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[Square One edition]

I've recently been reading 'Letter 44' in online format and I really like the story so I want to buy it in TPB.  (For me online is OK for a quick look but I love have the actual book with the actual pages and the actual comic book smell for stories I really like.)

Anyway the first volume comes in two editions - the regular one and another called the Square One edition which seems to be slightly thinner.

So my question is...   Does anyone know anything about the quality of Square One Editions? It's about half the price of the regular edition so I'm wondering if it's like the comic book equivalent of a novel being published as a mass market paperback?

Thanks,
Joanne

I would love to see some cyberpunk type stores in 2000ad along similar lines to 'Johnny Mnemonic' and 'Ready Player One'.  I think it could be fertile story-making ground because you've got the underdog hacker thing, the megacity one type grungy future and whatever pure fantasy you want for the university inside big databases, net sites and while using intrusion software.  It could even be a near future story where corporations buy up, say, all scientific data and horde it only for themselves making and underclass of people without knowledge.  There would then be great need for  a people's hacker hero and huge incentive for big business to try to crush him or her.
Just an idea - use freely if it's any good.

Anyone else got any genres or storylines they'd love to see?

Jo

[Tweak]

Generally I found this floppy to be quite a mixed bag. 

Tweak
I loved this story.  Some stories, some art, some music just does it for you and Pat's story here was one of those for me.  It's got a great set up and is also a really excellent commentary  on the kinds of things we humans do.  There were some brilliant laugh out loud moments too which had me reading the comic to my son.  I found the ending both surprising and very satisfying.  Just a great job!
The art by Chris Weston was excellent - clear, interesting and dynamic.  I particularly liked the panel where our female lead is imagining a 'spiritual and prosperous' future.  It had great impact, leaving me feeling appaulled at her blindness and selfishness.


Maria
I struggled with the origins part of this story.  It just felt like a horrible retcon to me but maybe there were elements of this in previous Dredd stories I've not read yet.  There were some great funny bits as Dredd describes Maria and we see in the artwork the reality of the things he's saying.  The art by Graham Manley was brilliant - interesting, funny and spot-on for the story.


Giant
I always liked Giant as a character so it was nice to see him remembered but this tale seemed a bit dull to me.  The art was good, clean and clear although I would like to have seen a bit more 'movement' in it.


Cookie
It was interesting to see what happened to Cookie.  I kind of assumed he was decommissioned permanently by Chopper.  The twist at the end seemed a bit inevitable but was fitting and fairly OK.  Roger Langridge's art was fairly good - too cartoony for my taste but still clear and appropriate to the story.


Conrad Con
I enjoyed this story but really struggled with the art which was too stylized for clear reading. I'm not against stylised art, I think it can be great e.g. Jock's work on Lenny Zero had a grungy cyberpunk feel but it didn't lose readability and I think this work does.  Adding some grey tones to the art might have helped pick characters out from the background a bit more and made the curly broken line style better.  Gordon Rennie's story was a good read apart from that.


Gribligs
This was another great story from Gordon Rennie with an interesting subtext about people who deviate from the norm.  The Griblig language and translation boxes gave it a bit of humour.  The art by Steve Roberts was simple but well done.


Melda Dreepe
Nice little story by Alan Grant with an ironic twist.  Decent art again by Steve Roberts. 


Alec Trench
This was another Alan Grant story beautifully drawn by Robin Smith.  It kind of breaks the fourth wall, being about a writer stuck in a comic but I don't think it was that great.  The whole thing was kind of incestuous, like having a TV show about making a TV show.


What if Cassandra Anderson hadn't become a Judge?
This story had some more lovely art by Robin Smith but seemed a bit weak on the story side.   I don't imagine Anderson, even a failed Judge Anderson, acting in the ways she does in this story.  It just seems out of character.


So, generally some truly great stories mixed in with some less than great stories.  Whatever happened to Tweak by Pat Mills and Chris Weston stood out for me as the best story and the best art.

[Artwork]

I've just finished reading Hell's Prodigal.  I had only intended to read a couple of pages to see what it was about and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting.  I was very impressed!

Artwork
On first look it was Lee Carter's artwork which really drew me in.  I frequently have trouble interpreting black and white images but when there are lots of grey tones it's as easy as colour.  I was totally blown away by the art.  Every page is a feast for the eyes.  I thought it was stunning.  In fact I'd say that Carter's art is the best I've seen.

Introduction
I've never read Necrophim before so I was expecting to have a bit of a learning curve when I started but I didn't, the story was introduced beautifully.  Not only did we have a poetic intro to the very basic backstory but the first conversation between Valion and Uriel also sets the scene.

Story
Tony Lee's  story itself was exciting, unusual and well paced.  Not only did I find the story really great but it was told really well too.  I enjoyed it much much more than I thought I would.  Great stuff.

So generally I really liked 'Hell's Prodigal'.  Brilliant work.  I am now itching to read 'Civil Warlord' and see how it all turns out.

Anyone else read this stuff yet? 
What did you think of the art, the story?
Is it a different experience if you've read Necrophim before?
Any negative points?

Jo


PS:  "I mean even heaven has the iPhone"  v. funny!

Quick question, is there a review page for Necrophim?

I just read 'The Judge Child Quest' for the first time - it was amazing!  (Many thanks to Stu101 who gave me the Fleetway/Quality trade paperback of this story in colour.  :-)   )  I dont think I've ever read a story with such a range  of people, places and mad adventures.  I also thought the ending was stunning too [spoiler] where Dredd leaves the Judge Child because he believes he's evil and so can't help the city after all.[/spoiler]  It was so unexpected and very very Dredd.  Great writing there I thought.

I think this is easily one of my favourite stories. The only bit I didn't like was Dredd's obsession with Judge Faro's facial hair and the way Dredd was so harsh about Faro being the one to take the oracle spice.  It was still very much how I see Dredd I think, he puts his view of being a Judge and his comittment to protect the city first and expects everyone else to do the same, but it really shows the harsher side of him as a character.  Although I didn't like it, it certainly made for a more complex story, as John Wagner says 'Dredd as villian'. 

My favourite parts of the story were:

• Texas City Mutieworld Danger Park   
• The EB4 Mining platform 
• The Tale of Buggo on Ombra
• The man with Jigsaw disease
• and of course the show down with the Angel Gang on Xanadu

So anyone else like this story?  What are your views on the facial hair thing?  Why was Dredd going on about it so much?  Is Dredd and hero or a villian (I kind of think both)?Any favourite parts of this story?

Jo

Other than the mighty Tharg, who obviously keeps track of all these things, does anyone know of anywhere on the internet which holds information on which Dredd stories are collected in which Case files and other graphic novels? 

I was kind of thinking of something which has Prog or Meg number, Story name, Casefiles Number and a list of other collected volumes with that story in?  A bit like this perhaps... 

(See picture - not sure where Tapatalk will put the picture in this post) 

This is an example I made up.  (I only filled in one story, the one I've just read - vv funny!)

I'm not bothered if it's in written or database format, I just want to find the information so I can sort myself out a reading order for Dredd.

Thanks!!!

Hi, I wanted to request that graphic novels for sale (and possibly other books and comics) on the 2000ADwebsite have one or two sample pages available for folk to see?  I'm at least as interested in the art as the story so to have a small sample of that for a graphic novel would be fantastic.  I know Comixology do this routinely and it makes it a lot better from a buying point of view, especially if you're really into comic art. Since I found out that they do this I buy a lot more from them.

Not sure what other people think about this, so feel free to comment.
Thanks!

Sent from my HUAWEI M2-A01W using Tapatalk

A thread for sharing and discussing the comic artwork which we love.

What art really blows you away?  Do you have particular favourite artists?  What is it about the art you love which really does it for you?  Do you read some strips purely for the art?  Do you like more than one style?

So, here's some of the art I really love:

Let's start with some 2000AD stuff as it's some of the best...

Dave Kendall's art on Dreams of Deadworld looks amazing to me...







It's not just that it's really great artwork, I think the style fits the subject really well which really gives it a new dimension.

Then there's D'Israeli's original Scarlet Traces views of London and Scotland from Vol 1...





I love the colour that he's using and the effect that colour has on how we read the different places in this fictional world.  I also like the clean precision of the art which I think is perfect for the Scarlet Traces story.

Then there's David Roach's work in Prog 2000 - the Anderson story 'A Dream of Death'.  I though this was just beautiful.  I read it twice straight off the bat just because of th art...





So what art do you really admire?

Jo

(PS:  I did have a look for a thread like this but couldn't find one.  Now that could be because I'm fairly new to the forum, in which case, I apologise.  Cheers!)

Hi,

I just wondered if some of you more experienced 2000AD fans could help me? 

I've been really getting into Dredd comics since 2012 when I saw the Karl Urban, Dredd, (which totally blew me away - the last film I loved as much as this was Star Wars when I was seven!)  Anyway, I have a mild form of autism and because of this I find reading black and white strips quite hard unless they use greyscale shading as well.  I just can't seem to 'read' the pictures without a lot of work - I frequently can't see what the picture is of - I've been told this is just the way my brain processes details.

So I've been trying to read as much historical Dredd as I can in colour.

I've got: 

• Apocalypse War in the IDW reprint edition which was coloured,
• All 3 Days of Chaos collected editions
• Origins
• Mechismo Mega Collection Edition,
• America Mega Collection Edition and
• Oz Mega Collection Edition - which was mostly black and white - so difficult.

I'm just not sure how to go about getting the rest?

My feeling is that I could either:

   (a) get the case files from 12 which goes colour half way through (as I understand it) or
   (b) buy up all the graphic novel editions which are coloured from the 2000AD shop 'Graphic Novels / More Dredd' section and then try to put them in order but I might miss the shorter stories which are not part of a longer narrative.

Then I could add any originally black and white stories coloured at IDW to the collection when they get printed?


So what would you guys do?
Thanks,
Jo