MEG 326 - BIG TROUBLE IN HONDO-CITY!

[The Sherman Kid]

'Awful' was too strong a word ,the bikes and crowd below are well done, but overall I hated it.Yes, its a homage, but a homage to something that is naff.

Forgot to mention Snapshot which is still ticking along nicely, love some of the facial shots are really expressive and the one at the end made me laugh out loud.

[Daveycandlish]

Nice Chris Weston piece, Dredd is pretty good, Snapshot is SLOWWWWW - this will probably read better once collected - I just don't feel it's natural home is the Meg, Hondo-City was ok and Samizdat was instantly forgettable.

The stand-out strip for me is Bato Loco. It's not often the floppy is the best thing about the monthly!

[Mardroid]

Cover - Nice

Dredd- Lovely art. I enjoyed the first installment too, but I was a little worried it would follow Dickens's novel Great Expectations to the letter, apart from settings. This episode, while still taking elements from the novel, it's doing something rather different. Very good.

I'm slightly ashamed with the next three stories that I had to go back and read the previous episodes. My memory is getting rather bad. I've said it before, but I'll say it again- I think recaps are advisable with a monthly magazine. I doesn't have to fill in everything, a paragraph of the main points will suffice. That being said, while I found myself groaning at the thought of having to backtrack, I actually enjoyed the experience.

Smazdat Sqad (or whatever it's called) - Not bad.

Hondo City-  I get people's criticisms. It really did feel repetitive. I still enjoyed it though, but I hope they do something else with it. And I should dislike the light-sabers outside Star Wars, but.... I actually thinkg the laser katana is pretty cool. I'm shallow like that.

Snapshot- All these twists and turns! This would really suit a film. Very good.

Text piece- Nasty and enjoyable. I'm glad the main character [spoiler]redeemed himself somewhat.[/spoiler]

[Hawkmumbler]

Cover- Good eliments spoiled by nasty 90's Photoshop textures.

Dredd- Loving this! Great story, amazing art. Good all round.

Prose- Still not read ANY of these.

Samiz......Samis.....Samy.......The Russian strip- Liking it more than most but still a bit rubbish.

Snapshot- Need to re-read this in one go as i'm missing alot. Great art though.

Hondo City Justice- Really want to like this but it's just so meh. We need Strange and Darke back in the meg already, one good Dredd world strip isn't enough.

Bato Loco- Like Lenny Zero this series main character is taller than life and it was such a great amount of fun i'm not that bothered if it was a bit pants. Love Simon Colebys art though.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Interesting that many think the cover is a mash up straight out of Godzilla. Here is a link to Neil Roberts blog showing how the cover came about -

Move over Pete Wells

[CrazyFoxMachine]

I find myself agreeing with Lee Bates on almost everything,

Cover - I'm not feeling the general dislike people have for it. It's well done and incredibly striking. It's literally what it's meant to be (see the blog) and deserves commendation for that.

Dredd - Amazing, excellent - brilliantly paced and it looks gorgeous. I love Dave Taylor.

Chris Weston pt.2 - Very candid, I've really enjoyed this one. I follow Mr Weston's doings a lot and I really admire the sheer amount over over-detail he puts into everything. His storyboards for a jagermeister advert are an example

For all of them and they are AMAZING: http://chrisweston.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/jagermeister-boards.html -

who the fck puts that much detail into a storyboard? Chris Weston does, and he's either completely mad or a genius but most likely a winning combination of the two. "I think it's a combination of a lack o confidence and the atmosphere that detail gives, 'cause I think detail can make you feel what's going on in a comic book. As well as reading it, you FEEL it." Amen.

Samizdat Squad - I concur, I really don't recall the earlier part of this. Feels like a damp squib and it's unfair that Holden's been stuck on it - should be doing better. His design on the wee mutant foetal thing is a triumph.

Chris Burnham - How's he relevant, is he doing Dredd for IDW? Batman sucks balls.

Snapshot - This is rattling along quite well, Jock's art is a perfect balance between minimalism and brilliant storytelling as always. Like, I want to judge it on lack of (Weston) detail - which I'm a big fan of - but it has so much energy. My only complaint is that in their identical janitor uniforms the two protagonists look identical.

The Pack - Incredibly surprised by this. Not wanting to either state the obvious or rattle any cages but Alan Grant's strips have been reliably dull for ages. This story though - very incredibly good. Also - you can barely see his signature but Cam Smudgity Smith surely deserves a bit more of an obvious credit. Like "By Alan Grant Illustration by Smudge"? Surely. That's a big boo-boo and why I was so annoyed at the Sean Phillips thing the month before.

Hondo-City Justice - Again, meh. Haven't really been paying attention to the story at all - but keeping a careful eye on James Offredi. New colourists interest me and I really don't like the skintones - felt a bit early noughties to me.

Bato Loco - Surely the MOST OFF-MODEL character in recent memory? Now I don't take Coleby to be 'inconsistent' by any road - but the Bato Loco on the cover ISN'T the Bato Loco in his stories. It's fcking Sean Penn. And Currie's one is utterly different - I hate his celebrity-caricature-with-massive-tits style and it was only made tolerable by the always-good muted colours of Peter Doherty. I can't imagine Mr Gordon being happy to see it given how upset he gets about Vampire Vixens.

[Spaceghost]

Now I don't take Coleby to be 'inconsistent' by any road

It seems I was misunderstood when I said Coleby was inconsistent. It was a bad choice of words. What I meant was, individual character's facial features differ significantly from panel to panel. There were a couple of really noticable instances in the Meg collection but I'm at work so can't pinpoint them right now

Now, I really like Simon Coleby, he's actually one of my favourite (and underused) Dredd artists. This is just an observation which struck me whilst reading Bato Loco. It didn't spoil my enjoyment of the strip at all.

[a chosen rider]

Yay, the download problems are all sorted and I finally have the chance to sit down and read my Meg.  Brief thoughts:

Cover - I like the image overall, but I do feel like the monster looks a bit too smooth and plasticky.

Judge Dredd - Still liking this art style very much; the colouring in the section with Dredd at the crime scene is ace.  Entertaining story, too, with some amusing little Mega-City touches.  Good stuff!

Samizdat Squad - I continue to love the art in this.  The dialogue is strong too, but somehow the plot didn't quite click together for me; I find I've liked all the individual instalments fine but struggle to remember the overarching story from week to week.  I think it might have worked better for me in weekly prog format.

Snapshot - Some interesting twists.  I feel like the pace has picked up a bit, and the art continues fab.  Not really the sort of story I'd have picked up to read if it wasn't in the Meg, but I'm enjoying it well enough.

Fiction - Now that's a post-Day of Chaos tale, and leaves me suddenly yearning for some Alan Grant Dredd in the prog.  He does a nice line in grim ugliness that would fit right in to the tone of the strip at present.  Excellent.

Hondo-City Justice - This wraps up okay.  Likeable enough, but I feel like there wasn't really much to the story in the end; the monster explodes and that's it?  Could have used a little more meat to the tale, maybe.

Bato Loco - This was new to me, and it was great fun.  Have always enjoyed Gordon Rennie's Dreddworld stuff.  Coleby's art looks great with Chris Blythe's colouring, too: that panel of the SS Batista at the docks is beautiful.

Solid prog with nice art throughout, but it's the Dredd stories, text and Bato Loco included, that really stand out.