Forum’s Favourite Thrill - Stainless Steel Rat vs. Shakara Round 2 Heat 128

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

the stainless steel rat

[Blue Cactus]

Shakara. A mind blowing classic. I loved how it took so long to reveal its secrets. Robot dinosaurs? A planet turned into a space ship? The last human absentmindedly murdered on page 3? Yes please! I may be misremembering this, but I'm sure there was an all time classic run of Shakara, Kingdom, Dante, Stront and Dredd at one point. Absolute perfection.

SSR pretty good, mind. Sorry it's going out.

Ooft, what a line up!

[Mike Carroll]

I love Shakara, and it'd win against most thrills, but not in this case. The Stainless Steel Rat gets my vote!

[sintec]

Shakara

[SmallBlueThing(Reborn)]

Shakara! Although it's close.

Shakara is the kind of strip that the prog should always do- a weird and brilliantly-designed alien protagonist, mad pithy catchphrases and mind-expanding art. We see the latest version of that in Proteus Vex, but to my mind Shakara was slightly more iconic. But Vex is only just getting started, so who knows.

Stainless Steel Rat *should* have started a tradition of 2000ad adapting the very best of prose Sci-Fi into comic form. We *should* have had many since, and the prog *should* be currently running an adaptation of The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells. But it's not. So however good SSR was, it evidently didn't do the job and so Shakara wins it.

SBT

[NapalmKev]

Shakara!

It's excellent!

Cheers

[Funt Solo]

Tricky decision here, because I have a lot of love for The Stainless Steel Rat. But it's Shakara - and that's partly down to managing to keep the interest and quality over five series.

[AlexF]

Have to agree that the three SSR adaptations are among the very best book-comic adaptations going, all the more impressive because it works so well in small chunks and keeps that weekly cliffhanger feel so vital to 2000AD. I don't love 'saves the world' as a story overall, although the mucking about in time is fun at least. The other two are all-time great capers, though. I really do love that Slippery Jim, one of the very few book series where I've read, I think, every single one, making me all the more sad we never got any more adaptations.

I also have to agree that Shakara is just a perfect example of 2000AD weirdness, and even if it doesn't maintain the wonder over all 5 books, they do all bring something new, and as a whole it's probably a 'better' comic series. Gets a bit wordy after book 1, mind. But the Flint art! So good, I think better than Carlos even, if only because there's no requirement on him to limit the imagination.

Voting with my heart on this one: Stainless Steel Rat.

And my God, if this is a taste of what Round 3 is going to be like, I'm gonna have to start taking some serious stress pills.*


*Keesh, Zoosh, or Zizz preferred, obvs.

[Link Prime]

Regrettably I didn't take to SSR as a youngster, and never bothered to revisit the series when I got older.
Must rectify that.

I'll vote for the small and humble breasted Shakara - it was really strong series throughout it's run.

[Richard]

Stainless Steel Rat.

[Colin YNWA]

What a final tie and what a final day of Round 2 this could be as last day votes could still swing this I think (only an eye scan). Just to stir the pot. Stainless Steal Rat, fun as it was, will have to get a clear result, as come a tie and my casting vote Shakara will get this... so any last day votes, get um in and I'll announce the final result of Round 2 tomorrow morning.

[moly]

Stainless steel rat

[I, Cosh]

SHAKARA!!!

[Dash Decent]

Stainless Steel Rat

[paddykafka]

Shakara