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Can it be Inspector Inaba next to Slaine on Prog 2016? Doesn't seem likely though...

As for Prog 500, honestly, it's a pretty solid top 20 of both artists and characters even now.
Obvs would swap out Bad City Blue (and maybe Robin Smith); and an Arthur Ranson Anderson over Kitson. But everything else is spot on!

Ah yeah this is a great comic. I've only read the trade collection of the first bit, and remain deeply sad that the story was never finished. I guess I should get the digital comics of the ones that were made! Cannot overstate how great the art is on this. (And I don't have to! Colin as ever doing fantastic job on bigging up the art)

For what it's worth, I was a big reader of 'normal' Archie comics in my youth (age roughly 10-13) - for some reason, they were readily available in India, where my best friend used to go (or his uncles maybe) to bring and share massive bundles of them. They're kind of like if Whizzer and Chips had a rom-com story that was less stalker-ish than 'Crazy for Daisy'. At the time I couldn't quite undersatand why Archie was so into VCeronica when Betty was right there, but I get it a bit more now. The TV show Riverdale is much kinder to Veronica than the comics ever were!

Anyway, this Zombie-version of the characters I'd say IS faithful to the basic setup, if that's a concern you have. It shouldn't be.

On Kyle Baker, i love his artwork and the stories are pretty fun - but I can't get on with his default style of putting all dialogue and text underneath each panel, Rupert the Bear style. It feels almost as if it isn't comics, and pulls me out of the reading experience. anyone else bugged by that?

Still, he's a great cartoonist and worth the extra bit of effort to read. Strong recommends for Truth: Red, White and Black and Birth of a Nation (both illustrated by Baker but written by others). And also Plastic Man, of course! - Colin's original Baker rec.

Big Krazy Kat fan here! Can't think of anything to say to persuade non-fans to give it another go, I suspect the reality is that I was exposed to it really quite young (my Dad had an old collection), and first read bits of it as a sub-literate and as such did not understand the lettering or the dialogue well at all, but fell in love with those weird visuals (shades of Dr Seuss?). Which all meant that when I gave it a prpoer go as a teen then an adult i was primed to enjoy it. It very much feels to me like an extended arthouse Road Runner cartoon, which is totally my cup of tea. That said, I don't sit and read Krazy Kat very often - definitely one to enjoy in small doses, occasionally.

Honestly, the whole 'widescreen comics' thing that got going in the late 90s, esepcially in superhero comics, has slightly ruined a lot of comics reading for me, as I expect to be able to race through them. It's just not the case with most British comics (especially the Beano!), and most US comics from the 80s or earlier.

Maybe it's the Manga influece? They're often a real breakneck read.

Have not read Liberty Meadows but anyone who loves Calvin & Hobbes as much as that can't be all bad!
On the cheesecake art thing, I definitely recall being actively put off by Cho's Marvel covers. Feels like a dare, sometimes, like 'you like sexy women, right? How about having them right on display on the cover of an action comic?. FEEL SHAME!'
-and for some reason, Cho's work always seems a bit more 'totally male fantasy' than e.g. Amanda Connor (queen of the Power Girl boob window) or indeed the much-admired Hernandez Brothers, who love busty and powerful women and are not shy of dabbling in actual porn comics. I wonder if they might appear in a future entry on the list...
-that said, I can stomach Cho's women far more than J Scott campbell, who seems to relish the back-breaking pose and weird pixie face style of superhero art.

See, this is a series (which I've only read very small bits of) that is my main evidence for the fact that Stan Lee defintely DID bring something to the table in his early Marvel days. I just find Kirby's dialogue a chore to read, it gets in the way of some fantastically weird and colourful ideas, and that puts me off trying to read the whole Fourth World thing. But there's no denying the staggering heights of his imagiantion, both in terms of plots and character but of course his art, too.

I can agree that the New Gods is better comics than e.g. Fantastic Four or Thor, but I'd reach for those books more quickly for a fun time.

LOVE Madman. I think I have read this same series as you, but didn't know about the non-Allred It Girl spinoff series, sounds fun! I remember the fun of picking up a new 'Atomics' issue alongside whatever Civil War nonsense I was also reading at the time. (Think Mark Millar messed up with the characterisation of Judge Dredd? captain America and iron man both want to fight you)

I got turned on to Madman way back in the 90s by a school friend - basically this and Bone and Concrete were my gateway away from Marvel superheroes (OK so I never stopped reading them but at least now I knew which comics were cool to talk about with non-comics people ).

The first (?) Madman mini-series, called the Oddity Odyssey, is likely still in my top 10 comics ever, and the series that came after - when it was pulished by dark horse, I think? is not half bad either. NB that first series is in black and white, and although it is a joy to gaze upon Allred's work in any comic, it really sings loudest in colour. Basically Madman looks and feels like a fun, breezy superhero comic, but it's more of a fun philosophical /surrealist romp. You can totally see why Allred and Peter Milligan mesh well together. No dark and broody nonsense, except where that can be poked with a stick for chuckles.

Bur frankly one of the most fun things about Madman is that the main character is, by design, someone who is never entirely sure who he is and what is going on, which means that picking up any given issue of the comic gives you a perfect taste. Almost because of this, I deliberately don't WANT to collect and read the entire sage, it's more fun to dip in and out occasionally.

colin, you're gonna have to work hard to persuade me there are 93 comics better than this 

Between Kiss My Axe and various Sláine collections intros, Pat has spilled an AWFUL lot of ink in prasie of that first episode of Sláine, the amount of effort Kincaid put into it, and how shabbily he feels she was treated by 2000AD at the time.

Anyway, totally agrfee it's an amazing one-off story and would have loved to see more.
Technically, she does have a second Slaine credit, as the author of the 'Killing Fields' sequence that came between Slaine the King and Horned God.

And yeah, would have been nice if more female artists had been attracted to / given a chance on the Prog back in the early days!

Top Prog all round, agree that the cover is a stunner! And yes please to more Joe Currie artwork, it reminds me of classic Ron Smith one-off comedy shorts in tone, if not even slightly in style.

I am getting close to the end of another ranking project, bit not Dredd...

I finished reading through LoEG relatively recently and had a fair time doing it. But yes, it's 100% the case that the frist two colletions breeze on by, while the rest of it feels more of a slog. I winder if that's how it felt to write, too? As if Moore and O'Neill had a jolly old wheeze putting the first two stories together, then felt they had to keep trying to exhume and insert as many cultural/litrary touchpoints as they could think of, and it sort of sucked out the joy of a simple plot told with just a handful of characters.

That said, the moments where Moore makes you go 'oooooh, that's dead clever that is' do make me feel real good. And those moments crop up in Watchmen, From Hell and League of Eggs, reliably.

I think I like From Hell more than you, Colin, but I will agree it very much felt like homework to read. But the good kind of homework, that you're glad at the end of it you were forced to read. (I feel the same way about David Copperfield, an asbolute tome of a book I'd never have dared attempt as a schoolboy except our English teacher was a Dickens nut; it took most of the year but it was wirth the effort).

But for sure it's a book that does no favours to anyone by being held up as some great work of comics, because it is first and foremost a book for people who are interested in serial killers, Victorian London, and occult/class shit. I'm more into superheroes than any of those things, so for sure I'll turn to Watchmen more readily than From Hell. But I'm still glad to have read it, I totally think it explores those themes in interesting and intellectually stimulating ways. (Don't tell anyone, but I feel the same way about Eddie Campbell's 'Alec' comics. Intellectually interesting, but emotionally just not my cuppatea.)

I've spent far too much time thinking about this and not coming up with any answers, and it'd be mental - hoho - to attempt a re-read of all existing Dredd one-offs to date to find the answer.
I generally like the ones either about weird future crimes, like the one about the lady who sends in fake invoices. or the ones about citizens living life in MC1 - like the one about the dude who just loves running (actually I think there are two of those, both good, one by Wagner and Fegredo and one by Worley and ?). Also the ones where Dredd wins not by being especially clever or tough but by combating total idiots, like the Hottie House seige (a story so good Wagner told it three times!)

Watchmen: definitely a comic to admire more than love. I'm sure part of the reason it gets so much praise is that you could - and I'm sure people have - write long essays analysing its comics techniques, and its dissection of superheroes, in the same vein vein as a Dickens novel or what have you. On the other hand, if you're reading a superhero comic and thinking 'I bet I could get a good English essay out of this'... well, let's just say you're not gonna end up in MY top 10 favourite comis of all time...

Also I get really annoyed by that one scene with the supposed 'world's greatest psychotherapist' who just can't cope with how weird Rorschach is. Either Moore hates therapists (fair enough) or else he was being uncharacteristically lazy in finding a way to make Rorshach look more badass.

Totally agree - and it doesn't even matter that Dragon Ball is not even that great of a comic. The first chunk (before they added the 'Z') is pretty great, though, and so easy to read. Comics that are easy to read despirte having mad ideas need more praise.