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The completely self absorbed 2000ad re-read thread

Started by Colin YNWA, 22 May, 2016, 02:30:29 PM

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TordelBack

Quote from: Magnetica on 20 February, 2017, 12:47:02 PM
And indeed all three had incredible first series to back up those opening episodes.

No arguments there. Rogue Trooper (Prog 228?) also has an astonishingly compelling opener - but Slaine and Zenith are the ones to beat (Zenith losing half a point to Slaine because it doesn't get to define the title character - although his irrelevance to larger events may be the point!).

sheridan

Quote from: I, Cosh on 20 February, 2017, 11:32:32 AM
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 19 February, 2017, 08:49:43 PM
Prog 330. Endings and beginnings huh, endings and beginnings.
This was my second first Prog, as the shoddy stocking policies of my remote village newsagent led to an enforced gap of around six months before I found a more reliable dealer. Partly because of this, Slaine long held a special place in my heart and was arguably my favourite strip until Zenith arrived. Conversely, Skizz didn't interest me at all until I eventually read the full story in reprint many years later.

Not sure what point I'm trying to make other than sharing some misty-eyed reminiscence. I think it was probably the upcoming Prog 335 which really got me hooked so I'll be interested to see what you make of that one.


330 was the first prog I ever bought (as I've mentioned in other threads, I was handed about ten, partly-consecutive progs from 308 up to 322 or so).  I must have had similar distribution problems as I had a second run starting in 335, and then finally a third in 350, which I've kept up to this day.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Magnetica on 19 February, 2017, 10:18:21 PM
So I have agreed with you in two post today (Prog and Meg reviews)...but this....no sorry....not for me.

I love Angie Kincaid / Mills' art on this.

Also given that it is the first episode it doesn't seem quite right to me to say one doesn't like it because it doesn't fit with what comes later. And you know what, it had never occurred to me that was the case; as I am sure you know there has been a huge variation in art styles on Slaine over the years.

Well at least you know that you've not entirely broken and finding sense in everything I say.

To be honest you are entirely right of course. Its just... well so it goes with the vagaries of art, I know this is a popular episode, and Angie's art is popular with many, but for me it just jars.

You are of course right that over the course of the series its been blessed (and cursed) by many artists and styles, but I have to say those early episodes really set out a stall and while I'm not Belardinelli's biggest fan around here, he and McMahon really set out a template that for me Angie then Mills didn't sit well with.

Not something I can explain or justify, but also something I just have to accept!

Magnetica

Last night I read the bits about the start of Slaine in Thrill Power Overload. According to that, it took Angie Mills 18 months to do her episode (and art Editor Robin Smith thought it wasn't very good) and in the meantime McMahon had completed his episodes. It was only after that, that Masimo's episodes were commissioned. Apparently Pat didn't want to run the McMahon episodes straight away as that would have defined the look of the character and put McMahon in the readers' mind as the person who did the definitive Slaine. It says that "Pat didn't want that".

(BTW I never really liked Robin Smith's art....so what does he know, eh?   :lol: :lol: :lol: )

TordelBack

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 21 February, 2017, 08:16:06 AM
You are of course right that over the course of the series its been blessed (and cursed) by many artists and styles, but I have to say those early episodes really set out a stall and while I'm not Belardinelli's biggest fan around here, he and McMahon really set out a template that for me Angie then Mills didn't sit well with.

I think what's important about the first episode is that it creates a visual identity without really defining a style... Despite Angie's style deliberately following Gal (and very definitely not Frazetta, Windsor Smith, Vallejo, the Hildebrandts or even Pini, the then-definitive sword-and-sorcery fantasy artists), the content itself does not, and so you get a sort of 'neutral' but distinctive image of Slaine and his world.

When we got the heavily styled Bellardinelli and astonishingly different McMahon in short order it didn't really matter because these were obviously versions of Default Slaine... more interesting versions at that. And that's a pattern that has served the strip well... There is no definitive style for Slaine (although Fabry, Bisley and Langley all had tenures that could make that claim), but behind it all there is the bare bones idea of what the elements of Slaine and his world look like.

AlexF

I'm always struck by the sequence at the very start of Kincaid-Mills's Slaine that has Slaine and Ukko jumping into a boat full of dung to escape. That sets the tone for years to come of Slaine being a hero, but one who is literally not above getting in the muck with everyone else. The first panel of the skull-swords with their breathing tubes were fantastic, too, kind of like that opening Rogue Trooper episode with its poison gas-clouds everywhere.

Other superlative episode 1s:
Nemesis for sure, either way you count episode 1!
The Visible Man (so good it demanded a series to follow, but it's pretty much limited to one visual gag and maybe a hint of an emotional gag that lasts for about 3 episodes)
Kola Kommandoes (shame about episodes 2-12)
Shimura (mostly for the art)
Canon Fodder
Shakara
Leviathan
Brass Sun
The Order

TordelBack

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten Brass Sun!  That was an amazing opener, not a line wasted.

Magnetica

Quote from: TordelBack on 21 February, 2017, 10:00:53 AM
There is no definitive style for Slaine

Definitive versions - well there is a can of worms right there.

Basically there are three categories as far as I can see.

Stories with multiple artists and no one definitive version, examples include: Dredd, Sinister Dexter,Slaine

Stories with a single definitive artist( or with more than one artist but where one artist has so dominated it as to claim definitive status and relegate all others: Strontium Dog, Ace Trucking, Robo Hunter, Kingdom, Brass Sun, Jaegir, Zenith, Halo Jones, Harry 20, DR and Quinch

Stories with Multiple artist but which none the less seem to still have a defined look ( i.e the artists managed to make the look of the characters consistent): Rogue Trooper, Bad Company, the VCs. I would even put ABC Warriors in here, which seems to pull off the remarkable feat of having loads of different artists whilst still leaving me with a single consistent idea of what each character (apart from Col Lash) looks like.

And to buck the trend we Nemesis and Nikolai Dante which despite having had many artists have TWO definitive, equally valid versions.

Anyway I am sure this is all subjective and others will have different views(especially on ABC Warriors - Pat Mills canned it after series 1 due to frustration at lack of a consistent artist ).

Fungus

Don't know you can say Nemesis has "TWO" "definitive" artists...
Presumably you mean O'Neill & Talbot, but maybe you don't  :o
It's a minefield.

Could be wrong, but in the Slaine stuff did no-one mention Simon Davis?
He's made it worth reading again, if you ask me.

Magnetica

Yup O'Neill and Talbot.

So much so I have pretty much wiped all other versions from my mind...apologies to Redondo, Hickleton, Roach, Langley, Flint etc.

Strange how you knew who I meant! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Tjm86

Quote from: Fungus on 21 February, 2017, 04:24:48 PM

Could be wrong, but in the Slaine stuff did no-one mention Simon Davis?
He's made it worth reading again, if you ask me.

Not sure I'd go that far.  Perhaps, made it tolerable?  Granted his art work is the best thing about it and certainly far superior (personal opinion mind) to Mr Langley.  Sorry, for causing offence.

Colin YNWA

Surely Simon Davis is the definitive Sinister Dexter artist...

Anyway to other matters I was thinking I'd be back here when I'd read 335 to see what Cosh had found so interesting. But bloomin' heck this not peaking a head (combined with my shockin' memory) means I'm of course back for that issue, but with not a care in the world for Mr Cosh but just to say CHUFF ME THAT'S WHAT I CALL THRILLPOWER.

Just what the Doctor ordered. With a number of key stories ending, some of them badly losing steam as they did so, sorry Sam but it was turning into latter day Hemingway that meant you needed locking away for a while, the Prog was feeling a little tired for chunks of 83. Then 335 comes along and you remember why it's the Galaxies Greatest.

Okay so ACE Truckung was long gone, Skizz was over, Rob Hunter was missing firing so what does Tharg do? Why simply look in the draw and pull out the long missing Johnny Alpha, slip Nemesis back in, introduce us to McMahon on Slaine and trot out a simply supreme Dredd. Bloody hell. Okay so Rogue won't bugger off but heck at least it looks grand.

So yeah Prog 335 huh... that was turning all the heads not just McCosh's.

Hawkmumbler

Though I don't check in as much as I like, i'm utterly loving your trip through both nostalgia land and thrill power fashioning. Cracking write ups lad!

Colin YNWA

With so much going on in the Prog late 1983, brilliant Strontium Dog, blistering Nemesis, fresh and earthly Slaine its might be easy to lose sight of how great the Dredd story that runs alongside them but 'Graveyard Shift' was a fantastic tale.

I love the way it seems to be using up slightly lesser ideas that Wagner and Grant had left over, may not have felt they'd hold on their own but by weaving them together with a slight and simple premise it galvanises them to become greater than the sum of its parts. The running navative of the single nights and the events that swarm Mega City One really works and combined with some glorious Ron Smith art, arguably at his peak here, its just a beaut.

Funny isn't it, even with such other stunning thrills in the Prog left over* Wagner and Grant still stands shoulder to shoulder.

*Utter speculation on my part, I have no idea if this is the case at all! But I like to imagine that was the case!

TordelBack

You're reading 'my' 2000AD now Colin. This was well into my first year of fulltime squaxxdom, and EVERYTHING was great. The was when my long-running D&D campaign slowly morphed into a halfway house between Slaine and Nemesis, where art class was spent marvelling with mates over single panels of O'Neill or Bellardinelli, and into all this came The Graveyard Shift - still my favourite Dredd story, and a complete eye-opener of what that strip (hitherto a bit of an also-ran for me) could be.