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Prog 2060 - Fighting Torc!

Started by Colin YNWA, 04 December, 2017, 08:36:41 PM

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James Stacey

Quote from: Steve Green on 07 December, 2017, 09:25:36 AM
I don't often chip in on criticising these days, but I'm going to make an exception to the God lettering on Slaine and why I think it doesn't work at all.

Hand letterers like Tom Frame, Steve Potter, Dave Gibbons were very restrained in the use of non-standard lettering for special cases, such as the Dark Judges, Spirit Torquemada, Aliens, and the Biochips.

The heavy lifting is done by the style of the balloons, whether it's the dripping Dark Judges, twisted Torque or the scalloped balloons of the biochips, the type rarely changes.

Even in the case of the Dark Judges, dripping type is reserved for when it's needed and drops back to more regular lettering for the rest of the strip.
All of this! I found the Archons text ugly and jarring and the goddess text too lightweight so difficult to read. Both would have been 100% better with custom balloons and normal text. I wonder if it was direct from Uncle Pat?

Steve Green

I think he was asked about it here.

http://ecbt2000ad.libsyn.com/ecbt2000ad-ep346-an-interview-with-pat-mills

I seem to remember the answer Pat giving as no, but not sure where in the interview it is.

TordelBack

That was an utterly bizarre episode of Slaine.  I loved (and had been hoping for) SBD's interpretation of the Goddess and it was quite brilliant, although undermined by the most unnecessarily ghastly font choice in the history of 2000AD.  I liked the shouting across the country bit, and the lead in to the next chapter with New Troy and sliced-up Terry Thomas. But in between, WTF happened?  It wasn't only that it felt like two pages had been inadvertently dropped (not suggesting this actually happened), but Slaine's whole design seemed to change between panels.  What happened? How did Slaine defeat the stone warriors? How did Goddodin escape?  Wasn't the whole fight taking place in a chambered tomb?  Why'd Yortlebuzzgubbly just give up?  Very odd indeed, and a pretty messy conclusion to an otherwise solid story with some of the best art to ever grace the prog.

Dredd.  I dunno man.  If it wasn't for the boisterous art and maybe the dog surfing, I'm not sure I'd have got anything out of this story.  Another female Sov pal for Joe? What was the reason for the paperwork nonsense at the beginning, was it really just Kafkaesque humour? Was all this fuss for access to asteroid minerals?  When the Meg already has a well-established space infrastructure, even if everything else has gone to shite? How many times did one side take/search the other for weapons?  Maybe the follow-on will make sense of it all, but not really doing it for me so far.

Absalom suffers a wee bit from Mills syndrome (making me wonder again to what extent 'the Mills' themselves are a sly jab), with the two teams lining up for their end-of-term photos, short ones at the front, bigger boys at the back.  Still, Rennie uses this beat sparingly, and limits it to a half page each, and thus it feels more like a gathering up of threads than a way to burn up an episode (or two).  the hint of negativity I detect in my reaction probably stems from my real reluctance to see this series apparently drawing to a close. 

The 3riller, while fun and very smartly turned out, didn't quite stick the landing, in the end feeling more like a lost Tale of Telguuth than a new three-parter.  Maybe some prior emphasis on the market value of hybrid blood would have given the resolution more of a feeling of closure? Personally I'd like to see more of this setting, but that may be because I felt a little short changed by what I got,

And that was our lot.  Not the best pre-Crimbo wrap-up, not the worst.


IndigoPrime

Quote from: TordelBack on 07 December, 2017, 11:25:35 AMThat was an utterly bizarre episode of Slaine.

I agree with most of that. (I don't think it was solid. One good book for me, and a load of ranty scripting.) Something something Earth Goddess stones all crumble something Sláine swings axe win? And, good grief at that lettering. The all-caps is obnoxious, but the stuff the goddess was saying was borderline unreadable. Surely, balloon shapes are enough, without grabbing a weird font that totally doesn't work in all-caps?

As for Sláine's design, I suppose it represents that he now has purpose again, and so cut his beard a bit. I dunno. I hope whatever comes next actually brings some of the fun and vigour back to Sláine, because right now it's a boring, turgid trudge.

QuoteDredd. Another female Sov pal for Joe?
Judging by that last panel, she doesn't seem much of a pal.

Dark Jimbo

The most controversial Slaine's been in years and I have no idea what the Mayor's opinion is...  :(
@jamesfeistdraws

Dandontdare

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 07 December, 2017, 12:25:16 PM
QuoteDredd. Another female Sov pal for Joe?
Judging by that last panel, she doesn't seem much of a pal.

That was her deputy doing the dirty at the end, without her knowledge.
I quite enjoyed this Dredd, a good action yarn (though it wasn't very clear why a bunch of Siberian scavengers would be almost super-powered). Looks like the next story will be a straight follow on (so is it a new story at all?)

I always like when the Goddess shows up to kick butt in Slaine, though the switch from 'impossible odds' to 'chop-chop-yay we've won' (with a quip - stone killer? geddit? geddit?) totally undermined any dramatic tension. Putting my precog hat on and going by the name of the next Slaine saga, I'm guessing it will be less anti-churchy but more animal-rightsy (with Pat's usual soft-touch subtelty)

the 3riller won me over in the end - I thought the first part was a little busy and over-crowded with characters, but it was just setting the scene for a dense but fast moving tale. There was an awful lot going on in those 3 parts (enough for one of those door-stop fantasy novels that I always avoid when I see "part 3 of the second book of the whateverquest saga") and it came to a satisfying conclusion with a nice final twist. I usually have the memory of a ... of a ... (what are those little orange creatures that swim in bowls?) .... anyway, I often have trouble remembering what happened last week, but it says something about this story that I was engaged enough to pick it up each week without needing to refresh my memory from the last prog.

Absalom just ticks all my boxes, truly fantastic. Didn't appreciate just how many secondary characters we've been  introduced to until we got those two big group shots. TT's many shades of grey are as beautiful as ever.

I thought this was a very good prog, but I'm not that enthused about the Christmas offerings - rebooting an old fan-fave like Bad Company is always risky, but Savage and ABC Warriors area welcome returns.

Woolly

Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 07 December, 2017, 12:38:04 PM
The most controversial Slaine's been in years and I have no idea what the Mayor's opinion is...  :(

I would imagine lots of remarks regarding Sinead's boob tube, and lamentations that Simon Davis isn't using Harry Styles as his Slaine model.

Tiplodocus

Quote from: Woolly on 07 December, 2017, 06:06:28 PM
Quote from: Dark Jimbo on 07 December, 2017, 12:38:04 PM
The most controversial Slaine's been in years and I have no idea what the Mayor's opinion is...  :(

I would imagine lots of remarks regarding Sinead's boob tube, and lamentations that Simon Davis isn't using Harry Styles as his Slaine model.

You never saw The Mayor and Harvey Weinstein posting at the same time.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

Tiplodocus

How odd. I had been enjoying this run of progs but it was only Absolom that made me think "Aw! It's finished. I hope we don't have to wait too long for the next part."
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 07 December, 2017, 11:59:17 PM
How odd. I had been enjoying this run of progs but it was only Absolom that made me think "Aw! It's finished. I hope we don't have to wait too long for the next part."

Nail on the head there.

norton canes

Cover: Stunning. I like the consistency with prog 2055's cover, with the angled text, nice attention to detail. If I was being super-picky I'd say it's sometimes OK to have the 2000 AD header in a different colour on a white background, rather than use a dark outer glow.

Dredd: Dog-surfing aside this has been a pretty good story, but I have to say the art has let it down on occasion. This week the meteorite strike (which was a genius plot device) was a bit... puny, really - it's a massive chunk of rock that's just hit the ground at ten times the speed of sound, it could have done with a half-page panel at least to do it justice. Anyway I'm glad the plot is carrying over - could this have been the 'Block Mania' to another 'Apocalypse War'?

Slaine: I think the key question we need to ask ourselves here is: "Dog's breakfast, or dog's dinner?" Has book 4 simply been a complete mess, or merely a case of style over substance?

One thing's for sure - that Earth Goddess typeface... oh my days. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to have a typeface with so many absurdly distracting serifs in all caps? I despair. It's an affront to the letterer's art, honestly.

And yes, it looked for all the world as if a page or more had gone missing from the end of the first part. I mean, OK, I suppose we're meant to infer that the Earth Goddess has done her job and Slaine is merely mopping up the last few stone creatures, but it looked incredibly jarring with the next installment on the facing page. Shame the excellent depiction of New Troy couldn't have been shifted to the centrespread.

Then, the page full of nothing but singing peasants... I don't know. Don't even know where to start.

Let's move on.

3riller: Still to read this one, I must admit. Needless to say it hasn't grabbed me.

Absalom: Excellent way to wrap the chapter, obviously a bit plot-lite but it makes the prospect of the next chapter even more mouth-watering.

norton canes

Thinking about it, what they should have done is split the two Slaine episodes either side of Absalom. Because there's no way they looked like they were supposed to run together.

Muon

I'm really looking forward to the Christmas prog.

TordelBack

Quote from: norton canes on 08 December, 2017, 10:51:53 AM
Then, the page full of nothing but singing peasants... I don't know.

I liked that bit, clever idea.

Proudhuff

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 December, 2017, 05:26:47 PM
Quote from: norton canes on 08 December, 2017, 10:51:53 AM
Then, the page full of nothing but singing peasants... I don't know.

I liked that bit, clever idea.

you mean it wasn't a pish take of Saturday night TV?  :-[
DDT did a job on me