Prog 1450 - THRILLS on an EPIC scale

[Buddy]

I bought this just for the cover, then emailed The Mighty Jock to buy the cover (but it was already sold and anyway I wouldn't have had that sort of money anyway).

Have just read Dredd at the moment, I remember a similar tale to this running quite some time ago. Dredd picks a random apartment to raid, interrogates the occupant until he confesses to something, job done, a lawbreaker cubed.

The Gibson art looked a bit 'smudged' for some reason, like a colour photocopy. But at least we got some backgrounds!

[gnilleps]

Let you into a secret about that logo on the black & white, Jock's a tracer! Boasting rights aren't gone yet, Mike.

[petemaskreplica]

Top prog! Dredd and Savage ripped from tomorrow's headlines!

Loved the old-school art on Dredd too. I already knew I liked Adlard's stuff, allied with a Pat Mills script that manages to give equal weight to politics and plot it's pretty much unbeatable.

Leatherjack is bizarre as only John Smith can do, loads of ideas bursting out makes this that rare thing, a first episode that really hooks you from the start.

Robo-Hunter starts sprightly enough too, I really hope it continues like this, as it didn't quite manage to last time. Gibson seems to be putting a bit of efort in this time, which must be a good sign. It's a really difficult task Alan Grant's given himself here, if he can manage the trick of rejuvenating this strip while keeping faithful to its roots he'll have performed a minor miracle.

I know to some extent it's happenstance, but the extraordinary tpoicality of Savage, and especially Dredd, this week gives this prog a kick it's not quite had in a while.

[Dunk!]

?1.75 for 2000ad.

Or ?3.75 for SFX with a free 2000ad. :)

Completists will go for both, cheapists (like me) will opt for SFX.

Cover looks stunning either way.

[paulvonscott]

I heard about this SFX tie-in, sounds like a very very good idea.  Especially as this is a top prog!  I defy any old Dredd fans not to be dragged in by this story.  I Defy Yoooooooo!

[paulvonscott]

"I Defy Yoooooooo!"

Note: Very different from a challenge.

[Dudley]

What a cover.  What. A. Cover!!!  Got to be "Top Ten of all Time" material.  Storming comeback for Jock - let's hope he can stick around.

Dredd goes after Dudly D in a big way - half of me wants this to be a Total War tie-in and half wants the reason they're going after him to be a bit like "Cincinatti" from last year.

Pat Mills continues on his ironic path with Savage - making us all cheer a guy who's basically one half-step away from being a South London version of Al-Zarqawi is probably the single most subversive achievement of his scripting career.  Adlard on top form, too.

A big phwoar but not a lot else for Samantha C. Slade.  The "C." stands for "custard pie in the face of the readership", by the way.  Limp like eight-day-old lettuce.

Thank God for John Smith's first new series in fecking ages - and it looks like it's going to be a bobby dazzler.  Smith uses language in a way that few other comics writers seem to bother to - as an integral part of the text we're reading, rather than a commentary on the action depicted in the art - and as a result reading his work in a new universe is a near-unmissable experience.  However, I'm surprised to see that the art's letting him down a bit.  Marshall achieved something with Firekind that anyone would have struggled to live up to, but the much more American, lumpy style on display here doesn't even come close.  What happened to the delicate pencil stuff?  Blythe does a half-decent job of the colouring but it could have done with more bright primaries.

Bring on Breathing Space!

[jock]

mike - a ha, it was your website! i owe you a beer (or two) as that was the basis for the logo. thanks!

i worked into it a little too, and gnilleps helped me tidy it up in time for print... though after his previous comment i may call mek quake.

cheers all
jock

[Trout]

So how come DC let you out of your cage long enough to do it, Jock?

- Trout

[paulvonscott]

I heard the comic was free in Asda and Smiths.  I went to my local Asda, but no SFX sadly.

[Mike Carroll]

Yay! Cheers, Jock! Glad that my little model was of some use!

You did a damn good job and it's great to see you back on the prog!

Next chance I get, I'll be updating my website and doing a hell of a lot of bragging!

Mike

[Steve Green]

Good prog overall, Fantastic cover.

Not sure about the colouring on the Dredd tale though. It did seem to be a rerun of the slow crime day story (especially with Skerritt and his body cavity fixation) but it will be interesting to see how the Total War/Guantanomo spin develops...

- Steve

[Trout]

I think a couple of the posters here have missed the focus of the Dredd tale a little.

Yes, the random Crime Swoop thing has been done before, but it seems this story is centred on the Security of the City Act.

The story is called Caught in the Act, and it looks like it's setting up a Catch 22 thing.

I understand that episode one doesn't have these elements - and that makes the comments here perfectly valid - but I have to wonder if they're still to come.

- Trout

[Oddboy]

As I was finishing reading the Dredd tale (knowing in advance that it was a two parter) I was guessing that the citizen was probably actually innocent, and the story was straight 'as seen' - and that the next episode would be a seperate story on the same theme: probably a counter-act to what happened this week.

...until the "NEXT PROG" caption, which says the perp's confessesion is to come - which suggests that this week's episode has more background to be covered.

[petemaskreplica]

Surely the main point of reference for Dredd is Kafka's The Trial?

"And why am I under arrest?" he then asked.
"That's something we're not allowed to tell you."