Forthcoming Thrills!

[Frank]

Tainted is a zombie virus strip. When Long took a crack at the DJs themselves (the four part Dreams of Deadworld) the results weren't great.

Disagree, Dreams was fantastic!  ... Kek-W picked up Wagner's ball and made a more interesting game with it, populating the gaps between the low-key comedy of Sidney's rise and the horrifying excess of Bolland's Deadworld with his own grotesques and nightmares.

I enjoy lots about Dreams, but it's 50/50. I thought the hilarious perversity of Mortis's offal factory was breaking new and interesting ground, but it mostly fell back on the bathetic contrast between how Hieronymus they look and their comically banal patter.

There's nothing wrong with that, but it's the same approach Wagner has adopted for the last 25 years (including Dark Justice), which absolutely everyone here agrees has run its course.

Obviously Dave Kendall's art is fantastic throughout and Tainted was unanimously hailed* as the best thing in the comic during its run. That doesn't really change the fact that it's about the Dark Judges in the same way America is a Judge Dredd story.


* Proudhuff doesn't count

[TordelBack]

While I  grant you that the core gag stays the same, I think Kek-W does more with the DJs in Dreams than you give him credit for - he gives them individual characters for a start, and suggests a link between their own fears and the nature of their powers... as well as (with Kendall, obviously) giving the whole Deadworld setup a Dancers at the End of Time aspect that it was lacking. For the first time I got a sense of a global-scale nightmare, and what it really meant to preside over the end of all life.  And from a purely personal perspective, he made me interested again in villains that I was wholely bored with.

[Frank]

Kek-W ... gives them individual characters ... and suggests a link between their own fears and the nature of their powers

That's certainly the case with Fear*, but I'm not sure that's true of the others.

You could read Shaun Skullface offering his guests homemade wine as gauche Abigail's Party social anxiety that would leave him mortified, but only the screenwriter of Edward Scissorhands would think Zippo literally burning with desire was subtle stuff.

Dreams was great as a series of outside continuity Annual stories, but I'm not sure it answered the question of whether there was anywhere new for those characters to go in the larger continuing narrative.


* I thought that was a really clever idea in what was otherwise the weakest of the four strips

[Max Headroom]

Anyone know if or when Fink Angel: Legacy will be released?

[Hawkmumbler]

Anyone know if or when Fink Angel: Legacy will be released?

Came out yesterday, chap! Saw a copy in my local Travelling Man as well.

[Mute77]

Didn't realise Fink Angel had been released-Amazon has it scheduled for a December release. Haven't read much of this so it's going on the to buy list.

[Max Headroom]

This is good news. Just a shame Forbidden Planet mail order (where I get most of my products) don't seem to list it.

[Eamonn Clarke]

The updated Thrill-power Overload is up on Amazon.
Thrill-Power Overload: Forty Years of 2000 Ad: Revised, Updated and Expanded! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1781085226/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_iJJbybTVAPTJ4

Hopefully Tharg will have a bookplate edition for us.

[Spikes]

The updated Thrill-power Overload is up on Amazon.
Thrill-Power Overload: Forty Years of 2000 Ad: Revised, Updated and Expanded! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1781085226/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_iJJbybTVAPTJ4

Hopefully Tharg will have a bookplate edition for us.

Timed to come out for the 40th bash!
But I do kinda like this being updated and expanded. Whether I'll buy it is another matter. (...and I've just started on the quest to get the 30th version signed by everyone).

I wonder how much new content Is in this edition?

And if we are talking about stuff being updated and expanded, then - as Rebellion now own the rights - a new release for the Action: History of a violent comic, would be greatly appreciated...

[Tony Angelino]

It says 400 pages on Amazon.

My hardback only has about 250 (and a very menacing picture of David Bishop on the dustjacket)

[James Stacey]

I'm sure I'll end up getting it, but if its what's printing in the Meg at the moment its just an uninspiring listing of what thrills ran when. I appreciate since Rebellion came onboard its been a lot more smooth sailing for Tharg and his minions but it does seem to lack a lot of the interest from them early years.

[Spikes]

It says 400 pages on Amazon.

Well, if that page count turns out to be true, then that'll be something else.

TPO is impressive enough at the original page count. Nearly double that, and you could knock a wall down with it...

The original TPO stops about around(-ish) Prog 1500, so everything that has happened since then will be tackled??

[Tjm86]

I guess we'd have to assume that's the case.  How much new information has come to light since it was originally published?  As Mr Stacey says, the Meg is currently printing material that doesn't seem to heavy at present.  I've only skimmed a few bits since I'm saving myself for the full release (sorry, really didn't think that sentence through properly, did I?)  That said, my original hardback is showing signs of wear in the binding so a replacement is not the worst idea on the face of the planet.

[Frank]

I'm sure I'll end up getting it, but if its what's printing in the Meg at the moment its just an uninspiring listing of what thrills ran when. I appreciate since Rebellion came onboard its been a lot more smooth sailing for Tharg and his minions but it does seem to lack a lot of the interest from them early years.

Less potential for drama when the same two people put the comic together for the last decade and a half. Maybe we'll find out Pye Parr always put too much milk in Matt Smith's tea when it was his turn to brew up.

Plus, most of the creators from the period covered still work for Tharg. If Alan McKenzie was still in the Command Module at the time Bishop wrote Thrillpower Overload, we'd never have heard the half of what went on.

[Rogue Judge]

This is probably irrelevant to most of you (in the UK), but does anyone know when Rogue Trooper: Tales of Nu-Earth v. 3 US edition will be released in North America? Tharg had responded to my inquiry this last January saying it would come out this December, but I don't see it listed anywhere.

I may have to just buy the UK editions for vol 3 and 4 if they are not being released in US volumes. (I have already switched to buying the UK case files as they are way ahead and have better trade dress)