Boo Cook on Tyranny Rex

[robert_ellis]

I've just seen Boo Cook's extended art for the 2000ad Ultimate collection. It's amazing, I know Boo can turn his hand to anything, but look at that Tyranny Rex. Now I know many top tier guys have drawn her - Steve Dillon, Mark Buckingham, Will Simpson, but she's never looked so amazing. Tharg the almighty can we get her back with Boo on art duties? If the world ever needed the return of an art-terrorist, it's now!

[Link Prime]

Would love to see John Smith back on Tyranny Rex (or pretty much anything).

Boo Cook or classic TR artist Paul Marshall would be welcome on it too.
Top notch artists are the one thing 2000AD has no shortage of.

[IndigoPrime]

Yeah, I do hope—somehow—Smith will one day write for the Prog again. Mind you, he was hard to pin down at the best of times, and you got the feeling various Thargs would just randomly find a script show up, which would kick strips back into gear. After what happened with Indigo Prime, who knows whether Matt and John want to work together again? I do hope they might be able to work something out. His voice was unique and I suspect we’re going to hit that Hachette extension and quickly discover what we’re missing from the Prog.

Quite how John Smith would slot in now is trickier to figure out, mind, given that Devlin Waugh and Indigo Prime have both moved on in a big way.

[Colin YNWA]

I'd welcome new John Smith Tyranny Rex again any day. A character I never felt capitalised on the superb Deus Ex Machina which set her up as being a standout character after having been created with a very interesting concept.

Alas she drifted away after that story and the final one, which some lovely Steve Yeowell art, doesn't really serve as a great send of. It seemed clear that John Smith's attention and focus had moved on - which is of course fine.

Whether we should have any Tyranny without Smith is another question. I have to be honest I've been impressed - on their own terms - with both Indigo Prime and Devlin Waugh in particular, post Smith. It does leave you a little uncomfortable but they have made good comics there's no doubt. So should we have more Tyranny without John Smith - and at the moment from the outside John's return seems a long way off - well I'll cross that bridge once we get to it (and forgetting that one off in the Special which I actually quite liked).

[IndigoPrime]

My feelings towards the post-Smith Smith strips is more mixed. I wasn’t really convinced by Rory McConville’s work with the character. It didn’t feel right, and bizarrely decided to wrap up background flavour Smith had just been intentionally leaving there for years. But Kot’s stuff hits the spot rather well.

Indigo Prime remains suitably bonkers and other-worldly, but I’m not sure Kek-W’s tendency to mine the Prog’s past worked terribly well. I didn’t really need Revere dredged up (and similarly wasn’t keen on Armoured Gideon in The Order).

Given 2000 AD’s work-for-hire nature, everything is of course owned by Rebellion, and so there’s nothing to stop Matt Smith dishing out Tyranny Rex to someone else on a permanent or by-series basis. But it would be a pity if there was no place left for Smith, unless everyone is convinced he’s never coming back.

[The Adventurer]

I remember when Smith started putting out the first few chapters of A Dying Art, I asked him on Facebook if we might ever see Tyranny Rex again, maybe have her join Indigo Prime. And he said, something along the lines that she had appeared on the first page of the new series. And the only character on that page was that cat lady. Which got me really thinking about what he could have possibly meant. But then after just 2 chapters he was off the series and replaced by Kek-W and nothing came of it. But I still wonder if Tyranny was one story away from her big Indigo Prime return.

[TordelBack]

Some big talents on the post-Smith strips, several of my favourite writers and artists in fact, but I just can't be arsed reading them. For me Smith stories were all about Smith's unique voice for, and as farvas im concerned continuing them without him is a waste of good writers and artists. Nothing in the recent prog has left quite such a bad taste in my mouth.

All my personal opinion of course, I'm in no way running down the work itself - I just don't have any interest in it.

[The Corinthian]

I'd love to see Smith back in 2000AD but tbh I'm just really to see a proper Tyranny Rex collection at long last.