Main Menu

Prog 1809 : THIS ONE'LL KILL YA!

Started by Buttonman, 10 November, 2012, 01:00:33 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Spikes

And, along with a few back progs, finally read!
The prog is just a treat to read of late, and 1809 is no exception.
Dredd is just superb, though ill echo the sentiment that its all a wee bit hard to follow, and not at all easy to sum up in a few words. But its the many layers that drag you in, and wont let go. Loving it, and cant wait for the pay off. Nice to see Maitland back, and liking the shoulder pad! Nice touches with the flashback panels - comparing the fresh faced Hershey of yesteryear, with the thin-lipped modern equivalent. Dredd, himself is brilliantly giving little away, but i suspect he has all, or enough of the pieces of the puzzle, and is timing it all to perfection. As is Hershey, probably. Bachmann has underestimated it all, and is in for a shock?
Hope it doesnt pan out that simply.
To sum up: A joy!

Just a side thought; but with the prog being so Dredd-world heavy, and so many of the related strips, of late, being a bit nostalgiatastic, and certainly with the mentions of MC1 being dead/dying, i wonder if things are all coming to a head, and a circle is nearing completion. Though, would some massive upset/change be accorded to a non-wagner? Perhaps Mr Wagner's not finished with the whole DoC arc yet?
Just random musings on my behalf, but when its all as layered as this, it gets you like that,  ;)

Lowlife is just so good this week. D'Isreali's art is just perfect. And the whole strip just makes me smile.
Brass Sun, felt a wee bit below par, this week - but they may have been because ive over-indulged somewhat on the other strips. ABC Warriors takes a turn for the better, at last - though its ending soon? Great to see Ro-Jaws back in the prog! And Simp, though im loving it along with the art, has been the most impenetrable strip for me, of late - simply because its a strip, and a world im least familar with, but that last page..
Oh my.


Double the price of entry, and itll still be money well spent. As John Landis is wont to say, see you next wednesday!

Mikey

Just been thinking about Hershey's flashback and the nostalgia thing-she brought up Lopez just before the mutant vote,apologised to Dredd for her behaviour in fact so it seems she's revised her position. So it's not quite as nostalgic as I thought,she's brought it up quite recently.

So there.

M
To tell the truth, you can all get screwed.

a chosen rider

Quote from: Mikey on 16 November, 2012, 08:23:00 PMJust been thinking about Hershey's flashback and the nostalgia thing-she brought up Lopez just before the mutant vote,apologised to Dredd for her behaviour in fact so it seems she's revised her position. So it's not quite as nostalgic as I thought,she's brought it up quite recently.

Yeah, it's actually quite a fascinating reversal of positions when you think about it.  Hershey started out as the green young Judge who took the moral high ground and resented Dredd for making the decision that killed Lopez.  With the passage of time, she's come to appreciate that it was necessary and she was wrong to blame him for it - but over the same course of time, Dredd has become less of a hardliner and started to question the ethos of doing bad things 'for the greater good', and now she's the one making the ugly choices and resenting him for refusing to come down from the moral high ground and deal in compromises.

Now there's character development for you.
On Twitter @devilsfootsteps

Goaty

Really it is the best 2000AD in ages and I want fuck know what happens next!

That's why 2000AD is the best comic in the universe! Cos they cares about the readers!

Zarjazzer

Supremely good cover and the contents once again don't disappoint.I feared Brass Sun had too many talking heads but it was all character building stuff and introducing new baddies, Simp and Low Life vie for top spot. Dredd and ABC both very good despite Pat's soapboxing in the latter.

Still, happy days... :)
The Justice department has a good re-education programme-it's called five to ten in the cubes.

Frank

I thought Clint Langley's art came into it's own this week, demonstrating a sure grasp of the robot characters which is almost entirely absent in his depiction of the human cast. There aren't many bad artists in Tharg's bull pen, just some who are assigned to stories which don't play to their strengths, and the restrictions of black and white artwork have really forced Langley to concentrate on what it is about his art that works well with these characters.

Fans of the medium matching the message should note that the transition from the ambiguity of the oval office denouement, which is rendered in greyscale and where it's unclear who's actually won, gives way to clearcut black and white line art and Hammerstein/Mills's equally stark and simple list detailing the human cost of war. The message might not have been particularly subtle, but the way the art was used to convey the strip moving into the simple moral and narrative scheme of the early Robusters strips (where the prejudice and cruelty shown to robots figured them as black characters in a white world) was cleverly done.

Frank

The art on all three Dredd strips is on fire, but it's the burning orange sky and the depth and detail of the cityscape on the last page of Brass Sun which won the day for me. Every third week, Culbard's asked to come up with not just a new set of instantly recognisable and distinct characters, but an entire new believable world, and he does so like no-one I've seen since Ian Gibson on Halo Jones. I loved the three panels at the bottom of page two, showing the play of different emotions on the Duke's face, and the way the heroic portrait of him on his rampant steed which dominates the first page has considerably more hair and fewer chins than he does in the (ample) flesh.

Culbard's beautiful art and character creation would be pointless if it wasn't backed up by great writing, though, and the the lusty enthusiasm and lack of grace with which the Duke tackles both breakfast and relations with his domestic staff instantly establish him as a complete character in the mind of the reader in very few panels. "Does the spoon or the sword gripe and grumble about its station?" is as great a piece of metaphorical speech as you'll find in Dickens, and the contrasting ways in which the Duke speaks of the lower things in life - the way he's at the mercy of his bowels finds an echoing answer in the precise methods with which he dreams of dealing with troublesome staff - are funny, develop character, and suggest where the story is headed.

One final observation, if the dreadnought robots are based on Henry Moore's reclining nudes, was the monumental statuary of the skyward finger on this week's final page a reference to Leonardo Da Vinci's St John the Baptist?

Proudhuff

Just picked up this from FP, thanks Richard good to know I'm not alone but getting the latest Prog through the door I HAD to get this one to make sense of nextweeks i you get me drift.


Yip it took a couple o' re-reads to get all the info in the two Progs and what a wonderous thrillbender it was!

Well done the ALL Droids in question, there is no going back from this thrill level, and to tell the true this has set the bar very high and a couple of the old guard (here and in the Meg) aren't making the grade.



DDT did a job on me