Prog 2050 - Epic Thrills!

[Colin YNWA]

The Prog 2000 (v. 2.0) story where they reacquire the Edsel suggested that Billi might actually have had some memory of them, implying that they are in their home universe, but there is more going on than meets the eye.

Yeah I think that panel of Billi clearly having a moment was telling. My current reading is that they are in an altered version of their original universe. The Dimensional Ninja chaps said the multi-verse was breaking up cos of all this inter-reality pollution. Finny and Ray get rid of all that over the course of a few stories and when they finish off with The Mover 'POP' reality fixed... BUT the stabilised reality has plasters over the wounds and some things have changed and one of those is folks not remembering the boys.

Boom jobs a good 'un no more folks fretting over the over ... complex continuity... in Sinister... er... Dext.... whoops!

[Fungus]

Hm, most disappointing prog in a long while. Perhaps the hype/length exacerbates this. I don't get along with Smith's impenetrability or Deadworld's painted zombie chic, and best thing in the prog recently - Grey Area - was slight, setup more than anything. Rogue Trooper was old news, felt like a pitch for a series or - even worse - a video game. Hope 2051 kicks into gear.

Having a serious wobble...

[Frank]

I don't get along with Smith's impenetrability

Prog 2050, A Dying Art part one, John Smith and Lee Carter

The psychic shock from last series' reality altering event (see below) has sent Indigo Prime's psi-sensitive agents into comas.

On a tropical beach, a team tasked with recovering such agents find what appears to be the unconscious form of Jerry Foundation, one of the earliest IP agents.

For reasons yet to be explained, the only psi-sensitive agents unaffected are Burroughs, Dak, and Crippen, who are charged with recovering the broken minds of their colleagues.


Jerry Foundation first appeared in prog 490's A Change Of Scenery, where he introduced himself as Harry Foundation (and his partner as Jerry Basalt).

The reality altering shock that caused agents to fall into comas was The Christhulhu Event, when a former affiliate of the Atheist Terror League conspired with Indigo Prime Director Major Arcana to replace Jesus at the moment of crucifixion with a simulacrum, which transformed into Cthulhu, changing history so humanity worship the Lovecraft deity, rather than gentle Jesus.

Agent Unthur Dak was present at the Cthulhu Event, but says he doesn't remember the details of what happened, such as the involvement of Major Arkana. Figuring Unthur with Cthulhu's hand on his shoulder as he says this may indicate that he is under the control of those who engineered the event, or maybe just that the same actors who engineered the event (selectively) wiped his memory.

We're introduced to Burroughs in what seems like an imagined scene or dream state, where a shotgun is aimed at his head and he apologises to the dead wife of the real William Burroughs, who diedcat the hands of her spouse when a William Tell stunt involving a hand gun and grade A narcotics went predictably wrong.

The red stain on the climbing plant behind Burroughs as we transition to the garden could be understood as brain splatter or an allusion to Burroughs' shotgun paintings, where canvases were decorated using a mixture of paint tins and ballistic weaponry.

Why Burroughs appears unaffected by the shock wave that floored his colleagues remains unclear, but the reincorporated author previously suggested his experience of psychic trauma and weirdness allowed him to withstand the shock ("I wrote the book. Several of them")

Whether Burroughs, Dak and Crippen are immune to this shock because of interference by a third party, so they can serve their purposes, is something we will never know. Neither will we discover how the Nihilist - the shadowy figure seen 'haunting' the corridors of Indigo Prime's base on page 5 - fits into this, whether this is the real Jerry Foundation (and why his name changed), or what the Atheist Terror League planned to do with the map of Indigo Prime's operations they stole last series.

Only John Smith knows the answers to these questions, and he's no longer telling.

[Richard]

Blimey Frank! Tharg should have asked you to write the new series!

[Dark Jimbo]

Whether Burroughs, Dak and Crippen are immune to this shock because of interference by a third party, so they can serve their purposes, is something we will never know. Neither will we discover how the Nihilist - the shadowy figure seen 'haunting' the corridors of Indigo Prime's base on page 5 - fits into this, whether this is the real Jerry Foundation (and why his name changed), or what the Atheist Terror League planned to do with the map of Indigo Prime's operations they stole last series.

Only John Smith knows the answers to these questions, and he's no longer telling.]

Why do you keep talking in these grand absolutes? Yes, we will find out. As soon as it appears in the prog, that will be what/why/when. It may not be the what/why/when that John Smith had intended, granted, but it will immediately be the only what/why/when for the characters and series. Sad to say, but that's how work-for-hire works.

And do you know, or are you only assuming, that John Smith has not at some point mentioned to Tharg or Kek-W some of the plans he had for the series...?

[Frank]

Only John Smith knows the answers to these questions, and he's no longer telling.

It may not be (what) John Smith had intended ...

I'd never promote the intentional fallacy, Jimbo.

I'm not mourning the loss of what Smith had planned; I'm just bummed I'll never get to read whatever brilliant nonsense Smith eventually came up with.*


* ... after four years of prevarication, and probably typed up a few hours before the script deadline expired.

I don't know John Smith any better than we know each other, but the little I can glean from interviews and comments on social media leads me to doubt he's like Alan Moore, and has rolls of butcher paper on top of the wardrobe with the next ten years of Indigo Prime and Devlin Waugh stories mapped out in spidery handwriting.

My real interest in John Smith's writing lies in the glossaries of improvised technical terms and gazetteers of single use place names. My enjoyment of the stories stems from the multi-car pileup of super-condensed ideas and hyphenated (German) proper nouns, of seeing the author's personality and interests spontaneously express themselves through the work, as he writes himself out of a corner.

I'm not much interested in Indigo Prime as a concept, or invested emotionally in the cast as characters.The reason I'm not much fussed about reading any other writer's take on this story (or the strip in general) is that my primary interest in Indigo Prime is as an expression of John Smith's imagination and idiosyncrasies.

I won't be trashing Nigel Long's work or berating Tharg on an ongoing basis, but I will have next to no interest in how the strip progresses. Except for Lee Carter's luscious, masterful, and constantly improving artwork, which might be reason enough in itself to continue the strip.

Finally, I would like to apologise to the concept of work for hire fiction. If I have caused any personal offence to this fine and honourable working practice (its loved ones, friends and family), I am deeply sorry..

[TordelBack]

Gotta agree with Frank on this: Kek-W is one of the droids whose work I most eagerly anticipate, rating The Order and Deadworld as two of my favourite 2000AD strips of all time.  However, my equally strongly grá for Indigo Prime isn't because it has a cast of compelling characters whose adventures I long to share: I  read it because I love John Smith's utterly distinctive writing, and always have (even when it makes feck all sense): and IP is the Smiffiest of all Smith strips. 

In The Order, Nigel already has a strip that can do pretty much everything in story terms that the Indigo Prime concept can, eclectic weirdoes from time and space protecting a contested and maleable reality.  I'd rather see a Smith-less IP retired and Kek-W put his very considerable talent into other projects.  This isn't a general statement on creator-penned strips, this is a specific observation on my enjoyment of Smith's unique voice.

[Richard]

I agree with Frank and Tordelback here. After this current series, I don't need to see Indigo Prome again without John Smith. However, the last series of Indigo Prime ended on a cliffhanger, and it would have been annoying to just leave it there. I prefer the approach that Tharg has taken, so that we see a resolution to that storyline -- which is a brilliant one -- even if it's written by someone else.

And while this technically isn't the right thread to say so, I think Kek-W has done a sterling job of impersonating John Smith in episode 3.

[Grant Goggans]

I'll be the odd one out then.

I'd prefer that Smith be Indigo Prime's writer, but I'd also prefer that Indigo Prime have the permanent second slot next to Dredd, with fifty episodes a year.  I have lots of impractical preferences.

I love the way that Smith crafted IP's return, with almost all the characters we knew from the 1990s either ignored or moved to the background.  So I was very pleased to see Harry/Jerry Foundation come back.

I hate the bad feeling that I have about this.  It feels badly like when Ian Gibson gave up on Robo-Hunter, so Tharg called Anthony Williams to draw the last fifteen pages.

I want to ignore that feeling.  I want Indigo Prime back, for good, regularly.  It may be selfish of me, but I don't really care any longer.  As I mentioned here once before, my life's not a really happy one these days, and I take my pleasure where I can because I have very little of it.

If "A Dying Art" is 12 pages of Smith and 48 of Kek-W, *I'll take it* because I adore Indigo Prime.  I did become emotionally invested in the concept, somehow, which doesn't make a lot of sense considering how emotionally cold and distant this concept is.  I think it's one of the most wonderful concepts in comics, and I hope Kek-W gets to carry it on for years and years to come.

I hope he introduces all sorts of new characters and worlds, and reintroduces classic characters like Almaranda, Fervent, and Lobe when the time's right.  I hope he writes a whole pile of one-shots and two-parters to develop his concepts like I contend we should have seen over the last six years, dropped in like Future Shocks or in the year-end progs.

I hope John Smith is well, retired on some beach somewhere, healthy and wealthy and wonderful.

But I don't know John Smith, and the weird magic of his creation has seen me through some really tough times.  I love Indigo Prime, irrationally, and hope it continues forever.  Knock us dead, Kek-W.

[TordelBack]

As usual Goggans puts us all to shame. I hope you get your wish(es), sir.

[Dark Jimbo]

Yup. Adore it. Sure I would prefer John Smith to be writing it - no question - but I'd rather have Indigo Prime written by somebody else than no more Indigo Prime ever, I'm afraid.

[Frank]

I'd rather the strip end than see its creator treated poorly. I don't know that Smith is being dealt an injustice, but the number of scenarios where that's not the case is quite small.*

Even if Smith is at fault, ending the strip seems like the classy course of action.


* When I try to think of the most positive scenario possible, it's that Carter only had a small window in an otherwise tight schedule to work on the strip, and Smith couldn't submit the script in time. Were that the case, it's difficult to see why Tharg wouldn't gather everyone in the Thrillcast booth to explain they're all still pals and Smith will be back on duty after this Very Special Episode. And it wouldn't explain McConville's Devlin Waugh.

Difficult to believe Matt Smith would treat his own brother this way.

[Grant Goggans]

The best possible outcome, of course, is that John Smith is very busy with other projects / work / retirement in Tahiti / advising Mycroft Holmes / spending the fortunes of a long-lost rich relative, and has no time for comics.

Or no interest.  Nobody ever said that a script droid would be obliged to work in this business indefinitely churning out scripts for our entertainment.

Without a statement, it's easy to assume a creative type having a Gibson/McKenzie/G. Morrison disagreement with editorial (because it's happened so often), but it's not necessary.  Until we hear otherwise, I choose to believe that Smith has passed the baton and is busy doing something else.

[Frank]

Without a statement, it's easy to assume a creative type having a Gibson/McKenzie/G. Morrison disagreement with editorial (because it's happened so often), but it's not necessary.  Until we hear otherwise, I choose to believe that Smith has passed the baton

Smith said he gave Long his blessing at the 40th anniversary party*. As you say, it's odd not to have heard the official line on such a significant move.

The background to this - as much as we know, anyway - is that Smith posted on social media in February, saying he was writing the third episode of A Dying Art**, after a two year hiatus.

Smith said Carter had already completed the two episodes we've just read. Carter getting paid for the incredible work he's done, and not losing him as artist, are the only compelling reasons I can see for the decisions taken.

And they don't explain the simultaneous appearance of Rory McConville's Devlin Waugh. ***


* He also said he was looking forward to experiencing the strip as a reader, but - understandably - also hopes it turns out awful without him. He's also said he hopes not to go 'all Alan Moore' about it.

** Smith described the Psychosphere episodes he had in mind as a haunted house story set in the seventies, the house in question being London's Dolphin Square.

*** Smith said he was also keen to write more Waugh, celebrating the strip's 25th anniversary by killing the character off.

[sheridan]

The psychic shock from last series' reality altering event (see below) has sent Indigo Prime's psi-sensitive agents into comas.

I would do, but the writing's too small and I can't be bothered to copy and paste it into a text editor to read.  Was it a recap of the ChristCthulhu story?