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Just a quick thought, following on the trumps thread, but what was the last really good villain in 2000ad?

Dredd hasn't really had a bad guy to fight for years, has he? Where's the Murds or the Sabbats or the Deaths?

Mr Alpha, in his flashbacks, hasn't really squared off against anything alien (or even mutated!) for a while. Where are the odd silicon gangs calling people "squishies", the crab headed mutants or the alien empires?

Even Dante seems to have lost the red lobster aliens, and SinDex's potential invasion tale seems to have petered into silence.

It's all conspiracies and family dynasties these days. Is this a good thing? What about a simple bit of monster bashing?

Obviously, Slaine is an exception to this. Then again, every Slaine story is more or less the same - Moloch is the same as the three-armed Cythron. But where are the warp spasms? Too odd for kids today?

I miss the epic feeling of a world being threatened by the strange and ugly, with only our heros standing between us and an alien/ mutant/ demon barbecue.

So, what's the cause? Is it a drive to make the comic more sophisticated, pandering to us older readers? Are monsters simply too childish? Or can we expect to see the return of a lumbering, alien behemoth to the pages soon?

Anyone catch this on Sky movies last night? Bill Paxton stars and directs along with Matthew McConahughy. A bit predictable to anyone who has read a Future Shock, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Starts with a bloke telling the FBI that his brother is a serial killer, but is a bit more hokey than that.

Gotta agree with Trouty. They were no worse than any other serial fodder we've had, from Blackhawk thru' Firekind thru' Mambo. I feel both have been unjustly maligned for no reason, or at least no reasons which couldn't be applied to a dozen other strips.

And, as I've said before, I enjoyed Synammon very much. As an introduction to a universe for an on-going tale, I thought it worked very well. Even if the universe is a bit hackneyed and a Culture rip-off. So what? Lots of strips started that way and became popular (the easy examples being Dredd and the Eastwood universe, and SinDex and Pulp Fiction).

I think we can be a bit snotty about new strips. Bearing in mind the comic is weekly and the stories shorter, I think the recent tales - all of them - have done a good job of introducing characters and concepts yet have been maligned.

Their job was to entertain, and they entertained me.

Maybe this is the start of the Rebellion's all encompassing Dredd arc masterplan.

We have Savage fighting Volgs...
who use ABC warriors...
which invade the US...
who vote in Booth as president on a war ticket...
etc

six

Myself and five friends are all 30 this year (we all started school at the same time; we ARE the Class of '79!)

We are planning to do something together to celebrate, rather than have separate presents. This is seen as a Good Thing by the others as my birthday is boxing day and no one ever had the money or memory to buy me a present. (Blub).

Anyway, I suggested a parachute jump but this has been shot down (pun intended) due to the BA Baracus-type fears of one pal.

Any other ideas? We've done white water rafting, so that is out.

LOADS of folk in my office fell for this one, sent as an email to all staff:-

The people who maintain our computer equipment have advised me that many of our printer failures are due to paper being inserted the wrong way. Please make sure you put blank paper in the printer the blank side up.

An April fool, surely?

Dredd is known as "Monkfish" behind his back.

He's a tough, uncompromising cop who plays outside the rules but gets results.

For what it's worth, I found The Diamond Age to be far more enjoyable than Snow Crash. Both are still tops though.

Another highly recommended book is Spares by Michael Marshall Smith.

This is a top tale about celebs who clone themselves for body transplants, and the man who looks after them. MMS is fab, even if he does seem to have chucked SF for throllers. Only Forward is a mind-benind futureshock of a tale, and The Straw Men (a Koontz style thriller under the name Micheal Marshall) is good too.

The Forge of God and Blood Music are tops, both by Greg Bear and better than Eon.

BUT

the greatest sci-fi book I have ever read (in my view) is CITY by Clifford D. Simak. A collection of 6 long "short" stories (about 40 - 50 pages each) written after WW2 this is mind-blowing, moving, stuff.

It's written as an archaeological study of the remains of humnanity, in an attempt to work out if man was real or is a legend. Each story has a short (no more than a page) "academic" preamble by the "editors", who are professors at a Dog university. Dogs, being miles better than cats, inherit the earth for valid reasons set down in the book.

The main character, in all the stories bar the first, is a robot.

This is also, by far and away, one of the saddest books I have ever read.

Democracy has a price. The price is justice.

I'd turn up to something in Glasgow, provided I wasn't the only person who has never turned up to something before.

Oh, aye, and it was another fecking solicitor who told me the offer was accepted on Friday and then cancelled yesterday.

I am sufficiently petty that I spent yesterday afternoon investigating if I could report them for misleading another solictor.

I can't.

Bugger.

It DID happen in Scotland (in Cumbernauld, in fact).

This can and does happen in Scotland. A sale has two stages: missives and disposition. In Scotland, the sale is fixed when missives are concluded (3-4 weeks from offer). An offer (my offer) is conditional on all sorts of esciting things, such as reports from the local coal authority being in order and paperwork for any extensions etc being inspected. ANY offer, ANYwhere, can be rejected while there are conditions outstanding in the missives. Until these are resolved anyone can walk away without penalty (afterwards it can be done but the penalty is usually the cost of re-marketing). In England, gazumping can (I think) happen at any time.