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[The Screw-Bix Catalogue]

#11

Creative Common / Re: Cover Puns

Last post by The Legendary Shark - Today at 07:24:28 PM

The Screw-Bix Catalogue - Before his mysterious evaporation, Bix Barton's mortal enemy Fix Farton released a dossier of 150 secrets with the potential to destroy our intrepid hero! Now that dossier is for sale on Eeriebay!! It's just not cricket, by Jove!!!

#12

Announcements / Re: 2000 AD - The Ultimate Col...

Last post by Le Fink - Today at 07:19:29 PM

The back matter in the Hachette volumes sometimes draws on previous interviews. If that's what you're asking?

#13

Announcements / Re: 2000 AD - The Ultimate Col...

Last post by Funt Solo - Today at 07:00:29 PM

(There are interviews in the Megazine with Adams and Broxton - do those ever get included in reprint stuff?)

#14

Announcements / Re: 2000 AD - The Ultimate Col...

Last post by Funt Solo - Today at 06:52:31 PM

Hope has 256 pages?! Blimey. I'd have said 40 to 60

243 strip pages plus four covers = 247. There was also a Previously On... entire page in one of the progs. So, 248, if that's included.

[Slaine: The Brutania Chronicles: Book One: A Simple Killing]

#15

General / Re: Wrap It Up

Last post by Funt Solo - Today at 06:48:52 PM

but that's for another thread.

Yeah but, no but, yeah but - I agree with you that Simon Davis' art lifted the Brutania Chronicles above the value of the actual stories. There were good parts (getting deeply inside the mental landscape of the characters) and bad parts (SHOUTY OFF-PAGE GOD-VOICES SHOUTING). I reviewed them all a bit a while ago. This be what I said:


Slaine: The Brutania Chronicles: Book One: A Simple Killing
(1874-1886) Script: Pat Mills, Art: Simon Davis, Letters: Ellie De Ville

Slaine returns with mutton chops and beard, looking a bit more middle-aged than in previous incarnations and therby providing a sense of time (in a tale that has sometimes seemed stuck in a cycle).  The drune lords and their skull sword troops are back as a threat, and Slaine finds himself on a quest to save Sinead (a recent aquaintance) from their evil clutches.

The art from Simon Davis is absolutely belting, and Mills does a good job of keeping the action moving (even if, a bit like the norse myths, his Slaine tales lack some continuity).  There are also hilarious moments, like when a nonchalantly peeing giant asks Slaine if he is stuck because he hasn't run away yet.  It's really difficult to choose an image to show, because the art throughout is just a joy, but here's Slaine panicking as Sinead is infected by evil magic that turns her into a twisted version of a mermaid:




Slaine: The Brutania Chronicles, Book Two - Primordial
(1924-1936) Script: Pat Mills, Art: Simon Davis, Letters: Ellie De Ville

Slaine has rescued Sinead from the Drune lords, but her spirit is broken and she's been purposefully addicted to opium, which speaks to the wider theme of this Book as being one of spirituality and mental health. The Drunes serve as reverse psychologists: rather than trying to cure people they seek to enhance mental illness and have their victims serve them as reliant puppets. It's pretty deep and delves far back into the saga: all the way to the death of Slaine's mother, and how that has shaped him.

I could see a frustration here if it's read as an action thriller: not that there isn't any action - it's knee deep in gore - but ultimately Slaine ends up pretty much where he started after a lot of running around. There's two key things I love here: one is the stupendous painted art by Simon Davis and the other is that it's thought-provoking. An entire episode is pretty much given over to Slaine trying to deal with Sinead's depression. (It could have been a bit more progressive if Slaine had been rescued by Sinead, but you can't have everything.)




Slaine: The Brutania Chronicles, Book Three - Psychopomp
(1979-1988) Script: Pat Mills, Art: Simon Davis, Letters: Ellie De Ville

We all celebrated when Nemesis and Torquemada fought their way across several pages of beautiful Kevin O'Neill illuminations back in the day. And here we have beautiful painted art by Simon Davis with amazing colour palettes.

But: the end of the previous book had a 2-episode confrontation which now continues with a further 4 episodes of the same confrontation. That's 36 pages of one fight - and most of it consists of Gododin blathering on and winding up Slaine as he gets beaten well beyond a pulp. What: is he trying to bore him to death? Beautiful art is one thing: but you can't polish a turd.

Thankfully, we do eventually get to see some other locations - and the Macha flashbacks are quite interesting - but overall this type of story where the bad guy just shouts at the hero for pages and pages and pages, even psychically when they're not actually in the same place (and often seemingly as an excuse to witness the author's extensive research) is boring. Beautiful to look at, but boring to read.




Slaine: The Brutania Chronicles, Book Four - Archon
(2050-2060) S: Pat Mills, A: Simon Davis, L: Ellie De Ville

Beautiful art from Simon Davis and, of course, some very interesting ideas from Pat Mills, but the saga suffers under the weight of the diatribe. On the one hand, it is interesting to wonder about one's family history - and, the idea that a villain would attack Slaine's ego rather than just attack him physically is a cunning plot device. But, it's being stretched too thinly over too many pages.

The disembodied GOD SHOUTING dialogue is oppressive: not just for Slaine but also for the reader. And there's a sense of magic villainy that doesn't serve us but only the plot. The villains teleport to where Slaine and Sinead are accessing Macha's spirit, but there's no real sense of whether they're inside or outside, or where God/Archon is. It's just a scene that needed to play out - it could be happening on the moon, or inside a magic bubble dimension.

I feel like Sinead gets used as a vessel too much: she's a vessel for Macha, then a vessel for Danu. And all to serve Slaine. So, on the one hand, it's quite progressive (strong, warrior women who choose their own partners), but on the other hand there's too much focus on Slaine's needs. I probably wouldn't focus so much on that if it weren't that the narrative suggests that women do have power and should have power - but then it's all about their reflected value from Slaine's perspective.

It all improves immensely when God/Archon stops shouting, and Gododin (already defeated too many times) exits stage right. After that we're back to having a sense of place, and a plot that revolves around humans with human motives. Perhaps the best bit in the entire book is the people shouting their message from place to place. Also, I miss Ukko.

#16

Announcements / Re: 2000 AD - The Ultimate Col...

Last post by The Enigmatic Dr X - Today at 06:13:01 PM

Hope has 256 pages?! Blimey. I'd have said 40 to 60

[Savage/Defoe]

#17

Announcements / Re: 2000 AD - The Ultimate Col...

Last post by Swerty - Today at 06:08:23 PM

141 - Slaine: Dragontamer & Black Siddha
142 - Savage/Defoe
143 - Harlem Heroes volume 1
144 - Harlem Heroes volume 2
145 - Dredd: End of Days
146 -
147 - Armoured Gideon
148 -
149 - Age of the Wolf
150 - Counterfeit Girl
151 - Survival Geeks
152 - Flesh Midnight Cowboy
153 - Return to Armageddon
154 - Mean Team
155 - 13 & Carver Hale
156 - Snow/Tiger
157 - Kingdom & Shako
158 - Damnation Station
159 - Proteus Vex
160 - Harry Twenty & Dead Men Walking
161 - Al's Baby
162 - Mazeworld
163 - Zenith volume I
164 - Zenith volume 2
165 - Buttonman I
166 - Buttonman II
167 - Luke Kirby
168 - Dan Dare volume 1
169 - Dan Dare volume 2
170 - Lawless Breaking Badrock
171 - Durham Red
172 - Dark Judges
173 - Atavar
174 - Scarlet Traces 1
175 - Scarlet Traces 2
176 - Hope
177 - Kingmaker
178 - Dredd: Machine Law
179 - Dredd & Anderson
180 - Anderson Psi Div N.W.O.
181 -
182 -
183 -
184 -
185 -
186 -
187 -
188 -
189 -
190 -
191 -
192 -
193 -
194 -
195 -
196 -
197 -
198 -
199 -
200 -

Also confirmed:The Order.

[Rogue Hooper]

#18

Creative Common / Re: Cover Puns

Last post by Dash Decent - Today at 04:59:02 PM

Rogue Hooper

The original owner of Hooper's Store didn't really die.  He's in a biochip, somewhere, out there.

This is his tale.

#19

General / Re: Wrap It Up

Last post by JayzusB.Christ - Today at 04:58:09 PM

Two excellent covers from two very different Sláine artists.

For me, Bisley has never topped his Horned God stuff - the way that the terrified horse's eye forms the focal point of all the action is a stroke of genius, and shows that there was a lot more to Bisley than blood, muscles and tits. Although, of course, there were plenty of those too.

The other Simon, Mr Davis, brought an atmosphere to Sláine that it hadn't seen for years.  For all of Clint Langley's talents, he couldn't have brought that level of lush greenness to a scene like that.  Sadly I didn't think Pat's scripts at that time were his best, but that's for another thread.

#20

Announcements / Re: 2000 AD - The Ultimate Col...

Last post by Max Headroom - Today at 04:52:18 PM

On that notion of wish lists, there must be hope for completing The Order yet!

Indigo - I think 'The Order' has been confirmed somewhere as being completed at some point in this Ultimate Collection. (Unless I am totally mis-remembering!)