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Prog 2039 - Eye in the Sky!

Started by Richard, 08 July, 2017, 01:08:52 PM

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Richard

Best bit: [spoiler]"Fart-gusting rectum!"[/spoiler]  :D


Richard

I only wanted to say that, but I suppose that having bagged the thread I'm now obliged to leave some sort of review.

Best story this week is Brink, which keeps up the action and is more like the first series than the earlier episodes of this series were.

Hunted is also good. A more or less self-contained episode and a good introduction to the story for any new readers that have come on board this week. I could say the same thing about Grey Area, which is RBF's perspective of life on Earth.

Defoe finishes. And there's a decent Dredd one-off by Rory McConville and Ben Willsher.

Woolly

I noticed Ben Willsher has again been blessed with the job of drawing a [spoiler]todger[/spoiler] in a Dredd tale.

Leigh S

Both McConilles Dredds have had decent ideas at teh core of them.  The vision filter one was the stronger idea, but should have been the one parter, as the "insert action here" viral digital demons stuff jsut distracted from it - as others ahve said, take the last few panels of the second part and put them at the end of part one -  Dredd didnt need a convoluted reason to get into an extended action scene - just have him turn up to arrest the fraudulant Psychic password recoverer and think up a nice twist as to why your man freaks out on Dredd - maybe Dredd is unfilterable, or breaks the filter somehow by putting too much strain on its capacity to cover up what it is seeing..

This weeks was a weaker idea, but still good starting point, but again, swerves off into a technobabble non sequitur ending. It felt like maybe this needed to be the two parter to use the set up more interestingly/humourously, with an unexpected but logical and satisfying twist/resolve

Richard

I think both ideas could have worked as one-parters.

Leigh S

Quote from: Richard on 09 July, 2017, 06:37:54 PM
I think both ideas could have worked as one-parters.

I think this one might have worked better if the cloning had been legal and Dredd was invovled to find out what was going wrong, cutting out a lot of exposition and the out of nowhere ending.... but I recall that "No More Jimmy Deans" story that dealt with celebrity cloning - something only Cal was crazy wnough to sanction if I recall?

Colin YNWA

Its interesting to reflect on the Prog at the moment in light of the conversation about how people are feeling towards the Galaxies Greatest in general. This Prog seems to emphasise why people are having some negative thoughts, but also why others aren't... only cos those thoughts are there mind.

Firstly we have a very average Dredd, not a bad one, certainly a mile from a great one, just so muh. As Dredd seems so central to the comic for clear reasons, to have what feels like a placeholder Dredd seems to reflect the ideas that post Day of Chaos Dredd has been treading water... but I just don't see that though. Yes its a functional Dredd, but being deep into a re-read at the moment there always has been, even in the Wagner Grant 'Heyday' (well okay not actually in the mid 400s which I'm reading at the moment BUT ya know what I mean). There's been some wonderful Dredd's around this. Some I've enjoyed by the many writers on the title as much as those by Wagner (mind there's been some Wagner doozys). So not gone let one pretty good apple spoil the barrel.

Next we have Defoe which I barely pay attention too. BUT some people LOVE this strip and that speak to 2000ad glorious diversity and the different things folks get from it... oh and it end - Ya for me! Change she a coming.

Brink is the exact opposite of above (well it doesn't end this week, thing that's next week, or soon). So when it end boo for me cos this is just 2000ad at its, very, very best.

Hunted has a pretty good weak, its flapped around for me this one but starts to feel a little more cohesive this week and speaks to a strip that feels like its here to stay but carry very varied stories of different length and not bound by the current 10-12 week book 'tread' which seems to drive so many nuts. As doe Grey Area which has another great one shot and really could be the regular feature there to flext many are missing.

So while this is a very mediocore Prog to be honest, a bad, an okay, a getting better, a very good and one blinder, it speaks volumes as why the Prog is  great now and remains at the top of its game. If others don't feel that nothing to be done as they are of course right for them and completely get why people feel that way (I've ditched the Prog many times) but hope there's more people who are seeing the joys of the Galaxies Greatest cos I for one don't want it changing... well not until the next week.

wedgeski

I gotta agree about Brink. It's an amazing strip.

CalHab

Yes, Brink and Grey Area are the clear standouts in this prog. I really like the way that Grey Area is going, clearly we're building up to something, but the individual episodes are complete and satisfying on their own.

Defoe seems to have decided to become a 17th century Marshal Law at the end of the series. Hmmm.

Frank

Quote from: CalHab on 11 July, 2017, 08:08:37 AM
Defoe seems to have decided to become a 17th century Marshal Law at the end of the series. Hmmm.

Mills switched the focus from zombies to superheroes in the previous series.

Going back felt odd. Maybe it was felt that a return to Original Recipe would make the transition between artists go more smoothly, or maybe MacNeil was just more interested in drawing zombie guts than taking up Kev O'Neill's hero hating cudgels.

I really hope Colin MacNeil of the clan MacNeil* can be persuaded to stick around and help Mills skewer superfolks on pikes. Leigh Gallagher seemed irreplaceable**, but MacNeil's insane decision to fully paint ninety pages of gore, gunplay, and graveyards proved a shrewd move.

The resulting stylistic distance MacNeil put between his interpretation of Restoration London and the aesthetic of Defoe's founding artist - shifting the visual concerns of the series from etched forensic detail to fog filtered, moonlit atmospherics - made it feel like a new strip.

14 parts for such a slight story was an indulgence on Mills' part - it could have done with a B story (expanding on Mungo's experiments with 17th century Tinder?) - but I can't think of another writer who can turn zombie carnage into a pop at Dan Brown, EL James, and The People's Friend.

Young Daniel Defoe's statement of purpose felt like an unusually personal touch by Mills. I don't share his conviction that Her Majesty's a lizard, but if sticking it to The Man is what keeps Sun-Pat from devoting himself entirely to washing down paella, egg & chips with warm Guinness, fair enough.


* ... born in Fort William in the year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty eight, and he cannot die

**  the long, tortuous process of finding an artist who could juggle the strip's competing demands of action and horror suggests Tharg thought so too. It's a rare skill set.

Magnetica

Bit of a weak Prog this week IMO, the first in a while.

It's always great to have Ben Willsher on Dredd art duties. So it's a shame the script is so poor. Random stuff happening followed by (as has already been said) a non-sequitur ending does not amount to an actual story.

Now I have enjoyed this run of Defoe but it just seems to have petered out,without much of a point. At least it's not a to be continued in book 2 type ending.

Brink continues to be the best thing since, oh I don't know, Night of the shoggy Beast, Nemesis Book 1 or Zenith Phase 1 or some such.

Hunted - yeah what ever. Can't we just have Jaegir instead please?

Grey Area- can't make my mind up about this week's episode. I feel I should say it is a nice observed piece on the human condition. On the other hand, this series feels like it is in a bit of a relative slump compared to previous ones.

Jacqusie

Quote from: Magnetica on 12 July, 2017, 10:58:41 PM


Hunted - yeah what ever. Can't we just have Jaegir instead please?




Quite, I didn't think there would be a second series of this and I'm not a fan of the artwork, it just doesn't seem to suit Rogue and his universe.

Prog 1950 does indeed seem a long wayawayway...

norton canes

Cover: Holy shiatsu, INJ knocks it out of the park, scores a home run, smashes an unstoppable ace, plants it right between the posts, takes the tape, double top, thunders home in a bunched sprint, sinks an impossible black... help, I'm running out of sporting metaphors... basically it's bloody good.

Dredd: It's all downhill from a great couple of opening panels, unfortunately. Way too convoluted for a one-parter, and too much in thrall to Wagner's inimitable sick humour. If you can't spoof it right, don't spoof it at all! Always nice to see the Willsher droid but even he fumbles the ball (hits a hurdle, lofts an easy catch etc.) when it doesn't even really look like the clone at the end actually explodes. And the explosion completely obliterates the two perps, while the judges escape by basically lying down? Hmm.

Brink: Oh, well played Mr Abnett - kidding us along for the last few episodes that this was nothing more than a few corporate crooks on the make. Welcome back, creepy sh*t. Is it the last instalment next week? If so this might be one chapter I'm happy to see end with a cliffhanger.

But wait, just one thing - how does Kurtis manage to dispel her hallucination (or is it actually a giant space monster?) with a simple 'Go away'? Is it something that was set up in the first book? Basically, can anyone give me a non-spoilery summary of things I'd need to know from the first chapter to understand this one? Cheers!

Defoe: It's had it's shortcomings but you'd need a heart of stone not to appreciate this final instalment. That 'I'll make it' panel was genuinely heartwarming, and I loved the line about the government not being able to restrict people's imaginations

Grey Area: Genuis. Proper read it and weep, shades-of-Alan-Moore genius.

Hunted: Yes, a little more coherent this week. The first episode of this run I've actually read with gathering interest. A little promise at last. 


It's ironic that given all the comments in the 'Is it me or the prog...' over the last few days, this week's prog is a big improvement. And it's a shame that the Dredd strip is the only one that really lets it down. That's the way it goes though, huh!

Dandontdare

Quote from: norton canes on 13 July, 2017, 10:02:07 AMBrink: Oh, well played Mr Abnett - kidding us along for the last few episodes that this was nothing more than a few corporate crooks on the make. Welcome back, creepy sh*t. Is it the last instalment next week? If so this might be one chapter I'm happy to see end with a cliffhanger.

But wait, just one thing - how does Kurtis manage to dispel her hallucination (or is it actually a giant space monster?) with a simple 'Go away'? Is it something that was set up in the first book? Basically, can anyone give me a non-spoilery summary of things I'd need to know from the first chapter to understand this one? Cheers!

I'd have to re-read the first book, but has it been definitely established that [spoiler]the tenatcley space gods really exist? What is constantly referenced is that the surviving population of Earth, cramped on these huge habitats, are agorophobic, swimming in a cocktail of psychoactive drugs and teetering on the edge of batshit crazy. These cults and their squidly monster overlords could be just mass psychosis - just as the weird geometry of the new habitat was designed to send people over the edge, reciting subliminal trigger phrases that have permeated the habitats in graffiti and guild rituals makes you see cephalopod deities. Kurtis is almost unique in avoiding 'nudge' and has a better handle on what's going on than most, so she's got the mental chops to resist.

Or maybe there really are ancient cosmic space gods[/spoiler]