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So we all know Dredd is meant to age in real time, but how old do we think Johnny Alpha is meant to be?

Strontium Dog, whilst being a strip that had appeared frequently, has not appeared anything like weekly, there were big gaps between the publication of books of the "Life and Death of Johnny Alpha" where the action followed on from the same point in the story, and he actually spent a big chunk of time being "dead"*.

So how much is he meant to have aged since his first appearance 40 or so years ago? I guess it is actually much less than 40 years.

*(Bizarrely supporting characters like Middenface don't seem to have aged any more, despite having lived through the whole period).

[The Last American]

Does any one else find it strange there isn't a "last comic read" thread in a similar vein to the last movie watched or box set obsession one? I.e. somewhere to witter on about what you have just read without having to start a whole thread dedicated to it.

Anyway I wanted to comment on The Last American without resurrecting the old threads on it. I finally got round to reading my special edition hardback, having owned it for over a year and having brought it on last year's summer holiday and not ever having read it before.

Given the creative team (Wagner, Grant and McMahon) and the comments on the old thread (" absolute classic" ) I had high expectations. But I have to same to say I was disappointed. The outcome was telegraphed from pretty early on i.e. [spoiler]it was obvious there was no-one else around[/spoiler] and McMahon's art was after what I view as his classic period.

Can't believe a thread hasn't been started on this already.

Several news sources were  reporting yesterday that there are plans for a Game of Thrones prequel set thousands of years before the current series.

[Dredd]

We get a new Dredd thriller by TG Eglington and Staz Johnson. The Sons of Booth are back. Will have to see how this develops.

Jaegir is firing on all cylinders. Just loved the robot who has a bit of a K-2SO feel to him. The bit were [spoiler]they chuck him out of the hoppa craft[/spoiler] is just LOL.

Sinister Dexter - yeah just great. But there is  some massive continuity errors going on in this episode. Just look at the arrangement of the cups and plates on the table between page 1 panels 1 and 2, and by panel 5 they have disappeared altogether. Plus the position of the third chair changes in panel 5. Just the sort of thing my wife loves to notice when we watch TV. It seems odd, having listened to the recent Thrillcast which explained the lengths Steve Yeowell went to in  the Prog 2073 story to get this sort of thing correct.

Anderson carries on as before. Its ok, nothing spectacular. And I definitely prefer David Roach's black and white art.

Strontium Dog great story, but for me its let down just a little by the art not quite being Carlos' best.

To finish there is a letters page, with a couple of letters echoing what seems to be a widely held opinion that the stories since 2073 have been great, if what immediately preceded that wasn't to everyone's taste.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the Prog this week.

[Judge Dredd]

My Prog didn't turn up today but at least that gave me a chance to read the Meg instead.

A fairly solid 2nd part to Judge Dredd which includes a bit of backstory for Harry Heston. The art by Jake Lynch looks more and more like Henry Flint with each story he does.

It just seems wrong to criticise Lawless but it seems we have been waiting months for Munce to launch the attack on Badrock. So it has finally started and it does seem a little [spoiler]unbelievable that Munce's Gunships could be repelled by ground fire. Lawson even says as much at one point.[/spoiler]

Devlin Waugh wraps up with a fairly cutting moment between the brothers.

Koburn is good fun.

Dredd moves on at a fair old pace (which is quite a contrast to stuff in the Prog over the last few weeks.) The name of one of the missing Tek Judges is a dead give away to what has happened to them.

We also get a letters page.

As I have posted on other threads Iron Maiden have been working their way up my list of favourite bands. Right now they sit just about at the top (or Manic Street Preachers depending on how much I have been listening to them.)

Given that I have been reappraising them and have even listened to The X Factor and Virtual XI properly for the first time (it's only taken 20 odd years) and actually they are not that bad once you get used to Blaze Bayley not being Bruce Dickinson.

So my questions are:

1. Is it worth getting Bruce Dickinson's solo albums? I bought Tattooed Millionaire when it came out but thought it was only alright.

2. What about Maiden's live albums? I have Live after Death but haven't listened to it in years as I have it only on vinyl and have no means of playing it. As I understand it Rock in Rio has a cracking version of Sign of the Cross with Bruce on vocals( a song I have only just become aware of.)

3. What about other Maiden solo albums / members playing in other bands e.g. Adrian Smith in  Psycho Hotel?

So any thoughts/ recommendations?

[Dredd]

Dredd continues with Black Snow part 2 and we get some exposition as to why Maksim is doing what he is doing, some more Sov Block ted tape as a delaying tactic and a winter uniform for Dredd.

Slaine whilst still having a lot of talking managed to move the plot along quite a lot for once.

I have reached the point I always do with Indigo Prime where I don't really have a clue what is going on anymore and am not sure if I will try to rectify that.

SinDex wasn't the best episode.

Absalom now seems to be moving towards the expected wrap up.

Overall for me, a below average Prog. We have had much better recently.

I am doing a Dante re-read and as it happens my library had the first two Kingdom books so I borrowed them and have read them this week.

On Dante I have finished Tsar Wars book1 but book 2 is out of print and my library doesn't have it. A good few of the later books I need are also out of print.

So there was nothing else for it but to track down and sort through a load of back Progs from the 1200s onwards - a daunting task.  I didn't quite finish but I made enough progress to find the next two Dante stories and the rest of Kingdom, and have bundles of each 100  Progs mostly in order, with a few yet to be found.  I know where they are  - in big piles of other Progs and Megs.

So that a bit of a result.

It also puts me in a good position to re-read big chunks of Savage later too.

[Cover]

Cover- Dredd

Nerve Centre - more new or returning thrills than you can shake a stick at - Greysuit , The Alienist and Hope coming soon to the Prog, and Devlin Waugh in the Meg (but we knew that already, right?).

Dredd- as I feared, a fairly by the numbers conclusion that mostly wastes the potential of the reality filter idea.

Brink - superb as ever. Will be sad to see this end in a couple of weeks. Hopefully there will be a new series soon.

Defoe - now that "whodunnit" has been revealed, this seems much more straight forward. More action, with the politics replaced with a swipe at religion instead (so still a standard Pat Mills episode then!). Not sure if it is just me, but the art seems to go up a level this week, especially the panel on the bottom of page 5 with Defoe holding  his gun.

Grey Area - sorry didn't grab me again this week, which is a shame as it is normally one of my favourites.


Hunted - now beginning to read even more like 1980's Rogue. The reveal at the end left me a bit cold - [spoiler]I knew it was going to be a GI, just not which one...but then again there aren't really that many to choose from[/spoiler].

Cover - Grey Area.

Dredd - really nice idea but it seems to head off in a less interesting direction on the last page, which is a bit of a shame.

Brink - if you are liking this then it's good, if you're in the camp who feel it has gone off the boil, this won't change your mind. Me - I like it.

Defoe - bit of politics as ever, but there is also some action.

Grey Area - this is a strip I generally like and it is by one of my favourite writers. But I didn't really like this episode. Mr Kwukwalf was all a bit Jabba and I didn't like the way they had him speaking.

Hunted - I am rapidly losing interest.

And the is a letters page- hurrah!

A while back there was a thread asking whether people read comics for the story or the art or both.

I said that I thought both were important. A lot of people said they would read something for the art alone.

So I thought I would put it to the test. My local library is well stocked with Graphic Novels and it has a copy of Camelot 3000 which is by the favourite ever artist Brian Bolland and written by Mike Barr, who I have to admit I have never heard of.

So how did I get on? A bit mixed to be honest.

I found the story to be so-so and had to force myself to read the first few chapters. The story never really became engaging of itself, but there were some nice character driven things. The best of which was Sir Tristan's desire to become a man again.

Some though were not to my taste. I found the whole Arthur - Guinevere- Lancelot triangle to be tiresome and some-what unbelievable. e.g. Arthur just announces he is going to marry Guinevere without even asking her and she just goes along with it; Arthur banishes her and Lancelot for their infidelity but literally within  half a chapter, he has summoned them back, in a very mater of that way, to deal with the alien threat and all is forgotten.

Towards the end the story just descends into a by the numbers rush to wrap everything up.

So did Bolland's art save it?

Well no...not really. In fact, and I never ever in a whole century of Sunday's let alone just a month of them, thought I would say this, I was getting a bit bored of Bolland's art  by the end and found his trade mark style of rendering everything by hatching, a bit ...well tiresome.

Part of the problem is possibly I don't think his style suits this kind of story (or maybe I just so associate him with Dredd it is hard to see him draw anything else). Another problem was the colouring was just too garish, and the cover image (of the TPB) was just so much better than the internal pages, which made you think what they could have been.

So, over all, it seems in this case, I found it to be a matter of the story dragging the art down.

Quick question for all you metal heads out there.

I keep getting ads on Facebook about Avenged Sevenfold and now Amazon is emailing me recommendations for them.

They are not a band I know anything about, so the question is are they any good?

As a reference point I like Metallica (which is why I think I am getting these targeted ads) plus also Iron Maiden, Guns n' Roses, Def Leppard and Faith No More.

Pretty surprised there isn't a thread for this already - or maybe I just can't see it.

Anyway Vol 2 is up for pre-order now.

I have just ordered mine.

Must get round to finishing off Vol 1.

[Dredd-]

So we are on the count down now with Dredd and Brink.

Dredd- the game is really afoot now.

Slaine - I might be in the minority but I like this.

Brink - ok going to have to go back and reread last week now.

Black Shuck - carries on as before, good stuff.

Grey Area. Not much happens - they are off back to Earth with a small surprise I guess.

[Judge Dredd:]

Can't believe the thread hasn't been bagged already, 24 hours after getting the Meg!

Judge Dredd: Rico and Koburn continue their mission in the Cursed Earth. After all the "I can't believe they are running a cross-over between the Prog and the Meg" fuss, the stories seem to have diverged into completely separate strands. I guess they will come back together at the end.

Realm of the Damned: I thought this was getting interesting last month, but this now just leaves me cold.

Blunt. New series: offworld colony - check.  Leader not popular with his men - check. Some disaster happens and they have to turn to an outsider- check. So, so far not too original then. But hey, let's see how it develops.


Lawless. Just great. Top story telling from the Abnett droid, and great art from the Winslade droid.

I have just been watching the BBC Four documentary Synth Britannia. It is a nice nostalgic look at the invention of electronic music in the 80's feature bands such as Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, The Human League, Yazoo, OMD, Ultravox, Eurythmics, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys.

A reminder to me that there is more to great music than the diet of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and Manic Street Preachers I have been on lately.

Anyway, enough of that...Phil Oakey was wearing a "You have been judged" T -Shirt featuring the Dark Judges as drawn by Brian Bolland in the video to "Together in Electric Dreams".

Wow!!!

I had never noticed that before. I do seem to vaguely recall he is (or was ) a Squaxx (?).

I have just discovered that one of my favourite bands, Manic Street Preachers, have been issuing re-mastered versions of their back catelogue. Just shows how out of touch I am with music these days that I only just noticed.

Anyway according to what I have read the albums now have a "cleaner" / "less raw" sound.

With an album like Generation Terrorists the "rawness" is part of the attraction IMHO.

So has anyone got these and the originals who can offer an opinion on whether it is worth getting them?

Normally on a Weds I would be adding my two penneth to the Prog thread. But not this week as I discovered the shop where I normally buy my Progs to read on the tube on the way into work, has closed for good. It is WHSmith in Ealing Broadway station. Now the whole station is being given make over for Cross Rail but who knows if there will be a Smith's in it in future and whether they will stock the Prog and the Meg, as it seems to me they don't all.

This seems to be part of a trend. There used to be a number of shops where I could buy it, but they have either stopping selling it or closed down completely, both near home and near work. Indeed the only place any where near either that sells it now is WHSmiths in Waterloo, but that is twice as far a walk to my office as my normal stop. But on the plus side it always has loads of Progs and Megs and sells the Mega Collection.

Anyway bit sad as my weekly ritual for the last 25 years or so is now at an end (hopefully only temporarily).

I guess I could subscribe, but am a bit put off by the stories you see on here sometimes about mangled Progs and I am fairly fussy when it comes to the condition of my Prog.

Ok sorry for this, I have only just got round to reading this over a year later.

I thought it was good, certainly much better than IDW's other Dredd efforts. Great art by Carl Critchlow certainly helped. Very much like what he did in Prog 1812 on Trifecta.

Anyway I have a dumb question. Was Ashberry actually [spoiler]her Dad?[/spoiler]

I thought he was [spoiler]because a) I expected him to be as why else show him in the first episode? and b) he definitely looked like an older version of him c) what is the very last panel about if it isn't him? But I am unsure as he doesn't acknowledge Anderson as his daughter and there is no reference to it in any of the dialogue. I can accept her not recognising him a she was only a baby when separated from him and it is made clear she had her memories suppressed.[/spoiler]

Oh fxxx me, it's really worth it to re-read this issue! Judge Smiley appears in Low-Life AND Simping Detective!!

Now I'm a bit confused.

Having recently re-read Trifecta in the Mega Collection I am now going back to see what the forum had to say about it at the time.

So had Judge Smiley appeared before? I don't remember it if he did - I had thought he was made up for the story, retro-actively inserted into continuity and only named as "Smiley" in Prog 1812. So how did Goaty know his name in Prog 1805?