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Much as you were really. Three good strips, nah GREAT strips, two a bit mah BUT a slight untick in many and we're all okay.
Dredd. Great ending to a really nice story. But the question remains who is that masked writer?
I'll come to Brink.
Skip Tracer - has a good un. Nice fast paced action, but we still need to care more.
3riller - The Scorched Zone - "but we need to care more"... yep. This still happened.
Fiends - Aerial bat creature fight. So now all you need to do is ask yourself is that enough for you to know this is GREAT? If not maybe 2000ad ain't for you any more!
Back to Brink heavens to Betsy this is superb. Just superb. The plot is out, the villian reveals and launches his plan and its just quite supremely delivered. Lines gifted us by Dabnett like "He wasn't ready to hear. Mainly because he was a bit of a dick." combined with INJ Culbard's quite uncanny ability to show the madness behind folks eyes and "...you're all absolutely batshit crazy." has never, NEVER been so magnificently crafted in the history of comics. If it wasn't for Lawless this would be the greatest ever...
(https://i.imgur.com/FWNFRXP.jpg)
Neil Roberts cover
Pretty much all of the Brink bad guy's lines are great. I liked "Not out loud."
What's is taking the place of the 3riller next prog? Do we know?
Another 3riller I believe.
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 14 January, 2019, 12:48:17 PM
Another 3riller I believe.
Grey Area and Jaegir only start next month, so yes it makes sense for another 3riller
That's a great cover, but I do wish they'd let Paul Marshall & Dylan Teague do a Skip Tracer one.
As Colin review says, this is much the same as the last issue, with the same highlights and same problems.
The Dredd is enjoyable but I'd be amazed if the block buddies make another appearance, despite the ending. Fiends is good pulpy fun and Brink is, again, superb and the highlight of the prog. Some truly great lines in there.
The 3riller ends without really going anywhere. Skip Tracer still doesn't work. At this stage I've given up on it.
^^^ this, oh and half a letters page, a zeriods pic, a NY joke in Damage Report and the promise of Wagner/MacNeil droid team up...nice! :P
Only one place to start for me this week and that's
Brink.. This has been a great series, but this episode goes up a notch. As much as I don't like disagreeing with Colin (part 1):
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 13 January, 2019, 08:31:52 AM
Back to Brink heavens to Betsy this is superb....Just superb If it wasn't for Lawless this would be the greatest ever...
yes it is is superb and for me it is now edging out Lawless as the best thing from Tharg right now and indeed over the last few years. As to the greatest thing ever....its certainly up there, though whether it takes the crown...well that is a tough call and one that can probably only be made in retrospect.
As much as I don't like disagreeing with Colin (part 2):
Quote from: Colin YNWA on 13 January, 2019, 08:31:52 AM
Fiends - Aerial bat creature fight. So now all you need to do is ask yourself is that enough for you to know this is GREAT? If not maybe 2000ad ain't for you any more!
For me this has gone off the boil in the last couple of episodes and has not lived up to the promise of the opening episode.
Another thing that took a dip for me this week was the
3riller; it seemed to throw in a load of fairly random ideas at end, many of which felt very familiar from stuff like the Walking Dead. Indeed I am now questioning the whole 3riller concept. A straight up one shot Future Shock seems a better format to me as it forces all the superfluous stuff to be trimmed and ironically many over the years seem to have more fully fleshed out characters than we get in 3rillers. I guess because it is necessary to focus on the core theme and have the characters' actions and dialogue support that.
Dredd wasn't the greatest.It seemed to be done half way through this week's episode but carried on anyway to get to that final scene. I want a bit more than the build up final scene or punch line from my Dredd.
So given all that, second place this week goes to
Skip Tracer. Ok its not the most original thing we have seem but its ok, in a sort of mid eighties C list strip kind of way, plus it has art that far exceeds the script.
Disagreeing with me is a healthy and often entirely sensible thing to do!
A Brink vs Lawless fan face off would be a very interesting thing...
Almost felt like Brink was treading water - at least by its own high standards - for a couple of episodes but CRIKEY!
Can't imagine there being much competition for Best Thrill of 2019 now either.
The prog feels just ok nothing spectacular even Brink I wanted the tell the "Villain" you talk to much. Come on guys let us see some fireworks.
Brink is great.
Dredd: Yeah, the Block Buds were a promising idea that kinda fizzled. I did like the twist and thought it was just about worth two episodes to get there. The idea of two huge holograms exposing themselves to each other was the best bit thing about it.
Brink: Exquisite. A grandstanding episode for Joel Tillerson, tapped for maximum entertainment. "He was hurt" / "Only physically" was just glorious, as was the kiss. I see a few of the sect memes were kind of explained - Dan Abnett has said that they weren't just nonsense words, they all had a meaning, so this is good.
Skip Tracer: Sadly, no sign of horrible, angry, sticky, living vagina-pillow. Perhaps it's being lined up for a 3riller...
Scorched Zone: ...because that would be a whole lot better than this.
Fiends: Sorry, but this is lacking the fantastic folk-horror vibe of the previous chapter. Instead it's much more of a bog-standard 'evil villain' story. Bit of a let-down.
Quote from: Magnetica on 15 January, 2019, 03:50:32 PMIndeed I am now questioning the whole 3riller concept. A straight up one shot Future Shock seems a better format to me as it forces all the superfluous stuff to be trimmed and ironically many over the years seem to have more fully fleshed out characters than we get in 3rillers. I guess because it is necessary to focus on the core theme and have the characters' actions and dialogue support that
I like the 3riller concept but I think they work much better when they're open-ended pitches for a full series then they are extended Future Shocks. The Mechastopheles 3riller clearly had stacks of back-story which was consequently explored in the series, and Infestinauts looked like it was introducing characters that would be explored further in a series.
The 3rillers has always been something that was either a hit or a miss. I do not mind the 3rillers but "The Scored Zone" felt nothing thrilling about it, it just felt ok. It was like an advertisement in your favorite show which you mostly forget the second it stop airing.
There for me is always scope for both the 3rillers and the Future Shocks.
Quote from: norton canes on 17 January, 2019, 09:59:39 AM
I like the 3riller concept but I think they work much better when they're open-ended pitches for a full series then they are extended Future Shocks.
Yep, I'd agree with this.
Ps. Loving Brink and Fiends this week. I'm actually also quite liking Skip Tracer.
I'm probably needing a service or something as I'm not enjoying the current Fiends strip at all. I really liked the previous run, with the alternative take on Costanta but I don't buy him as a protagonist at all.
I should be loving it- Ian Edginton is a solid, dependable scribe and Tiernan Trevallion is a heck of an artist but for some reason this particular story is leaving me utterly cold.
Quote from: Bolt-01 on 18 January, 2019, 01:36:12 PM
I'm probably needing a service or something as I'm not enjoying the current Fiends strip at all. I really liked the previous run, with the alternative take on Costanta but I don't buy him as a protagonist at all.
I should be loving it- Ian Edginton is a solid, dependable scribe and Tiernan Trevallion is a heck of an artist but for some reason this particular story is leaving me utterly cold.
I agree on fiends. Now TT is awesome on Absalom, but for me his art isn't that suited to this.
I quite enjoy TT on Fiends. He has a Mignola-like use of shadows that suits the Hammer aesthetic. Dave Taylor on 1812 was utterly outstanding, and that was some of the best art to have graced the prog in years, but this series manages to hold its own.
Loving the art but the story has lost me somewhat - the original fiends was such a novel concept it worked, but we now seem to be getting more generic "vampires fight wars" stories and I really don't care which species of bat I'm supposed to be rooting for.
The first part of the story in the xmas special of Fiends was just awesome but the story feels almost like it just became a slug-fest between tow heavy weight boxers. It is now just like any vampire story. I still like it but the 1812 one was much better.