Well, whatever I expected from the cover this week, that wasn't it. Bery strange. Like it.
Dredd - A slight story but well told.
Stickleback - Hots up and confirms suspicions simultaneously. Pretty.
A.B.C.s - Laaaaaara is very attractive until that panel with the stumpy dwarf legs. Dressing her as Ms Croft? Whos idea was that?
Kingdom - looks like we're getting somewhere at last.
Low Life - I haven't got a clue what's going on but in a good way. Simon Colebys art has really come on since last year, everythings easier to distinguish but still as distinctive. Hooray.
Nice to see Vince Locke doing the art on Dredd, too.
Sadly, Indigo, I agree in principle, but I'm really disappointed with the result.
I liked History of Violence but I don't think Locke's right for Dredd.
There's some pretty poor panels there, in execution and design. In the scene in the toilet, how can Dredd look in the bin but not at the perp? I have to doubt that's what Wagner's script intended.
Sorry to start on a negative. Overall, this is another damn fine prog.
I still miss Origins a lot, but I liked the Dredd. The "sexmeks" and the twist are nice ideas.
Stickleback's still fantastic. Every comic should have a B&W story set in Victorian times!
I love Lara. We demand a personal appearance at the next Dreddcon!
ABC Warriors is addictive stuff, although I did get a little uncomfortable as I read her stilted dialogue. But that's Pat. It's a small price to pay for a beautiful, exciting story.
I'd echo David on Kingdom. Plot moves ahead! Hooray! But I still like it. The art works really well and I want to see where it's going.
As for Lowlife, it has some great ideas and many wonderful lines, yet again.
"Dirty Frank loves all babies. Except for the Nazi ones."
Who can argue with that?
Finally, the cover is wonderful. It is officially the first part of a comic book my Rose has enjoyed. She's 10 months now, and smiling a lot.
When she saw Coleby's crazy baby, she grinned and said, "BAH!"
Which is a good thing.
- Trout
"ABC Warriors is addictive stuff, although I did get a little uncomfortable as I read her stilted dialogue."
In story English not Lara's first language, it supposed to be stilted. Lara lovely girl!
More thrills from the ABC's... Zippo seems like a decent sort doing dirty work. Am looking forward to Smushing Time... hurrrgh!
Dredd, yup another fun one off. I really liked Vince Locke's art for this, good to see him in the prog. I assumed that Dredd saw the perp but chose to ignore him and was playing it cool, but you've made me wonder.
Stickleback, very good, but feel there could be more questions and intrigue and... stuff happening. Basically it's not as challenging as I'd hope.
Kingdom, still surprisingly enjoyable, but then I do like my post apocalyptic wastelands filled with monsters.
Hmmm. I did notice Lara was a little bit furrin. I really meant the way she told her life story, unprompted, in disjointed statements, but maybe the furriness made me judge her a bit too harshly.
Either way, it fantastic stuff. I'm happy.
And more Savage to come! Yippee!
- Trout
Cover - definitly strange :-)
Dredd: nice twist. Some funny dialoge. I am torn about art, though. It´s okay, but not in the wow-range.
Stickleback: Edginton is consistenly good these last years. Leviathan, Red Seas, now this. And the art is brill too. Love this.
ABC: Nice Lara :-) I mean, the joke is as broad as the proviabel barn, but I have to confess it gave me chuckle.
Kingdom: the plot thickens. Hm. Could be good or could be lame. But I am at least curious. Which is a good thing for an Abnett tale, who is very hit or miss for me.
LowLife: I am in the camp who thought the last LL rather poor. And the idea Dirty Frank+Baby is sooo Hollywood. And not in a good way. But how can you not love a story where the hero says: "Dirty Frank loves all Babies. Except for the nazi ones." Regardless how this will end - the baby is shrunken Aimee, or? -, this is a winner alone for part 1 :-)
Cover - definitly strange :-)
Dredd: nice twist. Some funny dialoge. I am torn about art, though. It´s okay, but not in the wow-range.
Stickleback: Edginton is consistenly good these last years. Leviathan, Red Seas, now this. And the art is brill too. Love this.
ABC: Nice Lara :-) I mean, the joke is as broad as the proviabel barn, but I have to confess it gave me chuckle.
Kingdom: the plot thickens. Hm. Could be good or could be lame. But I am at least curious. Which is a good thing for an Abnett tale, who is very hit or miss for me.
LowLife: I am in the camp who thought the last LL rather poor. And the idea Dirty Frank+Baby is sooo Hollywood. And not in a good way. But how can you not love a story where the hero says: "Dirty Frank loves all Babies. Except for the nazi ones." Regardless how this will end - the baby is shrunken Aimee, or? -, this is a winner alone for part 1 :-)
upps sorry for the double post.
I HATE the new version of IE. Just hate it.
Dredd has a decent enough idea, which is padded out far beyond what it can support. Tharg announces that this is the first time Vince Locke's worked for 2000AD: on this evidence, let's hope it's the last.
Stickleback's brilliance is becoming almost boring! The last page, in particular, is incredible.
ABC Warriors has been great so far, but this whole Lara Croft business is a bit much.
On finishing Kingdom, I had to ask myself if I'd just read a whole episode. Still, it looks like somebody's going to be along next week to explain everything.
Low Life is top class. This is a real return to form after the dire Con Artist. Some laugh out loud lines from the babies and Mr Coleby appears to have made an effort to respond to the "knife drawer" comments about the way he draws faces.
I'm with The Cosh on this Dredd.
Talk about a throw away Dredd. Nice idea. That's it.
Does Tharg still approve artists' thumbnails?
There are several bad decisions on every page. A flimsy script should be an opportunity to be creative visually. Generic this. Generic that. And Grud forbid you should be able to understand what's happening in a panel without comparing it to the others around it to work out the story.
I'm reminded of the storytelling skills of David Millgate and Nick Percival.
The sprinkler sequence says it all: Weak.
And another thing...!
The revamped potato print Dredd logo is a poor imitation of the classic logo. Yes,I know you had to buy a new ruler and everything, but I think Rufus (all hail, long may he draw etc.), demonstrated last Prog that it's perfectly acceptable, at least when paired with strong art.
Also...
I like the letting on ABC Warriors. Loaves are vastly more attractive than ovals. Simon Bowland, you sir are reasonably decent. You may quote me.
Hi, my name's Lara. I've just had a bath!
More Coleby. More Low Life. Good.
Best babe with a gun cover ever.
Shite day at work - excellent prog to take my mind off it when I got home.
Thanks very much, Tharg & droids!
*averts eyes*
NO DROKKING PROG!!!!
No Drokking prog for me either!!!
Second everything the talking fish said
Lay-zeeHuff
Second fantastic Coleby cover in a row! I've always rated him but lately his work has blown me away!
Dredd - Hmmmm. I love A History of Violence but Vince's shakey art turned me off this story. Dredd on the Lawmaster on page 3 is laughable and it looks like the artist had the shakes on some other pages. Quite liked the story but wonder about the timing of it with the events leading up to Christmas...
Stickleback - D'Israeli's work is amazing. There's something jaw dropping on every page. He's just a bloddy show off!
ABC's - Not much to add, I just hope it doesn't get too silly. Zippo for seventh warrior!
Kingdom - I'm pleased it's moving on, I was starting to lose interest a bit but it's got me again!
Low Life - Really enjoyed both the script and the art. "Dirty Frank's personal Hygiene is not the issue here" was my fave line - class!
Letters - I likes the swearing and the boobies. Demarco's "Resent that, you little shit!" in Doomsday is a favourite moment of mine and just sounds cooler than "You little stomm."
Thanks for the kind words, CraveNoir. Very much appreciated!
No Origins again this week, but the prog stands up very well regardless.
Lovely cover. The clutter free backgroundmakes this stand out really well.
Dredd was a bit of a disappointment (including the disappearance of the classic logo) but I liked Vince Locke's take on Dredd on the whole - the Darth Vader helmet has to go, though. Not the best tale in the world, and the dialogue-free action sequences are just not up to scratch. Compare with that great page in last week's one-off... Anyway, okay stuff.
Stickleback is *still* the best thing in the prog. Collected editions of this deserve to sell like oh-so-very-hot cakes. Yes, we all saw this coming, but that's part of the fun. Fantastic stuff!
ABC Warriors is great this week - it's like having a re-read of those early progs without having to get all dusty. I can see why those Kozaks aren't popular. Auntie Ukko-alike combing the battlefield with lovely LAARAAA; what's not to like? Looking forward to lots of smushing next week. Great stuff!
Kingdom is great, and I think Steve Roberts' colours have added nicely to the art. I'll put my hand up and admit that Richard Elson has not been my favourite artist over the years; a lot of strips seem to blur into one, without enough differentiation of tech / aliens / misc. to make them stand apart. This, though, is just great, and I've really been enjoying the whole damn thing! Great stuff!
Low Life has everything I'd expect, plus Nazi babies. Things like this make me want to renew my subscription, which I'll be doing later this week. Quote of the week: "You vill get nothing from me, copper!" Great stuff!
Hope my bold tags were better this week, Wils.
I guess I'm in the minority, but I liked Locke's take on Dredd, bar the Vader helmet. It has a certain rawness about it that reminded me of John Ridgeway's art (which I also really like, especially his Luke Kirby stuff), and it felt perfectly suited to the seedy underworld story. The disappearance of the old Dredd logo was a major disappointment, however.
Prefered the girl next door look to Lara than the new reinvented cyber science expert.
nazi babies, i seen it all now
>Prefered the girl next door look to Lara than the new reinvented cyber science expert.
I have to agree. I don't like the photoshop humans either, it's like an 80's photo stor,. I'm half expectin' Doomlord to show up.
"I'm half expectin' Doomlord to show up."
Yeah, that would be cool.
not with a plastic mask though.
or Nemisis and his goth girl that was a great photostrip... not.
Yip the photostrip style just doesn't work for humans robots are great tho
Photohuff
I like Dirty Frank!
love that in xmas 2000AD last year, says that they should nuke that children's home after hear about "Santa" monster.
wish to see the Dirty Frank as Judge Frank... would you?
Actually really liked that fill-in Dredd - apart from some dodgy Lawmasters, I thought Locke's Dredd looked pretty cool, a mix of early Cam Kennedy and Jim Baikie, with great colouring from Cruz. The story was wonderfully underdeveloped, in true Wagner style - why did the guy attack sexmeks? No idea, who cares! Magic.
It's hard to imagine anything looking more fabulous than each successive episode of Stickleback - this is heading towards McMahon's Slaine in terms of being an utterly unique experience. I think Dizzy is selling himself short if he's only viewing this as an expression of his love of Breccia - this is something else entirely.
Low Life seems to be the best storyline yet, and as ever Coleby just gets better and better with every page he draws. I have to confess that I hated his work back in the 90's, and I have trouble believing its the same guy.
Kingdom! Fantastic! Poor Jack! Poor Gene!
ABC Warriors is lacking something this week. Maybe its the return of Scotia and Ukko that's putting me off, although Mongrol is a masterpiece.
All in all a good'un, real 2nd Golden Age stuff!
Who's the Baby Pirate on the cover?
Undercover judge, as far as we know yet.
als in ordnung
Low Life rules - the bad babies were a hoot and a holler
I thought the Dredd was okay.
I'm with Ming on Kingdom. I've corresponded with Richard Elson, so I want him to be brilliant. however he hasn't been my favourite artist either. On this story he's the bomb
Cover - I've been rather negative about the 2000AD covers for a long time now, but this was fun. I'd prefer to see a cleaner line with less shadowing, just to make the character stand out more clearly from a distance - remember the cover is meant to attract the casual browser. However, the basic idea of a baby with an eyepatch and a gun is pretty impressive.
Dredd: The Sexmek Slasher - Interesting little one-off here. I'm curious as to what it means for the legal status of prostituion in the Meg. As far as I can tell from this, it's legal, but it wasn't back in 'America' (Dredd decides against charging Beeny with 'consorting'). I can understand that making prostitution illegal is essentially pointless, but then that could be argued about many of Mega-City One's laws. Is this one of Hershey's liberal reforms?
Vincent Locke's art is very nice and I liked Eva de la Cruz's colours. More please, but if Vincent could avoid flaring the edges of his Judges' helmets, I'd be grateful
Stickleback: Mother London - continues to be an interesting little tale with some lovely art. I'm not sure it's something I'd ever want to buy in a collected edition, but it is a series that stands out.
A.B.C. Warriors: The Volgan War - As ever, no complaints about this as a straight future war story. The art is stunning beyond belief, even if some of the photo-humans jar a little.
It is interesting that despite the fact some of us are complaining about the dateline Mills has chosen and his clumsy politics, he *is* looking back at his old stories and even lifting the original dialgue. It's unfair and simply wrong to say that he's completly ignoring continuity. It strikes me that Mills is quite deliberately traying to establish his own continuity here. In the struggle against fanwankery, it's probably a losing battle, but this particular fanwanker can work around it for the moment at least.
Kingdom - Five episodes in and we finally have the possibility of some plot. I'm sure we could have reached this point about episode three and still got in the character stuff and the hints that something odd was going on in the pack's world.
Low Life: Baby Talk - Wally Squad stories have been popular with a lot of writers, because it allows them to use the Mega-City One setting without being limited by having a main character with a Judge's uniform and a normal Judge's mindset. However, for me such characters and series have been uniformly rubbish.
Until Low Life.
Low Life was good from the start and I never regret seeing it in 2000AD. I'll be honest and admit that when I think back, the storylines themselves have not stuck in my mind - I just know I enjoyed reading them and they failed to piss me off like so many other non-Wagner Wally Squad tales.
Baby Talk is more likely to stick in my mind. It feels like a perfect Judge Dredd story, with its crazy futuristic vision of criminal babies. The only criticism I have is that I can seen in my mind's eye a full-page spread of a massive gunfight between uniformed Judges and an armed gang of babies in Nazi unforms. That's a missed opportunity to create a 2000AD classic... but then who knows what subsequent episode will give us.
Regards
Robin