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You've missed Mr Spurrier off that list....

...which is why I still feel these jump on progs are a bad idea... regularish readers like Mr Page here (whoa rent collecting) know they can stop and wait a few months if the stories arent up to scratch... if the lines were blurred a little bit more, with stories running through "relaunches", might it not tie people into buying the prog a bit more?  

I mean, if you are a newbie to the prog, you arent going to know about the relaunches and wait, but once you know, you might be tempted to drop the progs until the next run, sample then either stay or wait for the next relaunch....

AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

There were 500 sets produced, though it was a bugger finding them ....

Have to agree with Logan here.  I love the original VCs for its everyman angle - they're just one of a million other grunts - when in the end


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They single-handedly save the universe in a few progs, it all goes horribly wrong.  Still, I assume this was because they decided the only way to end it was to resolve it entirely ... a real pity, as it went against the spirit of the rest of it a bit IMO.

Yeah - there were loads of letters - I seem to recall Thargs lame excuse was they were on their way back from a ceremonial gathering, and didnt have time to change into their "fighting" helmets....

The recorder in Alphas helmet wasn't there to create a "this is your life" style record - merely to corroborate the Bounty Hunters claims.  Alpha is seen giving away a copy of this to the law enforcement types, and I doubt he keeps all the old footage and leaves it running constantly with enough storage space for decades worth of 'film' (though maybe that's why his helmet is so big...?)...

And i doubt it subjecting yourself to a few home movies is the cure for crazy beastness.....

but even if this is what Abnett is referring to, shouldnt that be more explicit in the story (not calling it a memory recorder might help)

Ah, point taken, David - I'd assumed the whole recovery from a "can't feel my legs" situation to walking off from the medi-bay could only be explained by the sinister undead factor (and his eyes being closed on page 4 to cover his contacts - I look for these things!). I await next weeks prog and retract all accusations of shonkiness on that score til all is explained....

In other news, I'm not sure about Harrison using Angelina Jolie as a model - page two - bottom centre panel... isn't that Sandi Toksvig?

Shonky Science invades the prog!

How does a "damping field" stop a bullet?

More importantly, what the hell is the never before seen "SD memory necklace" shonk all about - what a load of tosh! Why do they get one of those, then?  Lucky that Gulliver or whatever his name is knows all about it then eh?  And that it can miracualously make you better after 100 years as a mentalist - and how exactly has Red survived 100 years without aging a day?  Tosh, tosh, tosh!

Obviously DMW should be renamed Live Shonk walking, for all the shonky science so far, so is excused for its oddly explained "escape" for Morgan - presumably he just said "I'm feeling a lot better" without anyone in the med bay noticing he was dead.... hmmmm

As a fellow grump (and oft times winder upper of others to grumpdom), I?d dispute the idea that 2000AD never really had a Golden age.  When I pick up any prog between 200 ? 500 I can be more or less guaranteed a great read (barring a dodgy FS or some Mean Arena(and even Mean Arena did the job it was intended for when I was a kid)) ? stories like Slaine, Nemesis, Halo Jones, DR & Quinch, Robohunter, even such 'filler' as Ace Trucking ? When you haven?t read these progs in a while, you forget how bloody good these tales are ? how inventive and playful, intelligent and mature compared to most modern day strips.  There was a definite Golden age, and a definite turn from that into something else.

The thought that people who don?t enjoy the comic should leave isn?t too constructive ? if (more) people had done that when things got really rough, then the comic would be have been dead a long time ago.  If I really didn?t enjoy at least some of the comic, and didn?t see any hope of it improving, I wouldn?t be reading, I wouldn?t be here, and I certainly wouldn?t bother posting.   I?m very pleased that I stuck with 2000AD. The turnaround isn?t just down to Rebellions influence ? the prog was weighted down by very poor editorial choices/necessity during the early to mid 90s.  Someone took their eye off the ball, or decided to transform the comic into something it hadn?t been ? not necessarily a bad thing, until you look at the results that came from that!  

Since then, the comic has slowly pulled itself up from something that really didn?t deserve anyone?s support to something that I?m enthusiastic about despite not always enjoying half the stuff.  I'd like to think that for every negative, I can find a positive.  If there are more positives or negatives at any given point, then that?s the way my posts go.  I enjoy my prog, but I?d be the one with rose tinted specs if I was to suggest today?s progs were of the consistent standard of 2000ADs best years.  

That?s not to say 2000ADs best years are behind it ? all it needs is the right mix of old and new  (and probably the discovery of a new Alan Moore!) to shove us into a new and possibly better Golden Age.  It may well never happen, but at the moment, I?m both happy with the good stuff and frustrated by the missed potential of todays progs in fairly equal measure.

I would sum up the problems with the treatment of 2000ADs franchises as not so much a lack of direction, but a multitude of conflicting directions.  Lets kill Johnny ? but lets resurrect the strip ? lets make them outlaws, OK, let?s not now we?ve got another writer - let Dan use this character for this Space Opera story he?s always wanted to do (never mind if it makes any sense in the context of the original series).

Same thing with Rogue, once his direction was under the control of editorial rather than the creators ? take him off Nu Earth, send him back, get rid of the bio-chips, bring ?em back.  What you ended up with was a series of stories designed to get the character into the shape Editorial wanted, rather than a tale that was designed to entertain.

It?s probably why I?m a little wary of the Samantha Slade stuff.  Is this story sparked by a genuine new creative idea that will extend the original in a new and unexpected way, or is it based on a sketch by Gibson and an editorial desire to have old faces in the prog whatever the cost?  As PVS says, I?d rather have an original tale free from the constraints that these resurrections put on a strip.  That?s why I?d also be wary of trying to do a story that resurrects Alpha ? either let him lie (with as many flashbacks as Wagner can muster the enthusiasm for), or just dismiss the ?editorial years? that stripped the fun from these stories ? they sit like a huge dead weight at the end of many a classic tale.  It?s hard to enjoy the original and the continuation, when the continuations so often undermine, contradict and restrict the earlier stuff so badly.

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to be fair to Ennis, they had written him into a corner by killing off Alpha. I think (even now, even after Judgement Day and killer gronks!), that Ennis might have made a quite good go at Alpha, if he'd returned it to its Western roots.

As for "Monsters", he did the right thing  - the ending to Final Solution (where the New Britain Government is defeated not by Alpha and an electronux, but by international pressure!) was such a cop out, that it was a good move to reverse the roles and put the mutants on the back foot... Not exactly the best of a bad situation, but a fair go - everything he did after that first one though....:)

Jesus.


wept.

Frighteningly similar to my dream from years back where I was in Nostalgia and Comics, and they had a few old copies of Valiant containing new Strontium Dog stories, which (having just recently completed buying up every Stront related prog and Starlord) was perhaps the worst nightmare ever - Lovely Ezquerra art though....

Talbot in the fanzine Killing Stroke issue 3 (Sep 86):

Q:would you like to develop an ABC Warriors series?

BT: I did suggest a Joe Pineapples solo adventure - a 5 or 6 parter with him back on the Robot World, Mekka, in his "Dirty Harry" guise.  If we did it, it would have to come after "(Veangence of) Thoth" had finished

There was indeed, around back in the time when Bryan Talbot was still about - possibly his suggestion? - hold on a mo....