Prog 1815

[moly]

Judge dredd really good this week

Savage this is great love the artwork

Apmney very interesting and moving along nicely

Red seas love this and hope this all gets collected so It can be read together

Strontium well it's strontie

A fun droid life

[Darren Stephens]

What about that cover, eh? A beauty!

[Tjm86]

What about that cover, eh? A beauty!

First thought was 'nice Boo Cook' but then looked at it again.  Quality work!

Rest of the prof was a nice read.  Really like Doherty's Dredd work now.  Matured nicely.  Can't fault Savage except for Mr Mills' heavy handed politicking but hey ho, an otherwise enjoyable tale.
Actually enjoyed Crucis which was a bit of a turn up.  Always enjoyed the art work but the concept never sat right.  Now it's starting to show a bit of a turn that could be potentially interesting.
Still wondering if Stront is past it's sell by date.  The Phartzz really doesn't seem to have any point and Alpha without Sternhammer ....  Dunno, can't put my finger on what it is that doesn't sit right.  Shame as some of the earlier stuff was first rate.  At least Ezquerra continues to deliver spectacular work. 

[Fisticuffs]

Cover - fantastic, really like it.

Dredd - Nice (if obvious) wrap up to the story, not a big fan of the art but enjoyed it.

Pat Malls Party Political Broadcast, oops, sorry I mean Savage - Love the art and the setting, but Mills constant political jibes are beyond tiresome now.

Red Seas - Doesn't grab me, sorry! Same goes for Ampney.

Strontium Dog - As a relative newcomer to the prog I'm struggling to see what all the fuss is about.

Not a patch on the past 6 months of progs for me, but not bad nonetheless.

[Colin YNWA]

Felt the Dredd ended a little okay, not quite to the quality of the rest of the story. Nice enough but not particularly new. The rest is as good as its all been of late and Strontium Dog is certainly ramping up the pace after complaints before.

Lovin' me Prog at the moment.

[JUDGE BURNS]

What a mega cover wraparound this week !  Fantastic 

Yet another great prog this week.

  My highlight being .....DREDD

Low point>  Ampney Crucis......   love the art only with this story.

[Matt Timson]

Liked the cover. If you'll forgive the ego, I can imagine that I'd laid it out and Boo Cook had drawn it up. Nice.

[I, Cosh]

What about that cover, eh? A beauty!

First thought was 'nice Boo Cook' but then looked at it again.  Quality work!

Pretty much exactly what went through my mind when I saw it.

Sadly the cover was about the only thing I enjoyed this week. The art is uniformly decent but storywise this is the weakest the Prog's been for a good few years for me. Nothing is doing it for me and this week is all mid-story episodes where things progress slightly without any big surprises. Oh well, it'll all be different again soon.

[Dark Jimbo]

Sadly the cover was about the only thing I enjoyed this week. The art is uniformly decent but storywise this is the weakest the Prog's been for a good few years for me. Nothing is doing it for me and this week is all mid-story episodes where things progress slightly without any big surprises.

Same for me unfortunately. Normally there's at least one story in the line-up that's a favourite - but quirks of scheduling here mean two stories I couldn't care less about, one that I long ago lost interest in and one that's in all honesty a long way from its past glory days.

Dredd is servicable. It's a nice enough end to the tale and at any other time I'd be prepared to be more charitable, but this simply isn't up to the quality of story that I was hoping for in the Chaos Day aftermath. There's a token reference to that event in the dialogue this week, but this still feels like a story written early last year before the scale of things became apparent. There are loads of good post-CD stories crying out to be told - why is nobody telling them?

Savage has never been quite as good as when Charlie Adlard left (not that I'm blaming the art change in any way, just that the stories took a different turn around that time), but it's usually very readable and good fun. I'm enjoying this outing - particularly now that an overall end to the series seems to be in sight - but this week there's some horribly stilted dialogue that's almost painful to read.

I never knew pirates could be quite this dull until Red Seas came along. Sorry, that's unkind and not particularly constructive, I know, but my interest in this series has died a slow death over the years in direct correlation with Steve Yeowell's own dwindling enthusiasm for black ink. The cast is far too big these days, relegating most of them to standing around taking up panel space, and even after such a massive page count most of them are still astoundingly poorly-defined. Why Issac Newton is involved I still have no idea when he bears no resemblance whatsoever to the historical character (see Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle or our own Defoe for how to do a proper Newton), likewise why you'd bother to establish that Sarita is the neice of Sinbad when she never gets any lines or panel time, or why Edginton bothered to introduce the brother, Alexander, when all he does is act as a characterless sounding board for Jack. On a similar note I struggle to see any evidence that these guys really are pirates - I only know this because the dialogue keeps telling me. The only one with any personality is the dog. Anyway, here we are at the final battle we've been building towards ever since the 'Hollow Earth' adventures finished, and instead of fighting there's a lot of recapping of previous adventures. Which is par for the course for this series.

Ampney Crucis doesn't really work for me either, but for different reasons. This particular story is actually one of the best so far, in fairness, and I think it's because it's got a much stronger sense of direction than normal. In fact I wish this 'trapped in a paralell 1930s' had been the premise from the outset - this would have given the series a much stronger focus and a better sense of purpose and identity, and Edginton could really have had fun playing with an Art Deco alt-verse, as he's doing here with the wonderful Martian ambassador. I'd rather have seen Ampney solving weird crimes while always having one eye on trying to work out where he is and how to get home (like a Wodehousian Quantum Leap), instead of... what is the series' normal premise? Ampney solving weird crimes for no particular reason? Hmm. Much rather have Dandridge in the prog, to be honest, it's a lot more fun.

Strontium Dog is Strontium Dog. In all honesty what I said about this in the prog 1813 thread still applies just as well this week -

It isn't up to the standard of some of the classic SDs, but unlike the flashback tales at least the events in this one seem to matter once again. And I should probably say that I wasn't too impressed with either of the previous Life and Death of... stories when they ran in the prog, but a re-read in the graphic novel was a revelation, and gave me a whole new appreciation for what Wagner's doing here. Like those, I suspect this will read even better in one go at the end.

[The Adventurer]

What ho Prog 1815 Preview

[Hawkmumbler]

The 'Reptilian Warrios' of Mars must be The Ice Warriors from Doctor Who! I've already fangazemd as I write this, love tit bits like that.

[Dan Kelly]

The 'Reptilian Warrios' of Mars must be The Ice Warriors from Doctor Who! I've already fangazemd as I write this, love tit bits like that.

More likely the Tharks from the John Carter of Mars novels.

[Hawkmumbler]

The 'Reptilian Warrios' of Mars must be The Ice Warriors from Doctor Who! I've already fangazemd as I write this, love tit bits like that.

More likely the Tharks from the John Carter of Mars novels.

Bugger, my boner shriveld.

[Hawkmumbler]

Frankly I saw the hooker being an agent. The 'I faked those orgasms' line made me spit out my coffee mind.

[Zarjazzer]

yahoo!  Anice day off means prog time and this was pretty good un. Enjoyeed Dredd good characaterisation and story and final image.red Seas and Savage both b&w wonders kick into gear and Ampney was fine,Stront okay but strange ending. Two Johnny Alphas or is it some time twister I missed? probably need to re-read.

Another stonkingly good cover.