Prog 1728: In the Lap of the Gods

[Colin Zeal]

I for one am always happy to see Red Seas in the Prog its a great thrill with some beautiful art. But, oh but, now while it was clearly coming and [spoiler]Jack pops back from the dead[/spoiler] so much so I'm not sure why I even bothered with the spoiler tags there. The ease with which [spoiler]he returned to the land of the living[/spoiler] does rather remove the jeopardy from the strip. Hopefully The Edge has a neat trick up his sleeve to fix that one. All in all though a nice opener and I'm happy to have this back.

As for the rest well Dandridge continues with a lot of exposition. A lot of exposition. A heck of a lot of exposition.

Dredd is magnificent and so is Flesh. Each week that passes I'm getting more and more impressed by art. At this rate by the time the strip ends he'll be my new favourite artist!

Good prog.

I'm not sure all of the jeopardy has been taken out of the strip. After all, if they have to choose to return to the land of the livng then we can't assume that every crew member will decide to come back. Doesn't one of the crew desperately want to see his son in the afterlife? It's been so long since I read the early parts that I can't remember the full details.

[Steve Green]

Dredd was superb, loved [spoiler]Duncan Jones' Dad turning up[/spoiler]

Really warming to Dandridge as well.

[I, Cosh]

A nice opener for what looks to be a fun Dredd story. For the hard of thinking, can anyone remember if The Organisation was the shadowy crime syndicate from that last Ewing Dredd story? Gallagher's art looks very different in colour. Nice.

I didn't have high hopes for Flesh in the first place yet this week's epsiode manages to limbo well below my expectations. The preacher gets a couple of mildly amusing sentences but outwith that there are barely two consecutive panels which follow on logically from each other. Last week a bunch of assorted vagabonds and badasses were running about intent on killing the dinosaur. Now they'd rather stand about talking shite while it stands watching them?  Oh, my mate's been eaten, think I'll shout random insults at somebody else until I get locked up. Time for a shag. Oh dear.

I normally like The Red Seas, but this didn't do much for me. Possibly because we've known for a while that they'd eaten the apples of Idunn, so Jack getting better was a formality rather than an event. Onwards to the Western Interior Seaway please.

Dandridge entertained me.

[DrJomster]

Dredd has been riding on a high for a while now, but this week's effort was off the chart! Gallagher channeling Talbot, and Ewing just being top drawer Ewing.

I've no idea how old the likes of GRennie, Ewing and Mike Carroll are, but I wonder if they're young enough to have literally grown up reading Dredd as they learned to read, and this has infused them with a sense of how Dredd strips should be in a way that the Wagner stand-ins a decade or so ago never quite got right.

Interesting! You might be onto something there!

[SmallBlueThing]

Impossibly tired, so very briefly:

Dredd: very good.
Flesh: very good.
Dandridge: very good.
Red Seas: better than I feared.

SBT

[Proudhuff]

weary, so very briefly:

Dredd: very very good.
Flesh: silly
Dandridge: good.
Red Seas: a joy to behold, disagree with the above about the old gods banter, I've seen couples refer to each other as if the other wasn't there and the Lewis chess set look on her face suits the banter to a tee.

[Mardroid]

Cover-Not bad.

Dredd- Liked it a lot.

Flesh- I'm not sure. I did find it amusing but it did feel out of synch with the previous episodes. It was like it suddenly became Carry On Up the Cretaceous. Kudos for Pat Mills for smuggling in a Blackadder reference though. (Although I'm not sure they were the first to use that phrase.)  [spoiler]I did wonder if that guy's fate was intentional on Shareen's part* though. I don't think she can control the beasties directly, but the very fact they had been told to keep away from the water suggests to me she was intentionally putting him in jeopardy. She might even have spotted the pterowotsit earlier.

She didn't seem particularly bothered about her own life standing there looking on in the noddy but that could be the drugs talking.[/spoiler] And is it me, or is standing in the nude apart from a hat and shades somehow naughtier than just being completely starkers? And, yeah, whats with characters standing around yaking when they're in crunch space of monsters? I know these guys are drugged, but Defoe's gang seem to do that too. At least they usually fight while they're nattering.

Dandridge- Very good. And apart from the main characters both being rather pompous fops in a period setting who investigate the supernatural not much like Ampney Crucis at all. That sounds like I'm being sarcastic. Okay they DO have quite a bit in common, but the tone just feels so different to me. Sum of all parts, and all that.

Red Seas- I'd forgotten most of what happened last time, but I enjoyed this.

Absalom: I don't think that's an April Fool. I think they'd be more likely to say "Cablistics Inc is returning" as an April Fool. (Of course it could be a double bluff, but I think not.)  Despite being a spin off I hope it does pick up some strands from the other, considering how it ended, even if only to deal with that demon woman thing and the baby. (I've forgotten the names of the characters. I did like it though, honest.)

*I just realised what I wrote. No innuendo intended.

[Keef Monkey]

I skimmed over that and had actually read it as the return of Caballistics and got well excited! Does it not mention it's still Rennie writing it? If he's been lured back to the prog then there's surely a chance Caballistics could continue. I loved it I did, one of the best series the prog has ever run.

[W. R. Logan]

Dredd, nice art but for once ALS story didn't do it for me.

Flesh this really is the emperors new clothes and in the future I shall remind you all how right I was and how bad it is.

As for the rest of the Prog it sort of just washed over me.

[Grant Goggans]

I for one am always happy to see Red Seas in the Prog its a great thrill with some beautiful art. But, oh but, now while it was clearly coming and [spoiler]Jack pops back from the dead[/spoiler] so much so I'm not sure why I even bothered with the spoiler tags there. The ease with which [spoiler]he returned to the land of the living[/spoiler] does rather remove the jeopardy from the strip. Hopefully The Edge has a neat trick up his sleeve to fix that one. All in all though a nice opener and I'm happy to have this back.

I'm not able to check now, but didn't the last Red Seas story end with Dancer sitting up, revived from death?  So this episode wasn't resolving the question of "is Jack dead" but "how'd he do that."  The problem with The Red Seas lately has been that the "stories" - as with Sin Dex, they're barely that anymore, lacking beginnings or endings - just end whenever they get to a prog where Tharg needs the story to end.  Unlike Sin Dex, I'm enjoying the overall narrative, but "a new Red Seas adventure" no longer means anything, it's just "the next eleven episodes of this great big convoluted thing."

At least Yeowell drew some backgrounds this time; the last batch of episodes seemed really lazy.

While I'm evidently in "not very enthusiastic about Edginton" mood, I think Dandridge is kicking Ampney Crucis in every possible way.  I like Ampney - or probably more honestly, I like the promise of what a great series it could become, and I love the Sayers homages - but Dandridge is just fantastic, with the weirdness and the silliness turned up to eleven.  It's a very witty and very structured series, while I fear Edginton is getting more intrigued by his subplots than any need to tell a coherent, thrilling story in each outing.

And Jon Davis-Hunt is just fantastic.  I did enjoy Warren Pleece's work, but this is better in every way, really larger than life and vibrant.  I think he still has a little ways to go in his storytelling - some of the race through the house, like the last half of Age of the Wolfe, was a little confused - but the artwork is just popping with energy.  Please don't let Davis-Hunt get poached by the American companies, Tharg, because he's too damn fun to lose to them.

All right, I don't like Dandridge's gigantic, silly bowtie.  Otherwise, the art is great.

[locustsofdeath!]

"Six-six-six shooter."

Most arsom line ever (in context).

[Dunk!]

Is it just me or should have Dredd ended with [spoiler]Bennett saying "What's a Duck?"[/spoiler]

I thought it was great.

Just an observation.

[I, Cosh]

Just been rereading some recent Progs and spotted the smallprint under Leigh Gallagher's Dredd credit: "The most handsome man in comics." In part two, he's "Still the most handsome man in comics."

Made me smile.