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Today was 2000AD day. Got the Meg, the Prog and Amazon kindly delivered Cabalistics Creepshow and Dante:Tsar Wars1.

I have to confess that I am slightly disappointed in the packaging of Cabalistics. Some scetches from Dom, that´s all the extras.

I mean would it have killed them to do a foreword or afterword? Some witty or sarcastic commentary from Rennie? It didn´t even have a "What happened before". Aren´t these collections for the people out there in the bookshops who don´t read comics? As this begins with "Krystalnacht" it is rather hard for new readers to get this.

Dante hasn´t got more extras, but at least he merited a page of basic facts.

Has anybody infos about the 2000AD books?

I bought quite a few of them. It was a mixed lot, sure. Bishops Dante novels I liked, Durham Red too (even if this was Warhammer 40K light). Some Dredd were quite good, some were sadly a wasted opportunity, especially the Andersons.

But either they don´t believe in updating their website or the line is put on hiatus. Still no announcements for 2007.

I have to send the subs-service some new credit-card infos.
But my mails keeps coming back. I send them to subscription@2000adonline.com

Does anyone know what the problem is?

As Amazon Germany couldn?t be arsed to place the new Nikolai Dante and the Cabs collections in their database, I ordered them in the UK.

My order at amazon uk was at 3d of February.

The Dante arrived this week - after 7 weeks!

The Cabs did not. I got a mail. Now it is another 2 weeks till they send it. Maybe.

This is ridiculous! I got stuff from Hongkong within a week.

What is the problem? Microscopic print-runs? The Inability of Amazon to obtain a GN in-country within 2 fucking month? Is this just foreign orders or this common?

I just saw that you can order directly here on the site. Is this a valid alternative?

According to the Black Flame website there will be a Caballistics novel, Hell on Earth, already written by some writer called Mike Wild.

Has anyone any infos about this project?

Normally I am looking forward to the novels, even if continuity is shaky, so what if the novel is well written, and I enjoyed them more often than not, but this series is so much Rennies (and of course Reardons) child that in this case I am a bit sceptic if this will work :-) I mean, the story is in full swing just right now, this can?t be easy to put a novel into the cracks.

Subs came early this week :-)

Cover does nothing for me, I guess it ranks under okay.

No Droid-Life :-(

DREDD: This is getting better every week. I have to confess I thought this would be a typical revenge story, and I still guess it will end in tears and mayhem, but this unfolds slowly and great. This has a terrible matter-of-factness; I liked the fact how much emphasis is put on Dredds efforts despite this being an everyday case. And the art is perfect for the story.

SAVAGE: I am not the biggest Mills-Fan out there, I find his Slaine just boring. But this is good. The "official" report was chilling. Thought the characterisation of the president a bit too villian, but the "let them live in yurts" comment was a good one. Adlards art is great.

LEATHERJACK: I like this. Even if the bad guys win.

SPACE: It has atmosphere. Even if I think it sometimes a bit too dark, some panels i.e. storytelling is a bit confusing. It hasn?t become the most gripping story in the prog for me, but it will be intriguing how this one comes together.

ROBOHUNTER: Another character of the "old" 2000AD which absolutly does nothing for me. Maybe it is me, but this "we screwed you out of your reward" gets a bit old.

On the whole good prog.

The other threads got me thinking, which series should they have cancelled insted of writing it into rubbish?

Doom Patrol after Morrison.
Swamp Thing after Veitch.

But those are the obvious.
Any more?

I never really knew what to make of Dante, as an relative latecommer to 2000AD (Prog 1236) the first Dante I read was "Fiends", which I guess wasn?t the best introduction.

I was missing so much back-story that it hurt the tales. Not that the storys were bad or that I didn?t like the art, but for a lot of the stuff I just couldn?t connect the necessary dots.

A couple of weeks ago I bought David Bishop?s novel. And suddenly it made click.

Bishop?s novels are frankly hit and miss for me, but this one was very good. It was a great introduction into Dante?s world and put a lot of the comic work into perspective. He really nailed the character and managed to work the huge back-story rather seamlessly into the tale.

After finishing this I had to have the DC collection to read the origin first hand.

This was so good that I sat down and re-read the whole Dante stuff in the progs.

Overnight I became a fan. (Even if I couldn?t decide which artist is better, Frazer or Burns :-) )

And I came to wonder how much one is prone with an long epic like this to dismiss stuff as boring or not very interesting. The whole mom-stuff in the last progs was suddenly much more interesting; it made sense for Dante to care for the two youngsters so much that he is willing to betray his mom, nuances like not promising the dying Margueritte to protect her und such things got a new dimension. Or the rather steep difference between the womanizing rogue and the scarred and bitter war-veteran, which I alsways found a bit jarring till now.

I guess this a problem for a lot of long runing epics and of course their setting. To be immersed in Dredd?s world is rather easy, with characters like Strontium Dog or Rogue Trooper you have to work a bit, if the the characters dind?t sweep you off your feet at first reading.

Or, as in this case, with Dante.

Now I am looking forward to the next tale, which makes the progs again a little bit more interesting than usual.

Just one question:

When?