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Prog 2073 - Future Visions!

Started by Leigh S, 17 March, 2018, 10:49:34 AM

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Richard

We just saw her in the 40th anniversary prog.

Jacqusie

Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 18 March, 2018, 07:20:05 PM
Quote from: Jacqusie on 18 March, 2018, 11:59:54 AM
There is the question too of where she is in the current Stronty set up/timeline?

Is she frozen / asleep in space or something?  :think:

Last seen briefly at the end of Mutant Spring (prog 1821, I think?) in a silent cameo. I do wish we could end the coyness about these characters and just clarify where they are, even if it is to just remove them from play. Say what you like about Ennis/Hogan's Gronk stuff, but at least it gave some sort of direction and resolution to a once-major character that the main strip had abruptly dropped without mention.


The way I figured it, Durham Red is around in this Stronty Dog timeline somewhere, but I can't rememeber when she was supposedly 'frozen' etc and 25900,000 years later came back in that very odd series in the future I couldn't best folllow.

Oh and the last SD series - Repo Men was in progs 1961–1971 (2015–2016)

...At this rate that's a story every two / three years.

I can understand after the chequred history that people would like to see both creators stay on the job, but someone mentioned Chris Weston on Stronty... now that would make a brilliant one off story ey?

Richard

Given the impressive level of detail in Chris Weston's work, I suspect we'd be waiting even longer between stories. Let's not break up a winning team again and keep CW on Dredd.

Bye, Dan Abnett's Durham Red stories were brilliant. The third one was hard to follow week by week, but all in one go it makes perfect sense.

Alec Worley

Bah! Can't be arsed to figure out the quote function on this thing and I wanna go watch Walking Dead. Anyway, re: "Where's Durham Red during all this...?"

Following the publication of The Final Solution (1988-90), Durham Red appeared in two solo stories, both by Grant and Ezquerra: her debut solo outing Island of the Damned (1991-92) and The Golden Mile (1993). Both of these would appear to be set prior to Johnny's death. Several other solo stories that appeared decades later, including Grant and Ezquerra's The 'Nobody Wants This Job' Job (2012), Running Out of Patients by Leah Moore, John Reppion, Jan Duursema and Dylan Teague (2014), and The Calling by Robert Murphy, Duane Redhead, and Kirsty Swan (also 2014), also appear to be set while Johnny's still alive and Red is off happily doing her own thing.

Following Johnny's kicking of the bucket within by the Strontiverse timeline, Durham appeared among the ensemble cast of the spin-off series Strontium Dogs (note the plural), as Johnny's former comrades drift off through the galaxy looking (and mostly failing) to find something interesting to do. In Crossroads (1994) by Peter Hogan and Nigel Dobbyn, she gatecrashed a bounty sought after by fellow mutants the Gronk, Bullmoose Saxon, and Feral Jackson, before running into a blind witch known as 'the Walking Lady'.

In Mirrors – a Hogan/Harrison solo story that followed later that year – Durham has a good long think in her underwear, almost gets burned at the stake, then summons a vampire army and takes over the world. Fortunately, it was all just a dream-vision brought on by the Walking Lady, and its back to Strontium Dogs with High Moon (1995). This one opens with Red undergoing one of those trippy dream quests in the desert that were always popular in the '90s, before she settles into helping Bullmoose and the Gronk search for a cure for the helplessly polymorphic Feral.

Stopping off at the Doghouse, she learns that she can no longer be given commissions due to a whopping great bounty placed on her head by the Goth-King (whose relative Durham murdered back in Island of the Damned). Grounded until further notice, Durham quits being a Stront, says her goodbyes and sets off to seek her fortune among the stars alongside Johnny's old pal Frinton Fuzz. This leaves Bullmoose and the Gronk to get back on with curing Feral...  High Moon is notable for Red's costume change, from the Ezquerra's bandolier-and-chainmail-loincloth ensemble to Harrison's 'manga space babe' look. Hogan and Harrison's Deals followed later in 1995, for which my notes appear to have vanished... :P

By 1996 it was decided Strontium Dogs had had its day. In the Durham solo series Night of the Hunters (disowned by Hogan and curtailed and rewritten by editor David Bishop), Durham offers out the Goth King in a Hunger Games-style televised deathmatch full of freaks and killers. (Poor Frinton cops a sniper's bullet meant Durham.)

Dan Abnett was then charged with tying up the loose ends by writing the solo one-shot Epicedium (Abnett's first work on the character). Here Durham mourns Frinton's passing with a week-long bender that takes over an entire city. She makes her peace with the Goth-King, who cancels his bounty, allowing Durham to walk off into the starset with an assassin-priest named Toroni (with whom she hooked up in Night of the Hunters). All of which paved the way for Durham to wake from cryo-sleep a thousand years in the future in Abnett and Harrison's milestone three-book series that began with The Scarlet Cantos in 1998.

Durham also appeared in the terrific little series called The Scarlet Apocrypha (scripted by Abnett), which ran in the Meg throughout 2002 and posited Durham as a kind of Moorcockian Eternal Champion, popping up in various timelines (feudal Japan, 60s Italy on the set of an exploitation movie, and so on).

Hope this helps.

Dandontdare

Cheers, Alec, very comprehensive. Also -
QuoteDurham has a good long think in her underwear,
:lol: :lol: :lol:

ZenArcade

I always have and always will love Simon Harrison's work on the Final Solution; I have a similar affection for Mark Harrison on Durham Red. Z
Ed is dead, baby Ed is...Ed is dead

Richard

Thanks Alec! Must have taken you a while.

Hoping that The Scarlet Cantos makes it into the Ultimate Collection.

wedgeski

Dammit! I had decided to take a break from the prog and switched my sub over to the Megazine. 2073 was to be my last prog for a while, but it was just so good, I'm now back on a combi sub.

*shakes fist to the heavens* Thaaaarggg!

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Richard on 20 March, 2018, 02:27:33 PMHoping that The Scarlet Cantos makes it into the Ultimate Collection.
Matt confirmed a while back that the three Rebellion paperbacks (Scarlet Cantos; Vermin Stars; Empty Suns) were effectively being combined into a single Durham Red hardback in the UC.

Colin YNWA

Anyone else not got their sub copy yet? Its been a LONG time since I've waited this long and while we did get a second bout of snow that was Sunday and cleared pretty quick. Dagnabbit I want my Prog.

Jacqusie

Quote from: Alec Worley on 19 March, 2018, 09:33:56 PM
She makes her peace with the Goth-King, who cancels his bounty, allowing Durham to walk off into the starset with an assassin-priest named Toroni (with whom she hooked up in Night of the Hunters). All of which paved the way for Durham to wake from cryo-sleep a thousand years in the future


Thanks Alec for that fabulous recap and summary. I enjoyed Peter Hogans work, at the time it felt a bit like some old wounds were healing with the series and the characters started to reappear.

So Durham Red went off on her merry way at somepoint to the sleep machines, but where is she in the current series of Stronty Dog?

My guess is that's she's havng her snooze drifting off somewhere in time and space, but she's a great character to revisit in a different way as per the Scarlet Apocrypha.

If only someone would write a new story for her, maybe with a bit of a re-design and a different artist that's earned his spurs on some big stories... like Dredd... that would be ace!  :)


broodblik

Thank You Alec. Alec mentioned on his website that he is working with Ben Willsher on a new Durham Red strip http://www.alecworley.com/.

Back to the Prog: I must say that all the strips I enjoyed with stellar art and great stories. I am not the biggest Sin/Dex fan and the strip was really funny and felt like I experience the same scenario in a restaurant.


When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Proudhuff

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 18 March, 2018, 04:15:43 PM
Well, as someone who's been a bit down on the Prog of late, this one really hit it out of the park. A nice cover and a great set-up in Dredd, with some superb Weston art (apart from, again, this weird tendency from most 2000 AD artists to default to every Judge being a bloke). Here's hoping Gerhart gets through this, and Dredd continues to recognise he needs allies.

Jaegir's not put a foot wrong so far, and so it continues here. Coleby/O'Grady are in fine form on art duties.

The Future Shock and Sin/Dex were quite light in nature, but worked very well for a jumping-on Prog, adding some strips that were self-contained, smart, and amusing (if, in the Future Shock's case, very black humour).

Anderson: nice to see Roach back on art duties. Script-wise, good to see Beeby get another run at the character. Also, well done to Roach for not making Anderson – who's now, what, 50-odd? – look like a glamour model.

Judge Fear: I'm not too fussed about the change in art style. Cornwell provided some creepy stuff, and a good sense of pace and layout variation. It in some ways felt a bit old-school in nature, which worked well for me. Script-wise, it was good again to see Kek-W showcase the power of these undead foes, and make them genuinely scary.

Strontium Dog: almost feels like a return to the status quo, which I won't complain about. Honestly, I was not a fan of that entire war arc. This looks like it'll be some really solid Stront.

This ^^^ yes even the Judge Feardie bit...
DDT did a job on me

Tiplodocus

Top class jumping on prog.
Enjoyed it all.
Fantastic work from all departments.
And a gorgeous, bonus centre spread.
Thank you, Tharg.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Richard

It's nice that Tharg still commissions a centre spread star scan once in a while.