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Prog 2013 - Infernal Investigations

Started by Mattofthespurs, 09 January, 2017, 09:55:34 AM

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Smith

I guess that would be "Every empire falls" story?
Granted,coorporate aliens have been done before,but its a nice twist for Kingmaker.
Texas city tour is promising to be pretty good.

TordelBack

I loved seeing what looked like a whole laborious set-up just to get the 'paw' gag in there turning instantly into something grim and significant. Textbook Dredd writing really. 

moldovangerbil

Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 11 January, 2017, 07:29:48 PM
Still not got mine. What about you lot?

Nope.  Still nothing here.  PICKLZ is on the case so I'm hopeful a replacement will turn up soon. 

Frank

Quote from: TordelBack on 12 January, 2017, 02:31:02 PM
I loved seeing what looked like a whole laborious set-up just to get the 'paw' gag in there turning instantly into something grim and significant. Textbook Dredd writing really.

Yeah, I LOLed. Visual dramatisations of dad jokes make dad jokes novel and acceptable, and I'll never stop being pleasantly surprised when The Nicest Dredd Writer Ever * reminds me he has a real talent for nasty violence.

Like all made up rules - not feeding Gremlins after midnight, the balance of The Force, daylight savings time - Diana's system of associative retribution doesn't make sense if you think about it too much, but it facilitated an otherwise tightly written and affecting story.

I could watch Richard Elson draw doggy fights all day, but three weeks in the same room is pushing it. Looks like next week is a Ulysses 31-style defrosting, so hopefully there'll be lots of Gene asking the whereabouts of Sir Winalot, Dylan Woof, Germaine Grrrr, and Dachshund Hammett, before it all goes Spartacus.

I liked the childish nature of Hopey's WHY DO YOU KEEP HITTING YOURSELF, WHY DO YOU KEEP HITTING YOURSELF curse, although the combination of images in the sigil he carved on that tree should really denote that the black power movement is buffering. The boy Broxton can draw, ay?


* To be fair, there isn't much competition. Everyone who's met Wagner says he's a real gent, but if the new Thrillpower Overload reveals he did time for malkying someone in a Dundee chip shop, nobody would be surprised.

I, Cosh

Quote from: Frank on 12 January, 2017, 05:53:32 PM
I could watch Richard Elson draw doggy fights all day, but three weeks in the same room is pushing it. Looks like next week is a Ulysses 31-style defrosting, so hopefully there'll be lots of Gene asking the whereabouts of Sir Winalot, Dylan Woof, Germaine Grrrr, and Dachshund Hammett, before it all goes Spartacurs.
FTFY.
We never really die.

TordelBack

Quote from: Frank on 12 January, 2017, 05:53:32 PM
Spartacurs.

FTFY

I thought the pacing in Kingdom was just right. We've had a fair bit of Neuman and pals discussing The Plot, a VzR prison,  a welcome reintroduction to Lezzee, and a good bit of Gene getting whet.  Seems like a reasonable amount of ground.


TordelBack

Aaargh, radblast it. Didn't see Cosh's infinitely faster brain beating me to it.

Frank

Quote from: TordelBack on 12 January, 2017, 06:36:43 PM
a welcome reintroduction to Lezzee

Ah, Virginia, this is Daphne, who wrote The Birds and Rebecca.

Actually, Ms Woolf and I have already met.


The action and characters are great. I meant Gene woke up in that featureless, grey-blue room on page three of the story and is still there fifteen pages and three weeks later.

Actually, I went back and checked - they left the room in episode two. They're in a featureless, grey-blue corridor now. Previous series have been all orange rocks and cyan sky, but there were lots of wine gum and cola bottle hued insects to stop everything looking too tasteful.

That's not a complaint about Abnett's exciting and involving story or Elson's dynamic, masterful art. It's just a consequence of the space station setting *. It's not really a complaint at all - Kingdom's arsom.


* Although, if it was Barbarella or Flash Gordon's space station, Elson wouldn't be having to bulk order more blue-grey pixels for his copy of Manga Studio. The strip's full of colourful characters, but they're all wearing clothes that match the wallpaper.

scrotnig

That Dredd episode was just fantastic. Really took me by surprise. As has been noted, it looked like it was going to be a fairly light affair, with that 'paw' joke and the awesome 'they started it' scene (which was drawn to perfection)....but then....utter bleakness! I really wasn't expecting that at all.

Both the writing and the artwork on this are just first class. I'd like to say it's the best Dredd in a long time but that's far from true since Dredd is currently so good, so often.

sheridan

Quote from: Frank on 12 January, 2017, 01:18:37 PM
.
The prog review section (and the forum in general) is really more of a support group for people who have ordered stuff online and are worried because it hasn't arrived yet.

'YOU SHOT MAH PAW!'

© Tommy Cooper, 1978. If Michael Carroll has a section planned where Dredd and Brass travel on horseback, I can let him have a joke my dad used to tell about how cowboys deal with chapped lips.

And that'd be Rufus Hound uttering that pun ;)

QuoteTiernen Trevallion's art is a revelation, especially that BLAM! BLAM! panel of Rufus taking a pop at Dredd. If Tharg's looking for someone to join the holy trinity of MacNeil/Flint/Willsher on the next 6 month epic*, the man with the name that looks like an anagram of itself is one to consider.


* Are Grindstone Cowboys, Lion's Den, Reclamation, and Deep in The Heart already part of some kind of Tour Of Duty-style epic in instalments?

Yes - it's called Every Empire Falls.

sheridan

Was anybody else thinking of Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds on the last page?

Trout

Five out of five. Every page a joy. This is the thrill power we need.

TordelBack

The Trout is correct. While I still harbour reservations about Kingmaker, this episode is definitely a good'un, making it 5 out of 5, plus a cool cover. Maybe not a particularly strong Droid Life, but essentially the perfect Prog. How hard must it be to pull something like that together, and then turn around and try to top it the following week? Hats off to all involved.

Proudhuff

Quote from: Frank on 12 January, 2017, 05:53:32 PM
Sparpupcurs.
FTFY Cosh.

Great Prog as all above have said the Car-Roll Droid is... well on a roll  :D
great art and happy to see this epic unfold in a series of short stories that dovetail.

Everything else hunky dory, except Kingmaker, which doesn't float my boat, but that's me and stories with too many beardy barsturds in them.
Really hoping the Postie for Huff Mansions sur La Mer is on form this Saturday!

DDT did a job on me

Frank

Quote from: sheridan on 13 January, 2017, 07:31:37 AM
Quote from: Frank on 12 January, 2017, 01:18:37 PM
Are Grindstone Cowboys, Lion's Den, Reclamation, and Deep in The Heart already part of some kind of Tour Of Duty-style epic in instalments?[/size]

Yes - it's called Every Empire Falls.

I suppose what I should have asked was whether Deep In The Heart is a coda to an epic that's called Every Empire Falls, or whether Every Empire Falls is book one of a larger epic with a different name - in the same way book one of Tour Of Duty is called The Backlash *.

Earth shattering stuff, I know.

Nobody's had a guess at the identity of the perp Dredd's after. Not the bisonosaur herder, the 'someone bigger' only hinted at, so far. Maybe's dead, Mean Angel's either nice or buried (depending on which story you consider his last), his family exist in an indeterminate fictional state, Sabbat's only a head ...

Carroll specific characters: Gideon Dallas' head 'sploded; Pax was 'grud knows where, on some mission nobody knows anything about'; Paris (and Dredd baby?) was in custody; Sector Zero was reincorporated; it looked like Oswin was nuked, but no body = no death.

I suppose a crispy, glow in the dark Oswin would make most sense, if this is a continuation of Every Empire Falls, rather than an epilogue.



* Prepare yourself for this, because - trust me - I am about to FASCINATE you. The stories collected together under the title Tour Of Duty all ran weeks apart, over the course of three years (1536-1693), with other (unrelated) stories separating them. The title, Tour Of Duty, doesn't appear until 1649, on the story sequence whose actual title is Tour Of Duty. The subsequent story, Snake (1659), is the first story to feature the Tour Of Duty banner. The name The Backlash doesn't crop up until the story titled The Backlash (1628) and Megacity Justice is the title of the seven part story that rounds out the whole sequence (1687-1693)