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Space Spinner 2000AD

Started by Steve Green, 19 April, 2017, 09:18:18 AM

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WhizzBang

Thanks Conrad and Congratulations and very best wishes for the future to Fox! I hope Fox had an excellent day.

Moving on to the Spinnies, I would like to nominate:

Best Art - Steve Yeowell on Zenith
Best Writing - Wagner and Grant on Dredd, Anderson and Strontium Dog. It is the way they combine humour, action and plot that makes these strips so good.
Best Overall Thrill - Dredd (The Taxidermist, Democracy, Last Of The Bad Guys, Oz, The Alabammy Blimps, Simp)
Best Year of 2000AD - 1982

Colin YNWA

Well I always dilly and dally on these until I miss them and so I'm going to do this now and be damned and change my mind endlessly, but too late.

Best Art - The Mighty Yeowell on Zenith - Being lucky enough to own the Apex edition has given me a whole new appreciation of this piece of work, which in the past I've always thought was the weakest of the series. Still brilliant, but still an artist learning his trade and getting used to his style. It is that but bloody hell when you have the talent of the Mighty Yeowell watching him develop and learn is such a treat.

Best Writing - Pete Milligan Bad Company - so much more than a Battle story done 2000ad style, but brilliantly that as well.

Best Overall Thrill - Anderson PSI Division - Hour of the Wolf: Just a brilliant story. Perfectly paced and the episode when Anderson is ambushed is one of my favourite single episodes of any series. Its just the perfectly done comic action piece.

Best Month of 2000AD for 1987 (either a Space Spinner episode, a calendar month of progs, or an Annual or Special - November - Zenith ends brilliantly. Bad Company II starts superbly, Dredd is good (not Oz's biggest fan), Nemesis on top form and The Rammy is okay Strontium Dog, but okay Strontium Dog is pretty good.

Best Year of 2000AD (extended list of all 11 years covered no required, just how 87 ranks for you) - Now don't shout at me as I know you disagree, but on my ongoing re-read until 1999 I had 1986 firmly as my pick of the pops, with 1987 just behind. I'll stick with that.

The fact that I don't include Judge Dredd - 'Revolution' anywhere on my list just goes the show the terrible inhuman beast I am and I hope the world can forgive me.

sheridan

#1262
      All the thrills!
      • Slaine the King
      • DR & Quinch's Agony Page
      • The Dead
      • Judge Anderson: Hour of the Wolf
      • Rogue Trooper: Hit One
      • Return of the Mean Team
      • Zenith (Phase 1)
      • Universal Soldier
      • Freaks
      • Bad Company (the first story)
      • Bad Company: The Bewilderness

      • Nemesis the Warlock Book VI: Torquemurder
      • Torquemada the God
      • Nemesis the Warlock: A Bedtime Story
      • Nemesis the Warlock Book VII: The Two Torquemadas
      Strontium Dog
      • Bitch
      • The Royal Affair
      • The Rammy
      • A Sorry Case
      • Bradley's Birthday
      • Bradley and the Bandit
      • Bradley's Xmas
      Tales of Mega-City One
      • Wreckers
      • Divorce
      • Quarantine
      • Taxi Driver
      • Taxidermist
      • Father Time
      Future-Shocks (and other shorts)
      • The Ark
      • Maniac for Hire
      • Fruitcake and Veg
      • It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World
      • Prime Suspect
      • Bait!
      • Wrong Number
      • Brief Encounter
      • Star Traks
      • Fair Exchange
      • The Invisible Etchings of Salvador Dali
      • Big Trouble for Blast Barclay
      • The Star Warriors
      • Zap!
      • A Fistful of Neurons
      • With a Bang
      • His Name was Janus
      • Old Quagmires Never Die
      • Fair's Fare
      • Some One is Watching Me
      • The Junkyard Shift
      • Ro-Jaws' Robo-Tales: Killer in the Cab (reprint)
      • Alternators
      • The Night Shift
      • I'm a Believer
      • Tomorrow's Results
      • Resentment
      • What's in a Name?
      • The Jigsaw Man
      • Occupational Hazard
      • Corporal Punishment
      • Tourist Season
      • Letter to ERNIE
      • T.R.A.I.N.
      • LED
      • The Invisible Man!
      Judge Dredd
      • Varks
      • On the Superslab
      • Slick Dickens
      • They Shoot DJs, Don't They?
      • The Taxidermist
      • The Beating Heart
      • The Comeback
      • The Genie
      • The Shooting Party
      • Navel Manoeuvres
      • Night of the Ripper
      • The Interrogation
      • Blood Donor
      • Ten Years On
      • What if Judges Did Ads?
      • So You Want to be a Judge?
      • Pit Rat
      • The Raggedy Man
      • Simp
      • Reasons to be Fearful
      • Fairly Hyperman
      • Revolution
      • Bug
      • Alabammy Blimps
      • The Return of Death-Fist
      • Killcraze
      • Oz

sheridan

All the droids who wrote stuff!


       
  • Peter Milligan
  • John Wagner
  • Alan Grant
  • Pat Mills
  • Jamie Delano
  • John Higgins
  • Steve Dillon
  • Grant Morrison
  • Mike Collins
  • Alex Stewart
  • G Bell
  • Alan McKenzie
  • Simon Geller
  • John Soanes
  • Alan Moore (reprint)
  • Neil Gaiman
  • Alan Hebden
  • Win Wiacek
All the droids who drew stuff!


       
  • Kevin O'Neill
  • Brett Ewins
  • Jim McCarthy
  • Bryan Talbot
  • Glenn Fabry
  • Nik Williams
  • Dave Wyatt
  • Carlos Ezquerra
  • Barry Kitson
  • Cam Kennedy
  • Mark Farmer
  • Johnny Johnstone
  • Robin Smith
  • Colin McNeil
  • Alan Davis
  • Massimo Belardinelli
  • Cliff Robinson
  • A Haddersley
  • Kev Hopgood
  • Garry Leach
  • Geoff Senior
  • John Nicklenton
  • Jeff Anderson
  • Mike White
  • Brendan McCarthy
  • Jose Ortiz
  • Kim Raymond
  • Dave D'Antiquis
  • Ian Gibson
  • Simon Harrison
  • Will Simpson
  • Dave Elliott
  • John Ridgway
  • Liam Sharp
  • Paul Hardy
  • John Richardson (reprint)
  • Tony Luke
  • Steve Yeowell
  • Intruder
  • Dave Gibbons
  • Huw Thomas

Eamonn Clarke

Another great year of thrill-power and podcasting.
Would try and vote in each category but it's just going to be Zenith, Zenith and Zenith for me.

(Or maybe Bad Company 1, or Bitch or Alabammy Blimps?? no it's Zenith 🤔)


Leigh S

#1265
Best Art - honourable mentions for Colin MacNeil and John Hicklenton.  Colin for immediately showing the potential he will live up to in terms of capturing an iconic 2000AD art spirit, and John for boldly going where no artist had gone before.  But for me, it's Kev O'Neillwho deserves top honour for his final year as an active droid.

Best Writer - well Milligan and Morrison do a decent  job of filling the kind of slot MacNeil and Hicklenton are doing artwise - new kids on the block with distinctive styles.  I'd give Milligan the slight edge over the two purely for quantity of new ideas.  Wagner and Grant are a little patchy but when they are on fire they are on fire.  That leaves Pat Mills to take the crown - Slaine the King and this run of Nemesis are peak Pat for me.

Best Overall Thrill - tricky one.  Received wisdom seems to suggest Strontium Dog takes a dip in the 500s, so I am glad to see you have really enjoyed this run.  That said, there is no "killer" Stront tale here. Dredd gets a bit variable - some (admittedly well told)  silly and/or lazy one offs with Genies and superheroes, but also some greats - I have a soft spot for "The Raggedy Man", with "Revolution", "The Taxidermist", the introducton of PJ Maybe and the start of "Oz" more than making up for the odd misfiring tale

But Nemesis - specifically Torquemada The God if I had to choose a particular section of it - but all of it really, even the photo story! Honourable for Anderson: Hour of the Wolf

Best Year: New Year, new paper!  1987 seems a bit better, or at least less wobbly than 1986 - there's a lot more new blood, and (so far,) that's refreshing.  I have a huge soft spot for 1987 as a year in my life - I was 15,  Metal was my sound of choice and in strong cahoots with Tharg (RESPECT THE BADGE -HE EARNED IT WITH HIS BLOOD!).  Games Workshop was in its pomp and also in strong cahoots with Tharg AND Metal (the year of the Rogue Trooper Board game I seem to recall? Sabbat flexi discs in White Dwarf alongside some neato Dredd RPG scenarios illustrated by current and future droids). The prog itself was flying... a virtuous circle!  What could possibly go wrong?   

But better than 1984? By Grud and all his works, what is wrong with you!?  1984!!!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8mEOiI4pjs








The Monarch

Best Art: Honourable mention goes to Colin Macneil who other than a certain other artist we will meet in 1988 (cough chris weston cough)  is my all time fave 2000ad artist. But Steve yeowell killed it with zenith

Best Writing Pat Mills we are def in peak nemesis territory and he deserves the nod over the fantastic Morrison and the as usually talented (though soon to be doomed) Wagner/grant combo

Best Overall Thrill: special mention goes to zenith phase 1 but its the weakest of the four phases so i choose nemesis the warlock might as well enjoy this wonderful strip while we still have it

Best Month of 2000AD for 1987 november all killer mostly no filler

i cannot vote for a best year so instead indulge me with this insane new award

the "rick random" award for tedious wretched trash: Mean team: whose idea was it to take a future sport story and retrofit it as a bizarre fantasy story. not even massimos wonderful and odd art can save this terrible spiteful story which was so bad it felt like tharg was pulling an inferno with the ending ie kill them all and wrap this shit up fast.

SpaceSpinner2000



In our thrilling hundred and seventy-fourth episode Fox and Conrad continue their journey through the Galaxy's Greatest Comic with Progs 551-554 of 2000AD, covering December 1987. This episode Chopper takes on the storm, Warlock and homunculus are reunited, the Strontium Dogs are judged, Bradley has some adventures, and there's a new member of Bad Company, and it's a lady!

Direct Download
iTunes
Google
Stitcher
Or on your favorite podcast app!

Please let me know what you think of the episode!

Quote from: The Monarch on 11 September, 2019, 12:08:36 AM
i cannot vote for a best year so instead indulge me with this insane new award

the "rick random" award for tedious wretched trash: Mean team: whose idea was it to take a future sport story and retrofit it as a bizarre fantasy story. not even massimos wonderful and odd art can save this terrible spiteful story which was so bad it felt like tharg was pulling an inferno with the ending ie kill them all and wrap this shit up fast.

I understand the impulse, but my general stance is to keep things positive for the Spinnies, traditionally we don't have a "worst thrill" category or things of that nature, but who knows what the terrible upcoming future will hold?

Again, we're looking for more Spinny nominations! Get them in to my by this Friday (September 20th) to gurantee they'll be read on the show! Once again the catagories are:

  • Best Art
  • Best Writing
  • Best Overall Thrill
  • Best Month of 2000AD for 1987 (either a Space Spinner episode, a calendar month of progs, or an Annual or Special
  • Best Year of 2000AD (extended list of all 11 years covered no required, just how 87 ranks for you)

And thanks to Sheridan for listing all the everythings!
2000 AD recap podcast, from the beginning!
Check out the show here! Or on iTunes, Google Play, or your preferred podcast app!

Lobo Baggins

Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer (from Doctor Who Weekly, written by Steve Moore and drawn by a sixteen year old Steve Dillon) was the first character I know of that had a chainsword. He debuted in 1981, so he had one WAY before it was cool.
The wages of sin are death, but the hours are good and the perks are fantastic.

AlexF

Best art: Ewins / J.McCarthy for Bad Company
Best writing: Wagner/Grant for the double-whammy of the Rammy and the Blimps from Alabammy
Best overall Thrill: Bad Company, not least for getting a decent sequel ready for print within just 6 months of the first book being a smash hit.
Best Month: a toss up between February and November; reckon I'll side with November on a technicality - I think I've bought reprints of ALL five thrills multiple times (Oz, The Rammy, Bad Company II, Zenith phase 1, Nemesis VII and no Future Shocks...)
Best Year: I'm sticking with 1986. RAGE!

Best overall moment: Fox getting married! Many congratulations / herzlichen Gluckwunch as they may or may not say in Germany these days.

Huey2

Hi Conrad and Fox, thank you for putting out such an enjoyable podcast and congrats to Fox.

My take on 1987

Best art -
Glenn Fabry. It's often said that 2000ad grew up with its readers. Whilst I won't argue that the tooth of today is often more adult than the 80s version, I would say that it's never done anything more mature than the likes of Halo Jones, Zenith or Slaine the King. The storytelling here is more sophisticated than previous Slaine tales with Mills have confidence in what Fabry can do. Highlights: there's a splash page which isn't a scene of violence but is instead a group of characters sitting around a fire. And then there's a page where Slaine watches Niamh and Kai walk away. Fabry gets a pen and ink drawing act better than most Hollywood stars.
Honorable mention: John Higgins - the pained art in the annual is incredible. Higgins is ahead of his time here and, shame he wasn't painting a longer strip round about the time 2000ad got a full colour story.

Favourite strip: Stront. I've often heard it said that the strip takes a slight dip in quality after Wulf dies. As a reader at the time, this was the most exciting era of the strip as the tone and dynamic could change so much by pairing Johnny up with different people or setting him off on his own. The Rammy really makes the most of pairing Johnny up with Middenface.

Favourite writers: Wagner and Grant. As a long term reader, I'd gotten used to them churning out classic after classic without breaking a sweat. Then, there came a couple of Dredds which were merely okay and not fantastic making me wonder if they might possibly be running out of ideas. Roll on issue 531. Without any fanfare, one of the all-time greatest Dredds arrives to show you that after hundreds of Dredd stories they can still do something amazing with the strip. Add Oz, Stront, Anderson, the Taxidermist, Varks and everything else they did. We really were spoiled.

Favourite month: November
Favourite year: 1986


And here's a 1987 fact I don't think is that well known: 1987 saw Grant, Wagner and Kennedy cross the channel to launch Outcasts (One of the greatest comic books of all time) at DC. 2000ad editorial apparently asked if they could run the strip in the comic like they'd done with Metalzoic in '86. Grant and Wagner apparently declined as they felt the strip wasn't written to suit a weekly format.

Cheers!

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Huey2 on 16 September, 2019, 11:23:43 PM

And here's a 1987 fact I don't think is that well known: 1987 saw Grant, Wagner and Kennedy cross the channel to launch Outcasts (One of the greatest comic books of all time) at DC. 2000ad editorial apparently asked if they could run the strip in the comic like they'd done with Metalzoic in '86. Grant and Wagner apparently declined as they felt the strip wasn't written to suit a weekly format.


Firstly yeah this is a brilliant series and well worth tracking down, always surprised it never gets the attention is deserves. Largely as I don't think (???) its ever been reprinted, which is a real shame. Completely undertsand the reasons for not reprinting as it does read to me as a 2000ad story deliberately shaped to a 22 page American monthly and as such won't work in the weekly.

Anyway one of fun things in the series is the fact that there are clearly nods of the head towards Judge Dredd sneaked in. There's a couple of panels in particular were the police of the series cast very Judical shadows. 

On another note thank you for reminding me of 'American Eagle' I saw it back in the day and remember loving it ... wonder if I would now buit would love to be able to find out.

Congratulations to Fox as well. lovely news.

sheridan

Quote from: Colin YNWA on 19 September, 2019, 11:01:48 AM
Quote from: Huey2 on 16 September, 2019, 11:23:43 PM
And here's a 1987 fact I don't think is that well known: 1987 saw Grant, Wagner and Kennedy cross the channel to launch Outcasts (One of the greatest comic books of all time) at DC. 2000ad editorial apparently asked if they could run the strip in the comic like they'd done with Metalzoic in '86. Grant and Wagner apparently declined as they felt the strip wasn't written to suit a weekly format.

Firstly yeah this is a brilliant series and well worth tracking down, always surprised it never gets the attention is deserves. Largely as I don't think (???) its ever been reprinted, which is a real shame. Completely undertsand the reasons for not reprinting as it does read to me as a 2000ad story deliberately shaped to a 22 page American monthly and as such won't work in the weekly.

I don't think it's a surprise it hasn't gotten more attention.  I remember reading through the first issue in the shop but it was way out of my price range (the only US-style comics I'd have been getting at the time would have been the Eagle reprints of 2000AD stories (and later the misnamed 'Quality' reprints)).  I've managed to get a copy of the first issue since then, but haven't got any more (yet!)

WhizzBang

I have started reading Outcasts on the basis of recent comments and it is really good and could so easily be re-purposed as a pre-Dredd story. 'Big City' is Mega City One and the 'Enforcers' are the Judges is the way I am reading through it, and no other changes are necessary.

SpaceSpinner2000



In our thrilling hundred and seventy-fifth episode Fox and Conrad take a break from reviewing weekly progs to reminisce on the whole of 2000 AD comics for the year 1987. It's a chance to reflect, review, and give out awards! Welcome to the 1987 Spinnies! At the end of every chronological year in our prog timeline we give out awards to the storylines and thrills we liked best over the last year. Stay tuned until the end to hear what's coming up in 1988 from both 2000AD and our show!

Direct Download
iTunes
Google
Stitcher
Or on your favorite podcast app!

Please let me know what you think of the episode!

Quote from: WhizzBang on 22 September, 2019, 07:50:51 PM
I have started reading Outcasts on the basis of recent comments and it is really good and could so easily be re-purposed as a pre-Dredd story. 'Big City' is Mega City One and the 'Enforcers' are the Judges is the way I am reading through it, and no other changes are necessary.
I'm about a quarter in myself, the named city blocks really give it a Dredd feel. I think the only difference is the prevalence of mutants with super powers, but that can easily be explained away!
2000 AD recap podcast, from the beginning!
Check out the show here! Or on iTunes, Google Play, or your preferred podcast app!