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The completely self absorbed 2000ad re-read thread

Started by Colin YNWA, 22 May, 2016, 02:30:29 PM

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Tjm86

Disaster is one of those tales that I don't think has aged particularly well.  I remember enjoying it as a child and even basically plagiarising it for an English essay in school but re-reading it as an adult ...

One of a series of stories that we've had over the years that probably sounded better originally in the writers' own mind than in execution.  Plenty of boys own adventure scrapes and one dimensional villains with a bit of a deus-ex resolution.

Let's face it, there have been worse <cough>Space Girls</cough>!

Colin YNWA

Wow issue 138 before Disaster 1979 finishes. Alas it takes ABC Warriors with it. I'm sure I've read, but can't remember why it took so long for them to come back after what's been a glorious run... with one small bump.

What is it about Golgotha that doesn't quite work? I mean Old One Eye and Satanus are two of my all time favs but Golgotha? A Rex too far? Dare I say it is it that Ezquerra, using Long John Silver doesn't really suit ABC Warriors and makes his T-Rex slightly less magnificent. Is it the armour? I'm not sure about any of this I just don't think he's given the chance to grow as a character they way his ancestors are. Shame.

Anyway Blackhawk wonders on trying to find its direction (I think 139 might see that start) and Dredd continues to delight. Wolfie Smith is the surprise I'm enjoying this far more than I remember enjoying the early stories and it looks great. Two new strips to come and I know one of them I controvesially don't like so we'll see which way the balance swings at this late turning point in 1979's proggage.

Colin YNWA

2000ad 1979

Well the year hasn't been quite so tumultuous as 1978, even though the still young Prog has gone through another merger it hasn't quite had the highs nor lows of the previous year. Well not overall, certain stories have hit those extremes.

For me 1979 is most significent for Dredd consistently being the best thing in the Prog for almost entire year. I'm sure there was the odd prog were Strontium Dog, Ro-Busters or ABC Warriors nipped in to grasp thrill of the week. The odd prog. Week in, week out though Dredd firmly establishes itselfs the best thing in Tharg's kingdom. Now this might seem an odd thing for me to say as I was raving about Dredd for the bulk of 1978, certainly during The Cursed Earth. I adore that story but lets be honest its a bit of an anomaly. While it might give clear vision of Dredd as a man removed from the system that shapes him, its the strips after the delightfully full on Day the Law Died that really see the strip defining itself fully. I've discussed that before so I'll say no more.

Elsewhere the real stars of the year are the robots. Ro-Busters and ABC Warriors really standing heads and tail above the other non Dredd strips, with Strontium Dog and Robo-Hunter being unsurprisingly in the following pack. There are no hidden gems in the less famous stories and while there are some stinkers, Angel, Rick Random, Disaster 1999 and most of Dan Dare they're normally balanced with some good stuff. Its always a balance though.

So 1979 sees the Galaxies Greatest steady itself and as the year ends and Blackhawk lurches from one choatic direction change to the next, Stainless Steel Rat promises much delight and the VCs... well I'll save my thoughts on that to next time I think... we beckon in a new decade and I think and interesting time for a Prog now finding its direction and balance as it totters on into its 4th year.

chiefy2shoes

For some reason I haven't visited this site for an absolute age. One of the first things that caught my eye was this thread Colin. At the start of the year, like you,  I decided to reread the Prog from the beginning but in a slight twist, to save time, I'm not rereading any Dredd stories. I hope you don't mind me clogging down the thread with my thoughts. As of today I'm up to Prog 520 but will stay in line with your reading Colin.

Flesh 1-19 - In the future when food stores run dry what is a citizenship to do? Travel back in time and slaughter dinosaurs to use as a food source of course. Whilst this is pretty great throughout, the first half is quite a bit superior to the second. Earl Reagan is a dino herder who ends up feuding with the evil Claw Carver but the main star is 'Old One Eye' the vicious Tyranosaur who just won't die. The art is fantastic and I'm looking forward to the next batch of stories.

Dan Dare 1-23 - The art is full of detail, strangeness and beautiful horror like images. Not surprising it's so good as the artist is Belardinelli. The story? Hhmm It starts off okay with DD doing some space exploring but then it gets weird and not in a good way. A race called the Biogs, who have a living spaceship, kidnap Dare and some other giant dude called Monday and do strange things with their minds. It's a confusing mess to be honest. Writer Kelvin Gosnell is the culprit but Steve Moore handles the script for the next arc so we'll see if it improves. I was in luck as the next arc is indeed much better. Okay, so it might still be a bit weird. DD flys into the heart of a giant red sun, his new partner is a talking man-dog, old school villain the Mekon returns and he has a two headed cronie at his disposal. The writing is better and we still have Belardinelli on art so it's win-win.

Invasion 1-26 - It's the near future of 1999, Prince Charles is now the King of England, the US has withdrawn from NATO and the former Russia is now the Volgan Republic which invades the UK. Pockets of resistance form and right on the front line is lorry driver Bill Savage. Pat Mills created this strip so of course the lead character Savage is an anti authoritarian figure. Aside from Bill there are hardly any recurring support characters except his right hand man Silk and so far we haven't seen any of the architects behind the invasion or leaders of the Volgan army. Writer Gerry Finley-Day doesn't offer up any motivation for the Volgs invasion so we don't find out exactly what's going on. The thing is, it doesn't really matter because the writing is top notch and each strip barrels along at such a break neck pace, all you need to know is that Savage hates the Volgs and always has a plan to dispatch as many as he can. Mike Dorey and Carlos Pino handle most of the art and it really hits the mark. More proof that black and white can be muchbetter than colour when done right. These are all single prog episodes but next issue features the first multi-part story. I can't wait.

M.A.C.H. 1 - 1-26 - Man Activated by Compu-puncture Hyperpower. What a mouthful. This is 2000 ad's answer to the six million dollar man and John Probe even looks like Lee Majors. Whereas Invasion stayed fairly grounded, due to the almost superhero nature of MACH 1, the stories are a bit more outlandish and most tend to be goofy. There are the occasional good episodes but overall it's a bit weak. Quite a few artists contribute and the best episodes are the ones drawn by the excellent Jose Redondo.

Dan Dare 28-51 - DD has been tasked to investigate the Lost Worlds, a place where none who have ventured there have ever returned. I'm not sure what made him think he'd be any different! He assembles a crew by bascially antagonising them into wanting to kill him but when they hear about the mission, for some reason they're all on board. The first and second arcs are not great with super cheesy dialogue and hokey plotting. The Starslayer story which kicks in with prog 36 is bit of an upturn. DD frees a bunch of slaves and they all unite to battle the evil space pirate that rules that sector of space. Dave Gibbons provides excellent art throughout all these progs. Also, as an interesting twist towards the end of the run the story begins on the front cover.

Invasion 27-51 - Like the first 26 progs that precede these, it's mainly just Bill Savage finding new ways to take out the invading Volgans. A slight change is that rather than just single episodes we get a few multi parters which gives a few characters a chance to develop a bit (mainly Prince John who is trying to get back to Canada). Things get a little silly with when Nessie, a female wrestler appears who tricks the Volgs by posing as the Loch Ness monster. Prog 36 is a real highlight as it's drawn by the sublime Ian Kennedy who was a regular on Commando. 51 progs is a lot to try and stay original and there is quite a lot of repetition and the main theme is that of supposed allies turning traitor. One double agent is a guy called 'Georgia' who bears a striking resemblance to 'The Russian' from the Ennis/Dillon Punisher run.

M.A.C.H. 1 27-46 - More great art but weak stories. There's one where Probe is sent to investigate a downed UFO and goes undercover as a lumberjack. The team leader of the lumberjacks tests him by punching him in the gut. wtf? We never find who is behind MACH 1's missions or what their organisational directive is. He takes part in some really varied stuff like the aforementioned UFO investigation, climbing Everest, foiling robberies and battling hyper-women, hyper-dogs and hyper-kiddies. It's readable but nothing special.
Harlem Heroes 1-27 - Hmm. I really wanted to like this. Dave Gibbons on art duties is a good start and the first few episodes are promising. It's a concept reminiscent of Rollerball in that it's a future sport (Aeroball) that appeals due to it's violent nature. Rather than ride motorbikes though, these guys fly around with jetpacks. In fact it's more like an extra violent version of Quidditch. Early on we see the Heroes team bus in a devastating crash that injures or kills half the team. What we then get is a recruitment drive with the standard formulaic additions of wily veteran, young punk kid and former team members brought back into the fold. It would have be cool to focus on these individual characters but instead we get pages and pages of Aeroball action that gets very repetitive quickly. The other main plot thread is that someone is suspected of sabotaging the initial bus crash. Helping the Heroes get to the bottom of this is the brain of former member Louis Mayer. That's right, his brain was the only thing that survived the crash and now he can speak. Future science is great! Overall it dragged on too long and the reveal at the end is a bit groan inducing.

Shako 20-35 - This repeats a lot of what happened in Flesh. Giant creature being hunted by two people who don't get along, fights them off, gets injured, presumed dead, not dead etc. It starts off well but for me gets too silly like when Shako is hiding in a school classroom with coats thrown over him. I preferred Flesh to be honest although this does have one of the greatest tag lines ever - Shako, the only bear on the C.I.A. deathlist!

Future Shocks 25-38, 40-42 - A lot of these are just 2 or 3 pages which is not an easy platform for a story. There is the usual mix of mistaken identities, time travel and alternate realities and my favourite one was a vampire take called Fangs in prog 34 drawn by King Carlos.

The Visible Man 47-52 - This is kind a frankenstein story with a guy on the run as he becomes something of a monster after getting drenched in sludge. It's really cheesy and poorly scripted with one of the opening panels proclaiming, 'Radio active waste turned him into an apparition so terrible even alley cats are frightened at sight of him!' It would be 24 years until TVM returned in prog 1771. This is a pretty cool image though.

M.A.C.H. 1 53-64 - The Dolphin Tapes kicks things off and it's a strange tale of Probe investigating a shady organisation that has stolen some government files with the goal of making a Fish man. It's silly. Pat Mills comes on board to script The Final Encounter and it's ufo, little green men, robot MACH men and double cross filled clustermuck. Art was great throughout the series but I was glad it was over...

M.A.C.H. 0 65-72 - ...Or was it. Probe's predecessor get's his own series and it a direct riff on Frankenstein's monster. The lumbering brute speaks in broken English and it's over the top bizarreness and not in a good way. Apparently he's searching for his son and accidentally upstages Cousin George , an American stuntman, during a daredevil show. George, who dresses like a superhero, tries hunting Zero, catches him and chains him up like a bond villain. The arcs that followed I glossed over without reading thoroughly.

Death Planet 62-70 - Great art by Lopez but below par writing from Alan Hebden. The potential is there. A space mission to colonise a new planet goes wrong and leaves the crew stranded. There's a fight for leadership, strange life forms and then out of nowhere a mystery villain crops up with about 4 episodes to go and then it all wraps up lickety-split for an unsatisfying conclusion.

Colony Earth 52-61 - This is War of the Worlds meets Independence Day with a splash of Invasion/Bill Savage and I enjoyed it. Naval captain James Hunter takes on the Bill Savage role of a man leading a resistance against an alien invasion. It all kicks off in the first few pages, as a lot of 2000 ad strips do, and we get a bit of archaeology, hidden mysteries and then the appearances of the all important UFO/aliens. Jim Watson, who had drawn Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, writes and draws this series and it looks fantastic. Loads of detail in each panel, clean lines and cracking action splashes. His script is also fast paced and keeps everything flowing. The only criticism is that it ends rather abruptly.

Harlem Heroes: Inferno 36-75 - 'Faster than Speedway! crazier than Ice Hockey! Tougher than Football! Deadlier than Aeroball! It's Inferno'. That's the tagline and in reality it's a cross between Rollerball and Aeroball (from the first series that I still don't really understand the rules of). Initially Giant proclaims it's organised mayhem with no skill and has no desire to get involved in the sport but 3 panels later he's agreed to play! By episode 3 we've terms like double-hitch hike, flick-pick and semi-score but real understanding of how the game is played. Story wise it's pretty much the same as last time. Loads of match stuff with a side plot involving the Heroes, who are now the Hellcats, being framed for match fixing. Half way through the series the actual game play takes a back seat as Artie Gruber returns from the grave and takes centre stage. I'm really on the fence here. At 40 episodes it's a bit too long and in parts the hokey scripting is too much but this could be some of the best art Belardinelli ever produced so it gets a pass from me.

Future Shocks 45-56, 58-60, 66, 70, 74 - As with the previous batch of FS's there are tales of mistaken identities, time travel and alternate realities. My favourite one was Fugitive from prog 66. It's only one and a half pages but has a nice little twist.

Walter the Wobot 50-68 - These one pagers aren't much to wrote home about and are mainly semi funny comedy strips. The best of the bunch is Walter's Brother from 52-56. It's an origin story of sorts and even features Mercury from The Metal Men.

Dan Dare 52-85 - Chris Lowder writes the bulk of these and most are not bad although there are some stinkers in there. The real star though is Dave Gibbons and for me his work here is easily the equal of something like Watchmen.

Ant Wars 71-85 - An unidentified military operation is taking place in a south American jungle and there just so happens to be a random scientist with them who just so happens to have an experimental insecticide with him. Of course when one of the soldiers complains about ant bites the super brain uses the insecticide and whammo! giant ants. Oh dear. It's silly stuff with a terrible plot and poor script but weirdly has a somewhat interesting story. The art is also pretty good. However, when certain things start happening such as, the ants gaining super intelligence, donning disguises (yes they disguise themselves as a Rio carnival float), playing dead and then sprouting wings, it just got too much for me.

Robo-Hunter: Verdus 76-84, 100-112 - This starts off well but for me descends into too much comedy and the robot versions of every house hold appliance start to get annoying quickly. Also, and I realise this might not be a popular opinion, I'm not really a fan of Ian Gibson's art.

Ro-Busters 86-101 - There's a real mixed bag of stories here and they'll worth a read. Amongst them the Ro-Busters help out a disaster area which is a good laugh, Ro-Jaws gets taken in like a rescued puppy by a little girl, there's a story with big robots fighting with yet more cracking Dave Gibbons art and a great story featuring Hammerstein's war tales.

Flesh: Book 2 86-99 - Having now been reminded of his work on Dan Dare, Harlem Heroes and now Flesh, I think Belardinelli should be considered one of the all time greats of 2000 ad (to be fair he probably already is). I've still got Mean Team and Ace Trucking to come and next up is Blackhawk which I've not read before. Anyway, Flesh Book 2 is a fun romp, this time through the triassic period and is based on farming sea based dinos. Claw Carver returns and is as mean and vile as ever and again he is matched up against a massive beast, this time Big Hungry! It's more consistent that the first series and the art, as you'd expect, is to die for.

Strontium Dog: The Galaxy Killers 86-94 - Didn't feel this at all. Sure, King Carlos' art is good but the story is rubbish and the characters don't come across very strongly.

Angel 95-99 - Fortunately this was the only extended strip written by Chris Stevens. A man crashes his jet fighter and has the flight computer molded onto his shoulder which lets him somehow controls machines. What the hell? It's a poor man's MACH 1. Avoid.

Future Shocks 76-78, 80-83, 85, 88-90, 93-98 - Nothing much to write about here.

Dan Dare: Servant of Evil 100-107, 109-126 - More brilliant Gibbons art, that's the first point. Secondly Tom Tully comes on board as writer and although the story begins a bit shakily, DD gets easily duped by The Mekon, it soon ramps up the action and tension and has the makings of true epic. I say makings as at the end of prog 126 there is a caption that says 'Dan Dare will return soon' but the strip never materialises again so the story stays unfinished.

Ro-Busters: Fall & Rise of Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein 103-115 - Big fan of this. Cracking art from O'Neill and McMahon and funny scripts from Mills make this a great read. The over the top droids make it even better. Dr Feeley Good is a highlight but Little Mo the super nice cleaning droid also gets some laughs. Also, I'd be amazed if Futurama's Bender wasn't based on Ro-Jaws.

Strontium Dog: Journey into Hell 104-118 - Starts off really strong with a tense chase scene as Johhny, Wulf and The Gronk are in hot pursuit of former Stront Fly-Eye Wagner. Things get a bit strange when they all get transported to Hell and then even weirder when they encounter Mr Sun and Mr Moon. Hhhmm, that's back to back misses for me as far as SD is concerned.

Rick Random: Riddle of the Astral Assassin 113-118 - This is a futuristic murder mystery set during some inter planetary trade negotiations. It's over plotted, over scripted and uninteresting. Nice clean art though from Ron turner.

A.B.C. Warriors 119-139 - This is a tale of two halves. The first part includes the standard 'team formation' episodes where all the warriors are gathered together. This was actually my favourite section as we get some key background info on Mongrol, Blackblood, Deadlock and Steelhorn. The next half sees the warriors journey to Mars to do something. I'm not quite sure what their actual mission was. It's okay but seems a bit of a hodge podge of ideas. The five brained Mad George is fun though. Art is by O'Neill, McMahon, Gibbons, Ezquerra and McCarthy so nuff said.

Invasion: Disaster 1990 119-139 - Remember all those great Bill Savage tales from Invasion? Well this is set 9 years prior to the Volgan invasion and features our erstwhile hero trying to survive an ecological disaster. The polar ice caps have melted due to a nuclear submarine explosion (it all happens on page 1) and the country is suddenly flooded. Finley-Day can't seem to recapture the magic of those earlier stories and instead we get Bill travelling the country via boat stopping crime and generally pissing people off. Missable.

Project Overkill 119-126 - Then editor Steve McManus wanted the comic to be more of an adventure comic than a sci-fi one so we get more guff like this. It's about secret government groups, murder, mistaken identities and other rubbish.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: chiefy2shoes on 09 September, 2016, 08:58:34 PM
For some reason I haven't visited this site for an absolute age...

Cos you were writing that exception, if long post!

Quote from: chiefy2shoes on 09 September, 2016, 08:58:34 PM
I hope you don't mind me clogging down the thread with my thoughts.

Not at all, its always a pleasure to see you about Chief. The more people joining in chatting about the Prog the better I say.

Mind I hope that means we'll also get scans of more sketches you've collected elsewhere on the board?

chiefy2shoes

Quote
Mind I hope that means we'll also get scans of more sketches you've collected elsewhere on the board?

I have a few small ones that I'll stick up at the weekend.

Colin YNWA

Okay so I'm quite a bit behind Chief so I'd better get a move on and with that I'm 6 progs into 1980 and onto...

The beauty of Prog 150 and the beast of my opinion.

Prog 150 marks a point where I think I'm going to diverge most significently with 'popular' 2000ad opinion and I know this will last for some time. Okay there will be common ground of course Dredd continues to be sublime, even when written by Mr Mills, the Prog is an artist delight... mind even there my divergance can be found. I run very much hot and cold with Belardinelli and while I should love the glorious crazy of his art here it just jars with me here. As does the story, pretty poor.

We probably all agree that Ian Gibson's return in Robo-hunter sees art of staggering beauty in this great opener, we probably don't when I reveal I really don't enjoy VCs. Its looks good, but given its (often) Cam Kennedy not as GREAT as I'd expect. The story is just cyclic and if I honest I find the crew a little annoying.

Fiends of the Eastern Front rounds off the Prog and a story of vampires helping nazi in 1941 on the Russian front should of course be glorious... but its G.F.D or Great (idea) Fumbled Delievery. Its not as bad as many GFDs but its just pretty poorly realised, so its a kids story but it feels so clunky.

So yeah for many I think this Prog could mark a real high point, for me its 50 - 50 at best and I know there's more of my nonsense down the 1980 pipe...

Magnetica

I have just finished reading my TPB of Harlem Heroes and Inferno and to be honest it has been hard going. I have had it for what 2, possibly 3 years and it has taken me that long to read it. ( Still I have had V for Vendetta for about 8 years and have still only read a third of it :lol:).

I had read some of Harlem Heroes before, mainly what had been reprinted in annuals, but not Inferno. ( I also have extreme edition 13 which covered only HH and was published in 2006 and hadn't read it all).

I guess that tells you everything you need to know...but I will make a few comments anyway.

As Chiefy points out it is a bit repetitive and the rules of either game are never fully explained. Some of the characters seem to die from fairly minor injuries, especially [spoiler]Conrad King and Hairy [/spoiler]in the last episode of HH.

Tom Tully basically repeats the plot of Harlem Heroes in Inferno i.e. some-one trying to wipe out the team for extremely tenuous reasons. In HH there is a laughable panel showing the villain in silhouette but it is obvious who it is (as if we hadn't guessed anyway). In Inferno he doesn't even bother to hide who the culprits are - but we don't get to know their names till later.

He also seems to be not paying attention to his own script in Inferno. When the Wolves manager is first introduced he says his name is Don Wepner. Two weeks later his name is Charlie Vance.

In both Inferno and Harlem Heroes it seems you don't have to be a (current) professional player to get on a team. Just pulling some-one off the street will do. Nor does it seem you have to register players in advance or even name substitutes - team a player short (as one has just been killed)? No worries just promote a cheerleader to player. Doesn't matter that she has never played before or even practised.

In true Adam West Batman fashion, if you want to kill the hero, you need to come up with an elaborate scheme. Why shoot them when you can track down a presumed dead cyborg and implant a radio in their brain to control them?

Oh and watch out for the ball - throw it too hard and it goes into white heat, killing everyone in its path. hmmm not sure how that works.

The end of Inferno feels incredibly rushed. I am sure I have read some where they basically decided to wrap it up to make way for the merger with Starlord - but that doesn't quite make sense as that wasn't for another 11 weeks. Anyway [spoiler]most of the team are killed off in 3 pages - but given the lack of character development over the story, it has zero emotional impact anyway.[/spoiler]

But, but, but...you do get great art from Dave Gibbons and Massimo Belardnelli, two totally bonkers future sports and at least an attempt at an ongoing story arc (which seemed to be missing from the mostly totally episodic Invasion and Mach 1.)

I do have a vague memory of Inferno being the strip that originally put me off buying 2000AD. As I have posted before I originally started by reading Starlord and was only vaguely aware of 2000AD. Starlord used to regularly feature ads for 2000AD and I had read the 1977 2000Ad Summer Special. Based on the ads in Starlord I remember flicking through 2000AD in the newsagents and seeing what a thought was an incredibly violent scene from Inferno featuring the bikes and thinking na that's not for me. 

maryanddavid

Inferno was wrapped up quickly because of the violence causing all sorts of trouble for editorial.

Colin YNWA

Quote from: maryanddavid on 10 September, 2016, 12:55:04 AM
Inferno was wrapped up quickly because of the violence causing all sorts of trouble for editorial.

Yeah it course big problems coursed by the strip. Rushed endings are a major problem for stories in 2000ad's early history. Someone here explained (sorry I can't remember who) the old policy of keeping a strip going as long as it was popular. Then as soon as it slipped, or editorial decided for one reason or another than it needed wrap up the writer would be given a week or twos notice. Hence many great long running stories have pretty jarring endings. Just look at Flesh 2!

Magnetica

Right so you can just imagine the scene:

Setting Tharg's office -

Tharg: sorry Tom we are getting complaints that Inferno is just too violent. I am afraid you are going to have to wrap it up.

Tom Tully: oh ok.

Tharg: any ideas?

Tom Tully: sure thing, [spoiler]I'll just kill them all off except for Giant.[/spoiler]

Tharg: that'd be fine.

Colin YNWA

So 1980 is charging along (Prog 161) and what have we learnt? Well to my surprise, so far

Day of the Droids >> Verdus. Its bloomin' great, lovin' it.

Blackhawk never did find its way. It lurched and slumbled along never really having a purpose or focus. Much like Inferno then this meant that Belardinelli's art just doesn't work. It just adds to the chaos and confusion the story wallows in.

Both Fiends of the Eastern front and VCs show that Gerry Finley-Day can come up with a fantastic idea, be given the best artistd and still make a story read like a hack job. I'm going to say it now and I'll not apologise he really isn't a good writer at all. Now I admit this sweeping statement is based on a 44 year old reading kids stories. The thing other stories written by different writers have a real craft to them and hold up, even in the context in which they were created. For me GFD just lacks the craft and deft skill to take a kids comics and make it something great to read. Yes its my age, yes its my older eye but his stories just don't hold up...

... I know, I know, I'll get my coat and leave quietly by the back door.

Jim_Campbell

No... you're right. I don't get the push to rehabilitate GFD. Most of what he wrote was rubbish, mitigated by great art. I think Fiends is his best work in 2000AD possibly because it's the least like a 2K story... I exclude Harry 20, which is comfortably the best series with his name on it, because Alan Grant did a wholesale rewrite on it.

Rogue was a great character, but it's important to remember that GFD's original concept was for a soldier like the 'Euro-fighter' plane... his legs were made by one country, his arms by another... it took an editorial conference to whip the idea into shape, and it wasn't that long before we were getting Fort Neuro and disco dancing Rogue and even the twelve-year-old me was thinking "This needs to stop now..."
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
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Colin YNWA

Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 15 September, 2016, 10:17:16 PM
No... you're right. I don't get the push to rehabilitate GFD. Most of what he wrote was rubbish, mitigated by great art. I think Fiends is his best work in 2000AD possibly because it's the least like a 2K story... I exclude Harry 20, which is comfortably the best series with his name on it, because Alan Grant did a wholesale rewrite on it.

Harry 20 looms on my re-read horizon and if I'm honest I'm not looking forward to it, I didn't enjoy it last time, but lets see how I get on with it this. I know how popular it is (mind then so is the original VCs). Given that I've not enjoyed Alan Grant's early work on Blackhawk that's not given me much hope!

I still stand by the fact that Ant Wars is the best thing he did for the Prog but I've found myself thinking about how that can be. Especially given the fact that unlike so many of his other stories this one is largely derided I think. For me though it works better with his writing as it has such a B movie set-up. To that end his awkward dialogue and clumsy, forced plotting feels at home. I think this allows me to set aside my normal misgivings and just roll with the immense fun of it all...

... or given that I'm a simple soul maybe I shouldn't be looking too far beyond COOL GIANT ANTS...

Dandontdare

I'm just rereading Robohunter:Verdus and there's a horribly racist sequence when Sam falls asleep and dreams about "how the world should be" - two robots with golliwog style negro fetaures kiss his feet while calling him "Master Sam, sure enough", whilst the asian company man who sent him to verdus starts speaking like an old Fu manchu film, addressing him as "the gleat lobohunter". It makes "Blakee Pentax" look positively PC!