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Top 2000AD moments of the last 25 years

Started by McGurk76, 16 November, 2018, 08:02:34 AM

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oshii

I had picked up a couple of progs after being away from the fold for 20 years and was umming and ahhing about whether or not to start getting it again, when  there was a single, two word moment in Shakara that made me cheer out loud:

"World engine"

Got a subscription that day.

Dark Jimbo

Quote from: oshii on 18 November, 2018, 11:52:19 AM
"World engine"

Got a subscription that day.

:lol: Oh man, that was joyous. Laughed out loud at the audacity while reading those last few parts of Shakara.
@jamesfeistdraws

BPP

Bagwells art on the return of Indigo Prime.



Flints art on Shakara



Any rob Williams Dredd or Dirty Frank - he writes the perfect Dredd and the supporting cast from Frank, sensitive clegg, pin, Nixon, Gerhart allows a range of stories to be told. His comedy writing is the best, his angry Dredd is the best.

But also a shout for Robbie Morrison and Dave Taylor's beautiful Great Executions from meg 325/7 - beautifully told sad tale of love in the mire of MC1.



If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

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McGurk76

Quote from: Frank on 16 November, 2018, 05:33:59 PM

Unsure whether we're being asked for highlights - stuff like Strontium Dog returning with the original creators or Dante coming to an end, for example - or for actual moments in stories that forcibly removed our socks.

Assuming the latter, I'm saying the finale of Dead Eyes (1577-1588), by John Smith and Lee Carter*. I wasn't reading 2000ad when it was originally published, so I'd already had the ending spoiled by reading online discussion of the story. It was still a bravura moment**


* Starts off with John Smith challenging you to think whether you've ever read anything more John Smith - working class protagonist pursued by cynical, murderous establishment and large sections apparently generated by doing a William Burroughs cut-up with a dozen issues of The Fortean Times - and builds to an anti-climactic ending that's not a million miles from the protagonist waking to find the previous events had all been a dream. But somehow, it works - and the Bagwell/Carter stories that followed were just stratospherically imaginative and accomplished (and silly and funny)

** +++SPOILER+++ DO NOT CLICK UNLESS YOU LOVE HAVING SURPRISES RUINED:  (LINK)


The first one. Highlights rather than moments.

Frank

Quote from: McGurk76 on 18 November, 2018, 10:05:59 PM
Quote from: Frank on 16 November, 2018, 05:33:59 PM
Unsure whether we're being asked for highlights - stuff like Strontium Dog returning with the original creators or Dante coming to an end ...

The first one. Highlights rather than moments.

In that case, retrofit that my previous comment as The Return Of John Smith To Indigo Prime.

Of the Dredd epics everyone else has already listed, I'd highlight Total War and Tour Of Duty. The former is just a great, self-contained story you can enjoy without knowing everything that led up to it, and the latter is a work of such grand ambition and peerless craft that it makes the other (very good) stories to which that term is applied seem timid and unexceptional.

I think it's the greatest Dredd story to which John Wagner has put his name - and he's written a few.

The other good stuff's uncontroversial; nobody else has steered you wrong. Cradlegrave, Button Man, Zombo, Low Life, Ordinary, Leviathan, Brink, Lawless, Insurrection, some of Defoe, some of Savage. Big Dave and the final book of Zenith also conform to your Silver Jubilee rubric, although the first of those divides opinion. Being less specific, the emergence of Henry Flint and D'Israeli as not just good artists but equal to the finest talents ever to cross the threshold of the Nerve Centre made it worth changing century.



Rogue Judge

I agree with the previous Dredd comments, all worth reading.

I'd like to add Jaegir as a highlight - it and Kingdom are my two current favorites.

Also, the return of Johnny Alpha to the prog (Blood Moon, Repo Men etc) is fantastic.

Magnetica

Quote from: Frank on 18 November, 2018, 10:55:08 PM
...the emergence of Henry Flint as not just a good artist but equal to the finest talents ever to cross the threshold of the Nerve Centre made it worth changing century.

Absolutely.

We should be ever thankful for Mr Flint and his loyalty to Tharg.

I wish for artists like Bolland, McMahon, Ron Smith, Fabry and O'Neill to grace the comic again, but not when reading a Henry Flint strip. He is like a modern cross between McMahon and O'Neill for me.

broodblik

Flint is definitely one of the best talents that graced the pages of any comic the last 25 years.
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.

sheridan

Quote from: Richard on 17 November, 2018, 01:53:19 PM
The panel from Tour of Duty when Niles, Buell, Garcia etc set out on their way to arrest Seinfeld.

sheridan

Quote from: TordelBack on 18 November, 2018, 07:13:37 AM
It's ALL spoilers, innit? I suspect that's why most posts have tried to be fairly general: this is fast becoming the "ruin every cool surprise Tharg ever pulled off" thread. Shall I tell 'em about Malone and Crispy while we're here?
I was thinking the Malone reveal was pretty good as well, even though I hadn't actually like Sinister Dexter for some time before that (I think it's best when there are no Moses' around).

sheridan

Just thought of a new one - the bit where Sensitive Klegg realises the grave syntactic he made during a full-on Klegg-rage!

Frank

Quote from: Frank on 18 November, 2018, 10:55:08 PM
... the emergence of Henry Flint and D'Israeli as not just good artists but equal to the finest talents ever to cross the threshold of the Nerve Centre made it worth changing century.

Quote from: Magnetica on 19 November, 2018, 10:02:13 AM
Quote from: Frank on 18 November, 2018, 10:55:08 PM
...the emergence of Henry Flint as not just a good artist but equal to the finest talents ever to cross the threshold of the Nerve Centre made it worth changing century.

Absolutely ... He is like a modern cross between McMahon and O'Neill

Expert use of shade!

Diz nibbles grapes at God's side, as far as I'm concerned - and makes for a more fitting comparison with McMahon, in terms of arriving at a new style to fit every brief, if we're using that as our metric - but I suppose he divides opinion (as does McMahon).

I really like almost all the ink-monkeys Tharg employs, but D'Israeli's one of a small group of artists who can get me excited about a brand new strip just because they're involved. You never know exactly what you're going to get; you just know it's going to be great.



TordelBack

#42
Yep, they all have lovely bottoms, but D'Israeli, like McMahon, seems to be in an entirely different contest.

It occurs to me that as well as an injection of new greats that still dazzle today  (Coleby, Holden, Flint, Goddard, M. Harrison, Trevallion, etc etc) weverything also gained and apparently lost some amazing artists in those 25 years: e.g. Jock, Irving, Critchlow, Adlard and for the most tragic of reasons Bagwell.

broodblik

Edmund Bagwell was a great artist. I never knew about his sudden departure. All the names you mentioned TordelBack are all great (etc = Names like Paul Marshall, Culbard, Leigh Gallagher). I will add the name of Colin MacNeil is one of the most dependable artist in the last 25 years.
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.

TordelBack

I wasn't including MacNeil because his tenure dates back more than 1,600 progs (31 years!): otherwise you're absolutely right, he gets my personal vote for MVP of the last three-quarters of the comics existence. Culbard, Marshall and Gallagher - right on!  Nick Dyer is another artist of quite recent vintage that I could look at all day.

It's interesting when you do this kind of exercise, it really does remind you that those seminal early years, with their classic pantheon of characters and creators, were so short, and there's been so much more since, and so much that's every bit as good. Less concentrated, definitely, but when you start setting it out the list of post-80s greats just goes on and on...