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Prog 2108 - Germ Warfare

Started by Magnetica, 17 November, 2018, 01:42:40 PM

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TordelBack

Quote from: Jacqusie on 23 November, 2018, 11:18:44 PM
The current story is the essence of Dredd for me and Williams is the writer completely on the top of his game.

Williams on top of his game I agree, but not that this is the essence of Dredd?  Sneaking around the service ducts of the Grand Hall* wearing 3D specs hunting a small tea-drinking spymaster? I would have thought that the story's biggest selling point - and indeed that of Titan - is that this was a rather different Dredd than we're used to.



*Although I suppose he did something very similar in Day the Law Died, Apocalypse War, Necropolis, Inferno and Every Empire Falls, so maybe it is...

maryanddavid

Brink is just fantastic, best thing in the prog in years.
Humour is always welcome and Parrs is a revelation. Kingdom ticks along nicely and even Tracer was decent, but happy enough not to see it again.
Dredd, not getting they hype, probably a bit my problem rather than the creators as I can't see past the man in the room for decades. Still, an enjoyable tale, and Flint, 'Nuff said!

moly

Maybe it's time for dredd to become chief judge

BPP

He could lead the northern zones on a campaign to return to frago's Vision. Free from Grand Hall of Justice tyranny.

Dreddxit if you will.
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/FutureShockd

Tiplodocus

Pye Parr's art on INFESTINAUTS was fantastic but I think my favourite bit of Arthur's tale was the World building and plot points that made it logical to end the tale on a giant picture of an arse.

I really like the DREDD tale too but my first reservation crept in this issue when I realised that an iconic Flint image (DREDD lawgiver pointing out of frame at me) was let down by the 3D ninja vision glasses on the helmet. Which I think is a nice metaphor for why some people don't like this tale as much as others.

Really loving this run of stories at the moment. Thanks Tharg.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

TordelBack

Quote from: BPP on 24 November, 2018, 08:45:24 AM
He could lead the northern zones on a campaign to return to frago's Vision. Free from Grand Hall of Justice tyranny.

Dreddxit if you will.

Genius. Who won the Bongo War anyway?

Frank

Quote from: Tiplodocus on 24 November, 2018, 09:13:41 AM
I really like the DREDD tale too but my first reservation crept in this issue when I realised that an iconic Flint image (DREDD lawgiver pointing out of frame at me) was let down by the 3D ninja vision glasses on the helmet. Which I think is a nice metaphor for why some people don't like this tale as much as others.

That's very perceptive.  Everyone agrees The Small House is fantastically well-written and drawn, but Smiley and the Trifecta ninjas are such silly ideas they undermine everything else. It's like hiring David Fincher to direct your Power Rangers movie.

I'm going to be dull and agree with everyone else; Infestinauts, particularly Pye Parr's art, has been the best thing in the comic for the last three weeks. Great fun, packed with ideas, and the vivid colour made some repulsive things a gorgeous treat for the eyes.

Welcome back anytime.



JamesC

I hope Hershey doesn't leave soon. There's too much potential in her character - someone just needs to use it.
I'd really like Hershey to save the day. To rescue Dredd, put an end to Smiley and ideally to be exonerated from any wrong-doing or negligence (maybe she had some quiet long-game investigation into Smiley already underway or something).
Dredd's been on too long a leash and it would be great to see Hershey saving him and then disciplining him. I'd love to see a really frank conversation between them that cuts out all the Dredd as living legend status politics and makes clear that Hershey is chief, she's capable and Dredd should do as he's fucking told.

Frank

Quote from: JamesC on 24 November, 2018, 09:48:26 AM
I hope Hershey doesn't leave soon. There's too much potential in her character - someone just needs to use it.
I'd really like Hershey to save the day. To rescue Dredd, put an end to Smiley and ideally to be exonerated from any wrong-doing or negligence (maybe she had some quiet long-game investigation into Smiley already underway or something).
Dredd's been on too long a leash and it would be great to see Hershey saving him and then disciplining him. I'd love to see a really frank conversation between them that cuts out all the Dredd as living legend status politics and makes clear that Hershey is chief, she's capable and Dredd should do as he's fucking told.

While Dredd was parked in plot-convenience limbo, Hershey let Texas City depose her and take over MC1, murdering and persecuting innocent citizens as they did so*.

And then there's Titan/Enceladus, Cascade/Sector Zero/Section 7** - all of which saw Hershey make either the wrong call or stand by impassively as shit happened.

Without anyone really trying, without there being some sort of plan, the various writers contributing to Dredd have (cumulatively) made Hershey an inept, Theresa May-like figure, stumbling from one mishandled catastrophe to the next.

Which is at odds with the Trifecta characterisation of Hershey, righteously putting Dredd in his place.


* Whereas McGruder resigned because she considered herself to have mishandled negotiations with god-like supernatural entities.  All CJs face tragedies, all CJs need Dredd to bail them out. The difference is that Hershey's the author of her own misfortunes.

** Wagner figured Hershey's handling of Erika Easterhouse, Max Blixen and Sector 7 as 'a rare mistake', but they're really not so rare

JamesC

Somehow I still see Hershey as a pretty capable Judge but that may just be a consequence of the strip having very little continuity or consistency between different writer's stories. They ignore each other's work so I've ignored the bits that don't ring true to me.

Frank

Quote from: JamesC on 24 November, 2018, 10:34:59 AM
Somehow I still see Hershey as a pretty capable Judge but that may just be a consequence of the strip having very little continuity or consistency between different writer's stories. They ignore each other's work so I've ignored the bits that don't ring true to me.

Wagner regularly had Dredd say she's the best Chief the city's ever had. And his Hershey respects Dredd, even when she's going against his stated wishes regarding the new Mechanismo programme.



TordelBack

Wow, just look at how exciting McCrea makes a simple talking-heads argument look in Frank's link!  Great use of space and position to emphasise conflict. Terrific artist.

I've been pondering parallels between Hershey and McGruder lately - both parachuted in after a terrible disaster because there was no-one else left (twice in McGruder's case), both serving two separate terms, both losing the plot and coming into conflict with Dredd in the second one, both increasingly embroiled in secret plots and crazy innovations to maintain control.

The hair-chin moment in Small House makes parallels explicit, but there's also the matter of the dune shark - a symbol of the world Judges supposedly exist to protect citizens from, but who introduced dune sharks to the Cursed Earth in the first place?

Frank


Great observations. McCrea's come a long way since Dougie & Ivor





BPP

The Small House and Brink are so good I'm not looking at that prog 2019 thread till my sub arrives.

#nerveshredding.
If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/FutureShockd

BPP

If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself.

http://futureshockd.wordpress.com/

http://twitter.com/#!/FutureShockd