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Aces Weekly from David Lloyd

Started by Emperor, 06 August, 2012, 03:56:23 AM

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pauljholden

It's a little unclear what you're getting for your money: a pdf ? a cbr ? a subscription to a website where you can only read it online? Can anyone say...?

BPP

I get equally confused by Madefire.

I just want a damm book. I know this makes me old.
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

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Jim_Campbell

Quote from: BPP on 01 October, 2012, 05:51:08 PM
I get equally confused by Madefire.

Madefire give you a dedicated app for reading their stuff, which is created in a proprietary authoring tool for adding the motion and audio components.

Cheers

Jim
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Spaceghost

PJ - for your money, you get a password which lets you read the comic strips and access the extras.

It's only available to view online as far as I can tell from my brief mess about with it. Of the 3 that I've read so far, each story has 3 landscape style pages and will be continued weekly. I found myself just getting into a story just when it ended, which is a good sign I suppose as it means I wanted to read more.

Could do with a few more pages for each story perhaps. You can't complain for £1.75 a month for 72 pages of comics though.
Raised in the wild by sarcastic wolves.

Previously known as L*e B*tes. Sshhh, going undercover...

Jimmy Baker's Assistant

Quote from: BPP on 01 October, 2012, 05:51:08 PM
I just want a damm book. I know this makes me old.

I am in my late 30s and intensely dislike digital comics and books. Alas this means I will not be reading Aces Weekly online, although I would view a print version with interest.

Many older people seem to like their Kindles, so I am not convinced it is entirely a generational thing.

Daveycandlish

I'm yet to find a comic that reads well on a first gen Kindle. Seriously considering an upgrade. And buying this Weekly to read on my laptop
An old-school, no-bullshit, boys-own action/adventure comic reminiscent of the 2000ads and Eagles and Warlords and Battles and other glorious black-and-white comics that were so, so cool in the 70's and 80's - Buy the hardback Christmas Annual!

Spaceghost

Had a proper read last night and I enjoyed it. The fact that all the stories except one are restricted to three page episodes means that it'll take a while for the story to take shape, but they all have intruiging openings.

All the stories have potential, particularly David Lloyd and David Jackson's noiry, greywashed Valley of Shadows and John McCrea and Phil Hester's 'death planet' sci-fi thriller Progenitor.

Of the others, it's too early to tell where the stories will go, but there seems to be a good mix of styles and genres including Lew Stringer's Combat Colin which is a humour strip in the Whizzer and Chips vein.

Five of the six stories stick to the 3 landscape page format and are 'traditional' comics which would work equally well on paper. Mark Wheatley and JC Vaughn's Return of the Human is different. It's not a 'comic' in the usual sense in that it doesn't use sequential panels. It's a series of beautiful, pulp sci-fi paintings, presented as historical documents or museum exhibitions, while a built in text box fills in the story of a man who fought off an alien invasion.

It's an unusual approach and the only one of the stories which takes advantage of the digital medium. I'd like to see more of this innovation in the future as the format is tailor made for it.

At just over 40p per weekly issue I'd say it's definitely worth a punt and I'm looking forward to next week's already.
Raised in the wild by sarcastic wolves.

Previously known as L*e B*tes. Sshhh, going undercover...

IndigoPrime

#22
Quote from: pauljholden on 01 October, 2012, 05:08:42 PM
It's a little unclear what you're getting for your money: a pdf ? a cbr ? a subscription to a website where you can only read it online? Can anyone say...?
In my case, a nice note that after 24 hours, my account still hasn't been activated. I realise this is an indie, but that's a shitty system. The comics had better be bloody good after this first impression.

EDIT: Never mind. Looks like PayPal screwed up. Great.

EDIT: Actually, Aces Weekly have also screwed up, in terms of how the site works. So it has my email but no payment, because payment didn't go through due to PayPal being rubbish. Now I can't login, because the sub failed, but I also cannot subscribe, because the email's already in use. Oh well. I've plenty of comics to read already.

CrazyFoxMachine

#23
Haven't any troubles with my subscription or log-in but they've been saying that people have -

I agree it's a lot of bang for your buck but the three-page thing doesn't work so well when the majority are clearly the beginning of long tales. Per'aps the best thing would've been to give us "double" in the first issue as the prog does sometimes with the beginnings of big stories. Just hard to get your teeth in when it's the comics equivalent of:

"One bright sunny day in my youth, I encountered a curious ruined house. I'd never seen it before and stood for a while transfixed by it. I resolved my ner- CONTINUED NEXT WEEK"

Although the only story I found myself actively not wanting to pursue was "Return of the Human" which wasn't really a comic but a series of dated-looking digital paintings with harshly-contrasting text-boxes laid across the top. Looks more like the accompanying web-based story for a 1998 concept album by a space rock band.

Paradise Mechanism has a wonderful atmosphere with beautiful muted colours from the inspiring Soffe. Despite myself I kept wishing for a physical version that I could get into. Like a boat.

Hester & McCrea's "Progenitor" is a close second - Matthew Wilson's colouring is beautiful and fleshes out McCrea's art beautifully. The first and final pages (so that's 1 and 3)  are brilliantly iconic.

Lew Stringer's Combat Colin, being the only complete story in the issue, was therefore the most rewarding. Brilliantly old-hat, quite chucklesome. Chortleworthy. Titterfull.

"Shoot For the Moon" LOOKS beautiful, is clearly quite French and will therefore end up being brilliant. Suffered the most from the "cut-off" three page syndrome I think. But I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

"Valley of the Shadows" is so David Lloyd it hurts. Beautifully laid-out wonderfully drawn and intriguing. Another story that'll inevitably get much more readable but until then I'll just go to the extras section and marvel at Mr Lloyd's wondrous art.

Spaceghost

Quote from: CrazyFoxMachine on 02 October, 2012, 12:53:01 PM
Although the only story I found myself actively not wanting to pursue was "Return of the Human" which wasn't really a comic but a series of dated-looking digital paintings with harshly-contrasting text-boxes laid across the top. Looks more like the accompanying web-based story for a 1998 concept album by a space rock band.

And there we see the beauty of the anthology once again 'cos I liked this. Compared to the other stories, we get a big chunk of pulp sci-fi goodness to sink our teeth into.

The style of the art reminded me of a series of 'Amazing Fantasy' covers with a story bolted on, which sounds like a criticism but isn't.

PS - I liked the brief sliver of Shoot For The Moon, especially the 'MOT*!' sound effect for a punch.



*'Mot' is a slang word for lady parts round here.
Raised in the wild by sarcastic wolves.

Previously known as L*e B*tes. Sshhh, going undercover...

Patrick

Lloyd's strip is gorgeous (and speaking as a lettering nerd, lovely lettering), and the rest all have good art, but a lot of the writing seems to be going-through-the-genre-motions, if you know what I mean. We'll see how the stories develop.

Zarjazzer

Good stuff especially Progenitor nice sci fi story [spoiler]with a saurian beastie/dinosaur![/spoiler]. Three pages is a bit of a strange one story wise but I hope it does well. A brave,new venture.

The Paradise Mechanism was also thrilling- bloody hell I want to see more of that.
The Justice department has a good re-education programme-it's called five to ten in the cubes.

IndigoPrime

Finally got a sub. Apparently, emailing them when everything goes horribly wrong is the best course of action. Looking forward to reading at the weekend...

CrazyFoxMachine

Second issue out today - http://www.acesweekly.co.uk/issue2

it's a stonker, with an interesting complete story by Estéban Hernandez :D

IndigoPrime

Good to know it's a stonker. To be very honest, I didn't think much of the first issue. Everything felt insanely abbreviated, like newspaper comics. Hoping I'll be more engaged over the coming weeks.