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Prog 2140 - Deep in the Bone

Started by Richard, 13 July, 2019, 12:39:23 PM

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Richard

This is top quality this week.

There's an excellent one-off Judge Dredd story by Rory McConville and Tom Foster. I think we've seen Tom before, but I can't remember when/where. But his style is very reminiscent of Brian Bolland's, in a good way. I'd like to see more from him. If Tharg doesn't get Brian back for the episode when Hershey dies (as she surely must soon, and he did her first episode), I'd like to see Tom Foster do it. The story is Rory at his best.

It's actually possible to follow what's happening in Indigo Prime this week, which is nice. It's also quite eventful. Ditto Anderson, and I'm still a fan of Aneke's style, whatever others might think of it.

I'm not usually keen on Absalom, but this episode is fantastic. I can't really explain why without spoiling it, but it's just great and it has made me care about two characters in a strip where I didn't care about any of them before.

Thistlebone seems to introduce the bad guy at last, unless it's just misdirection (and unless we actually have seen him before and I'm just having a senior moment).

There's a Droid Life and some letters.

All in all, nothing was disappointing this week. And the Megazine has arrived too!

broodblik

Tom Foster's last Dredd story was in prog 2040 "The Wrap-Up". He also did a story in the Judge Dredd Megazine "Storm Warning" running from 404 to 408.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.


Richard


Colin YNWA

What a striking cover, really bold and I love it.

The Dredd was a fun one off by McConville, with some lovely art by Tom Foster. Seemed to go a little overboard on the lighting effects in the aircraft which I found a little distracting from his otherwise sharp style. Minor complaint at the end of the day.

Indigo Prime continues in fine style. It'll be interest to get a sense of the pacing when this latest run is read of one. Here feels like we're been thrown into the dramatic finale of a high octane movie. It works but I'm intrigued how it will read as a whole.

Anderson truddles on and for me isn't getting there.

Absalom is magnificent a really nice pay off to the set up from a couple of weeks ago. Took me a little bit to get into the rhythm of episode, but when I did it just sang. Brilliant.

Finally Thistlebone seems to stab the horror home, but I wonder if its playing with us. The fact that I'm feverishly guessing and counter guessing speaks volumes for the quality of this story.

Nice Prog.

Richard

Tom Foster also did a Terror Tale in prog 1886.

glassstanley

Stand out for me was Absalom by a long-shot. That's not because the other strips were weak. They're not, it's a strong prog and I share the love for Thistledown.

But (avoiding spoilers) this week's Absalom ... Zarjaz!

Geoff

Absalom was great, it's the story that's gripping me the most in 2000ad at the moment.

The cover is a stunner too, and Indigo Prime is bonkers (in a good way) with impressive art.

Speaking of impressive art, it's such a pleasure to see Tom Foster on Dredd and with a good script as well.  The colouring does verge on the gaudy though.

Anderson and Thistlebore drag this week's prog down. The art on Anderson is just weak and I have no interest in the story. With Thistlebone there's no complaints about the art, which is glorious but it's Part 6 now, six episodes and very little has really happened.  It was funny though when the journalist asks the other character 'Are you okay? You look pale.' You want her to reply, 'Really, you've only just noticed...'

Frank

Quote from: Geoff on 14 July, 2019, 05:26:30 PM
... six episodes and very little has really happened.  It was funny though when the journalist asks the other character 'Are you okay? You look pale.' You want her to reply, 'Really, you've only just noticed...'

Arf!  Avril's surname is Tretchikoff.



IndigoPrime

Yeah, a good Dredd in all. Foster's art seems much sketchier and looser than in previous Dredds he's done, which had tighter old-school inking more akin to Bolland. I do hope the reason he's infrequently in the Prog is because he's busy elsewhere.

Indigo Prime carries on doing its thing. I quite like it, with Kek-W continuing to nudge a 0.7 on the WeirdSmith-O-Meter. Fab art, as ever.

Anderson: it to some extent feels a bit by-the-numbers Anderson in the script department, but that's no bad thing. I suppose it'd help if I cared more about Karyn, but she was historically just brought it as an Anderson replacement when the more famous spy buggered off. Now she's kind of a Corey replacement. The art's solid. There are things I find odd (notably the shoulder eagle), but there's dynamism and a new take here, and so that's to be encouraged.

Absalom was horrible, as you'd expect. Proper gut-wrenching stuff, and wonderfully realised visually. I've always really liked this strip, and it's good that it'll get to go out with a bang.

Thistlebone seems very slow burn. I'm honestly not sure what I think of it yet, but I continue to be intrigued. Nice cover art, too.

In all, then, a perfect hit-rate Prog for me, in that every strip was at least pretty good. (It was also interesting to see The Beano in WHSmith yesterday – the Prog's only 10p more expensive, which strikes me as bloody good these days, given that Dennis and co. must sell a lot more copies.)

Proudhuff

Nice cover, quite different, hopefully put in the curious.
damage report? more like top gear!

Enjoyed the Dredd, art and story vaguely old sckool but fu. Judge Pin returns next week, if the Megazine ad is to be believed.

Indigo and Anderson I may return to, but currently not catching my eye..

Absalom and Thistledonicely both cracking on art and stories

Six letters but no Butt'man, will he ever reach a century  :-X
DDT did a job on me

Magnetica

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 15 July, 2019, 09:34:15 AM
Anderson: it to some extent feels a bit by-the-numbers Anderson in the script department, but that's no bad thing. I suppose it'd help if I cared more about Karyn, but she was historically just brought it as an Anderson replacement when the more famous spy buggered off. Now she's kind of a Corey replacement. The art's solid. There are things I find odd (notably the shoulder eagle), but there's dynamism and a new take here, and so that's to be encouraged.

I thought the way the shoulder eagle was drawn with the wings not rigidly attached to the body of the bird, made sense from a practical point of view, providing more flexibility and a greater range of movement for the wearer.

broodblik

A very good prog again

Many times, I have been critical of McConville's Dredd stories because it will fluctuate between average and good. This round we get the good. What a enjoyable story from art to script.

Indigo Prime
From script side: it has very nice pictures
From the art side: it has very nice pictures

The ending of Absalom is just so sad but we knew from the beginning that we will have collateral damage. Rennie produces a brilliant script with great art from Tiernen
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

Frank

Quote from: broodblik on 17 July, 2019, 02:15:42 PM
Indigo Prime
From script side: it has very nice pictures
From the art side: it has very nice pictures

Arf!  I wasn't going to bother commenting on Smithless Indigo Prime at all, but I thought of something to say about it beyond I wish John Smith was writing this, so here goes*

I like that Kek-W's technobabble has a foothold in scientific vocabulary - rather than Smith's random, hyphenated collission of terms he'd overheard on Tomorrow's World and nouns from the Dusseldorf phonebook - but the scenarios he's devised for Carter to illustrate have been mundane and domestic.

Billy Burroughs writing his way out of the Nihilist's mental trap meant some nice images of Marrakesh, and Carter's turned in some very good work, but considering so many of the events in this story take place inside the realm of imagination (where anything is possible), the visuals have been curiously tame.

Feel free to clap-back that defining an interdimensional space station as 'domestic' is tendentious, but even without going into the obviously wild likes of a Playstation-controlled Cthulhu/Jesus hybrid and Giant Monster Sex, I don't think post-Smith Prime has inspired Carter to get his teeth into anything as spectacular and Big Night Out as:





... or as playfully provocative and iconoclastic as a Pulp Fiction caveman taking in the sights at Golgotha:





... or as hilariously scurrilous as Phil & Liz getting the Gunther von Hagens treatment in Buck House, occupied by David Ike NWO lizard Nazis:





Kek-W has done a very respectable job of turning Indigo Prime into something a comic editor would recognise as a story, complete with crossovers and interpersonal character conflicts, but it isn't bringing out the fireworks from his artist in the same way as sitting up until 7 in the morning watching Youtube documentaries about the Pharaohs drinking Spar shop cider did.

If there is a reason for continuing Indigo Prime without Smith, it's that Carter has invested just as much in the strip as its creator over recent years and deserves to profit from its success. But, so far, this is selling him short. 


* DISCLAIMER: I'M IDEOLOGICALLY OPPOSED TO CONTINUING INDIGO PRIME WITHOUT JOHN SMITH, SO I'M ESSENTIALLY A BAD FAITH ACTOR AND MY OPINIONS SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD IN THAT CONTEXT

TordelBack

I too acknowledge that I may acting in bad faith when discussing post-Smith Indigo Prime, and I think Kek-W has consistently been one of the brightest lights in the Prog since at least Second City Blues (which I would very much like to see him writing a sequel to).  As I think John himself remarked, the direction the strip has taken has just seemed so obvious, swapping endlessly expansive for madly involuted, a real point of contrast with The Order or Deadworld, where the craziness just seems to get bigger and bigger with every run.  Even the surprise guest stars are more fun in Nigel's own creations. 

Speaking from my usual position of complete editorial ignorance and sublime fan entitlement, iff a continuation of IP had to happen after Smith's departure, there should have been a complete break in characters and storyline immediately after Carter's already-drawn episodes had run: a giant unresolved 'Meanwhile...'.  I think a big mistake was made in following Danny, Unther and Herr Schroeder, integral to Smith's longest-running IP plot, but not really to the potential of the setting itself.  A narrative break would have been in keeping with both Smith's staccato IP output and the multiversal scope of the setting, and given a hugely creative writer a largely blank canvas to go nuts all over.

It would also, crucially for me, have at least held the door open a crack for another of 2000AD's very finest writers to return and pick up his own threads in some far happier distant future.