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Prog 2038 - Going Viral!

Started by Magnetica, 01 July, 2017, 07:38:27 PM

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Magnetica

Cover- Dredd

Nerve Centre - more new or returning thrills than you can shake a stick at - Greysuit , The Alienist and Hope coming soon to the Prog, and Devlin Waugh in the Meg (but we knew that already, right?).

Dredd- as I feared, a fairly by the numbers conclusion that mostly wastes the potential of the reality filter idea.

Brink - superb as ever. Will be sad to see this end in a couple of weeks. Hopefully there will be a new series soon.

Defoe - now that "whodunnit" has been revealed, this seems much more straight forward. More action, with the politics replaced with a swipe at religion instead (so still a standard Pat Mills episode then!). Not sure if it is just me, but the art seems to go up a level this week, especially the panel on the bottom of page 5 with Defoe holding  his gun.

Grey Area - sorry didn't grab me again this week, which is a shame as it is normally one of my favourites.


Hunted - now beginning to read even more like 1980's Rogue. The reveal at the end left me a bit cold - [spoiler]I knew it was going to be a GI, just not which one...but then again there aren't really that many to choose from[/spoiler].

Colin YNWA

Quote from: Magnetica on 01 July, 2017, 07:38:27 PM

Dredd- as I feared, a fairly by the numbers conclusion that mostly wastes the potential of the reality filter idea.


Yeah I'd say this pretty much sums it up. And for this reason the Prog takes a tiny dip from last week. The rest is pretty much as you were. Brink brilliant, Defoe exists, Grey Areas dazes, the art a little too brightly and Hunted flaps but hangs on there just about.

Looking forward to Greysuit returning, not so much Alienist and it'll be interesting to see how Hope develops. I

I'm said Tharg has got someone else doing Devlin but with Mike Dowling on art ... we'll see, but changing writers... well its rarely worked has it.

McNulty

I'm a long time reader but I rarely post because by the time I read my prog most of my opinions have already been posted by others.

I found it difficult to read about Daniel losing his faith in God. In a world where the occult and science are treated as the same, it was hard to see the power of faith being treated as impotent and irrelevant.




A.Cow

Cover - A bit of a cluttered mess from the (usually dependable) Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague.  The whole thing screams of someone trying to rescue a composition that is not suited to a cover, trying hard to draw the eye to Dredd ... but the desaturated colours make it look like it's been in a sunny shop window for too long.

Nerve Centre - The only good thing about more Greysuit is that it'll all be over soon -- another one-idea story like American Reaper that has dragged out far too long.  Otherwise, more work promised from the new generation of up-and-coming droids.  Intrigued that John Smith is letting someone else write Devlin Waugh.

Judge Dredd: Parental Guidance (part two) - like many have said already, this was underwhelming filler.  I'm fairly certain we've had the "I see nice things" conceit previously in Dredd, too.

Brink: Skeleton Life (part 16) - Still getting an Emperor's New Clothes feeling about this.  Starting to suspect that Dan Abnett is making it up as he goes and that there is no long game plan here.

Defoe: Diehards (part thirteen) - Please wake me up when something eventful happens.

Grey Area: Man Flu - Nice, self-contained story.  The highlight of the prog this week.

Hunted: Furies (part five) - Bit of a faxed-in episode.  At least this has a lower words-per-speech-balloon count then other recent Rennie strips.

Overall a bit of a 'meh' prog this week, IMHO.

Jacqusie

Quote from: A.Cow on 02 July, 2017, 01:06:22 AM
Cover - A bit of a cluttered mess from the (usually dependable) Cliff Robinson and Dylan Teague.  The whole thing screams of someone trying to rescue a composition that is not suited to a cover, trying hard to draw the eye to Dredd ... but the desaturated colours make it look like it's been in a sunny shop window for too long.



It's doesn't really 'pop' with all those browns and tans - even the font is a mucky yellow which doesn't help any of it stand out or, as you say work very well.

Still the prog rumbles on and I can't say that the dozens of talking heads, lettering and endless dialogue has been great joy reading in Brink (blah blah blah) and now the dreaded Grey Area, which is indeed yep! very grey... with lots of speech bubbles...

At least Defoe looks nice, despite being a few episodes too long (It's Pat Mills ey) and I'm really looking forward to the return of Devlin. Mike Dowling is a great choice and I'm sure (or hoping) that this has all been done very carefully by Rory as not to be too jarring. Good luck to him I say.

Oh and I do like a bit of Leigh Gallagher on Dredd (bit daft story like) but the art pulled it through with some great facial expressions. I like that he gets Dredd's is an old bugger!  :thumbsup:


Frank

Quote from: Jacqusie on 04 July, 2017, 12:47:34 AM
Leigh Gallagher ... gets that Dredd is an old bugger

Not anymore. See Carroll and Willsher's Carousel (Meg 375).

http://www.2000ad.org/?zone=prog&page=megprofiles



robert_ellis

Wow! Calling that cover a cluttered mess is a bit strong. I really liked the image took me back to the goblins Anderson used to fight in the Brett Ewins days. I think the prog is pretty strong right now - I loved the Dredd concept.

dweezil2

Quote from: robert_ellis on 05 July, 2017, 09:14:46 AM
Wow! Calling that cover a cluttered mess is a bit strong. I really liked the image took me back to the goblins Anderson used to fight in the Brett Ewins days. I think the prog is pretty strong right now - I loved the Dredd concept.

Yep, it all looks perfectly defined and delineated to me.
Another classy Cliff Robinson cover in my opinion!
Savalas Seed Bandcamp: https://savalasseed1.bandcamp.com/releases

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Eamonn Clarke

Just out of curiosity about the photobucket issue can everyone see the cover image I posted above?

SuperSurfer

Quote from: Eamonn Clarke on 05 July, 2017, 04:51:07 PM
Just out of curiosity about the photobucket issue can everyone see the cover image I posted above?
Yes, I can see it. Even after clearing cached images.

Richard

One person's clutter is another person's detail. Personally, I spent more time studying that cover than any I can remember, there was so much to take in. I normally glance at the cover, think "that's nice" and turn to Judge Dredd.

Frank

'WE MUST UNITE TOGETHER' ...' NOT THAT'LL MAKE MUCH DIFFERENCE WITH WHAT OUR NEW RECRUIT REALLY IS'


In a touching tribute to the strip's creator, Hunted deliberately echoes the idiom of Gerry Finley-Day, littering the script with ripe dialogue and basic grammatical errors. There'll be a scrotnig/escorting homage next week.

I don't usually comment on Rennie strips (because I'm indifferent to his work and dislike his chosen internet persona), but Hunted is objectively, physically poorly written. The wrong words have been incorrectly typed into Microsoft Word. You'd think Tharg would notice the jagged green lines when he opens the document.

Hunted has previously treated us to the stylistic awkwardness of 'it only slows it, not stops it' (2037) and the howling 'that's what's left of your men being wiped out by everyone else who's now very much my men' (2034). Sons Of Booth swapped 'I' for 'it' (2032) and 'the' for 'he' (2031), so maybe the assistant editor droid's on holiday.



jacob g

I just want... Brink is still the best thing in current Prog. I liked almost every story the same (with exception of Defoe which is looks amazing, but I don't care much about current arc) but Brink is the one I get excited the most (like Lawless in JMD).
margaritas ante porcos

norton canes

Cover: I was going to start a thread in General called '2000 AD artists you hated at first then grew to love' but seeing as Cliff Robinson was going to be my contribution, I might as well mention it here.

When he started out goodness knows how long ago I thought he was nothing more than a Bolland knock-off - and one who couldn't draw especially well, at that (I'll hide this extraordinary effort effort behind a link). I think the first evidence that he had real talent was the Dredd episode with the medical robots that were given gruesome medical conditions - his depiction of 'throat bloat' was spectacularly grisly.

And here he is today, making wonderful covers like this one. Gorgeous linework, a fantastically dynamic pose, brilliantly inventive creatures (though if I was being picky, that blood should be coming out with more of a SPLAT). Yes it's a bit of a jumble but I'm sure that's deliberate. Nice one, Mr Robinson. Get him to work on a strip, Tharg!

Dredd: Yeah, a bit of a disappointing resolution to an intriguing set-up. The contrived way Tellerman ends up cubed at the end, just for the pay-off line, is... whatever the version of 'cherry on the cake' is for a bad thing on another bad thing.

Brink: So what was going on at the end there? Was Kurtis about to vomit? It sounded like the guy was casting a spell. Or were they names she recognised?

Defoe: Satire is sacrificed this week as dialogue makes way for an all-action shoot-out, which makes fora brief read. Top work from MacNeil though. Does anyone else think his work is vaguely reminiscent of that of the children's illustrator Stephen Cartwright?

Grey Area: A self-contained Future Shock, to all intents and purposes. Looking forward to seeing what happens when some serious shit starts to go down.

Hunted: Really not happening for me. I just don't get what weird hold the Rogue Trooper universe has on 2000 AD. Yes RT was an immensely popular strip back in the day, but there was precious little else in the strip that had lasting appeal beyond Rogue himself. Certainly the character of the Traitor General was never fleshed out up until the moment he burned up on re-entry. OK, I get that plenty of bit-part comic characters have been reinvented as properly developed protagonists. But I don't that that's happened here, and... it just seems like such an insignificant bit of 2000 AD history to resurrect. And I'm not blaming Rennie and Holden - on the contrary, I'd much rather they were given a blank slate to create new worlds and characters.

This just seems so pointless, and I don't get the sense it's inspiring them to their creative heights.