flesh, and in search flesh they wandered the wastes. And they came to a village, but it was abandoned; and they found the occasional hovel, but these were unoccupied; and once they happened upon a man they thought to be sleeping only to discover much to their disappointment that he was buried under the ice and could not be eaten. So they wandered till they came to the edge of a wood.
Blackbirds in their thousands were perched in the skeletal branches of the trees, wearied from carrying frozen souls to the Otherworld. Eyeing the dead as they approached, one of the birds said to the others, 'I know many of these men, for I gave them passage to The-World-Beyond-The-World: there is Medrawd the Quiet and Hengist the Strong and Eirik Chiselspear, and Tamun the Stump and Cullen of the Wide Mouth.'
'And Hogni the Not Normal,' said another, 'and Skuld the Demented.'
'And Madog Stag-Shanks and Shavran the Surly – how can it be that the dead walk?'
'Be ye not concerned,' cackled old Badb the crow, 'for this be the way of flesh. So flesh dies, so shall flesh rise. Flesh feedeth the soil and flesh sprouteth from the soil. What goeth into the earth always returneth. But the earth hath not tasted flesh in some time and starveth as we starveth – yet our Earth Mother in all her mercy hath regurgitated the flesh before us to feed her children. It may not be the best meal we'll ever have, but come children, let us not deny ourselves the gift given by our goddess.'
And Old Badb led the way, leaping into the air and spreading her black wings; and the blackbirds in their thousands followed, a column of shadows first swelling against the murky white and gray skies then descending upon the dead, scraping flesh from bone, plucking eyes from skulls and tongues from mouths, gnawing on earlobes and pecking holes in skulls, and ripping and scratching and clawing, and feasting, feasting, feasting. And in moments the dead were in ribbons, tattered and fraying, held together by only threads of sinew and strands of tissue; and in moments more even the scraps were eaten and the bones were stripped clean and the dead fell into piles, dead once more.
Snow drifted across the flesh of the Earth Mother.
The End
QuoteSnow Fright
Hello, my little darling Squaxx. Hop up onto my nerve centre and let me tell you a bedtime story. Don't mind that, it's just a banana I'm saving for my supper. All snuggled down and comfy? Good...
Once upon a time there was mean old, grumpy old, gruff old polar bear named Shako.
He was very happy as a polar bear, because it meant he got to eat lovely, juicy seals and take the piss out of the foolish walruses. But one day, Shako ate something he shouldn't have eaten and the CIA came looking for him to get it back.
What fun Shako had! How the CIA men screamed and burst so! That mean old, grumpy old, gruff old polar bear had never enjoyed himself quite so much in all his life. How he laughed as he popped the CIA men's heads between his jaws! How he chuckled to watch the CIA men with their legs chewed off still trying to crawl away! How he harrumphed at the way their fragile skin peeled so easily! Oh yes, Shako had never been happier.
Until they shot him dead and ripped his guts out. Shako didn't like that at all and thought it was jolly unsporting, but the CIA men were pleased even though the thing Shako had eaten was leaking a bit.
The walruses were overjoyed at this turn of events and had a great big party. The seals were invited, too, and also a contingent of completely lost penguins who had arrived in error due to the sketchy geo-biological knowledge of this storyteller. Even if it didn't happen, though, it was still a jolly good party.
But, out in the howling white vastness, something stirred. Something mean and grumpy and gruff. Stinky and white and dead, it slouched towards the party. The sounds of walrus merriment filled its frozen ears and enraged its beatless heart. The walruses and the seals, and especially the penguins, were astounded and more than a little terrified to see the zombie of Shako crashing their party.
Thereafter, the walruses held their parties infrequently – and whenever they tried the zombie of Shako would appear to break it up and maul the guests to death. All seemed lost until a lone walrus warrior arrived in response to the Walrus King's plea for help. But Beowalrus was no match for the zombie of Shako, and the ice ran red with little chunks of blubber and gore.
Now, my children, the zombie of Shako is still out there, howling mournfully in the coldest winds. Take care, my poppets, for wherever there is snow and ice and the sounds of a party, wherever the howl of the blizzard mingles with the songs of the merry, there will you find the zombie of Shako, waiting in the white, to chew your little head off.
Sleep soundly, my darlings.
QuoteCarnage
No-one knows how it started. A technical malfunction; a disgruntled employee; some vengeful god we no longer believed in.
However it started, we couldn't have imagined how it would end.
-
Resyk was running backwards. The engineers said it was impossible, the machinery wouldn't work that way. But we saw it. We went in with our disbelief and our skepticism and our readiness to fire whoever had broken the facility and we saw it. The conveyors were running in reverse.
Bodies emerged from the great jaws of death. The dead of many years, their limbs contorted, their bones broken. Back they came, nameless, faceless, story after story of mortality in our great city.
And as we watched, it started. The movement. A twitch here. A shudder over there. Limbs straightened, eyes opened, and before us, right there before us in the control room, the dead came back to life.
-
We couldn't contain them in Resyk; there were so many. Our only option, our only way to save ourselves, was to open the main doors into the streets of Mega City One. What could they do, these shuffling half-souls? What could their rotted hands and their maggot-ridden brains really do?
-
They moved quietly, slowly, silent as snow. As they encountered the living, they remembered the horror of their deaths and the pain in their still-living souls as they rolled into the fires of Resyk.
They began to attack whoever they found on the streets. Clawing at faces and tearing at limbs. Gouging at eyes and biting at flesh. Digging and digging through the skin, through the muscle, through the fat, ripping apart the living as revenge for the dead.
-
Later, hours or days later, everyone was hidden. Only the dead walked the city. And in that time, with no-one to destroy, they evolved, they learned. They remembered.
Now they sought revenge on those who sent them to their deaths: the driver of the speeding vehicle, the doctor who failed to diagnose until it was too late, the greasy perp with the knife. Each went their own way, finding their prey, taking their revenge.
They learned again. They learned that some had the same target for revenge. Some came together, and sought out the Judges who had condemned them.
When we saw the Judges fall, we knew something had to be done. The dead had come from the flames; to the flames they should return.
-
Those of us who dared, those of us who have seen our own loved ones crushed and gouged by the risen dead, those of us who now have nothing to lose: we walk the streets and we create fire. Great swathes of fire – flames channelled down streets, pinning the dead back, pushing them back towards Resyk.
As the flames catch the skeletal buildings and the shitholes and the dens, we do not care. Even as the fire catches our homes, we push on and on.
-
From the sanctity of powerful places, we watch as the city burns.