Prog 2037 - Unexpected Item in the Fragging Area

[Magnetica]

Cover - Grey Area.

Dredd - really nice idea but it seems to head off in a less interesting direction on the last page, which is a bit of a shame.

Brink - if you are liking this then it's good, if you're in the camp who feel it has gone off the boil, this won't change your mind. Me - I like it.

Defoe - bit of politics as ever, but there is also some action.

Grey Area - this is a strip I generally like and it is by one of my favourite writers. But I didn't really like this episode. Mr Kwukwalf was all a bit Jabba and I didn't like the way they had him speaking.

Hunted - I am rapidly losing interest.

And the is a letters page- hurrah!

[Magnetica]

Doh - it should be 2037 not 2038!

Moderator can you please change.

That'll teach me to do it from my phone!

[moly]

Enjoyed almost everything in this weeks prog but Defoe is just plodding and political maybe mills should get a job with the mirror

[Eamonn Clarke]

Mark Harrison

[wedgeski]

Loved the Dredd concept, but I agree that the last panel veered off in a weirdly unexpected direction. Some great imagery in that strip.

Brink is my favourite strip in the prog for a long time. I'm going there before Dredd, and that's almost unprecedented. Super clean and stylish art, and great dialog.

Grey Area is a pro piece of work. It has grown on me immensely since I first encountered it. I only wish the character art popped from the page a bit more.

Hunted is...fine. I'm in.

Dafoe...nah. It never really got me.

[staticgirl]

One thing I really loved about Grey Area this week is that there was a totally unconnected little story happening on the right hand side of the panels with the business-alien. I think there was an alien which did something weird (bloodsucking?) to a drunk alien and then it looks up and sees a lady-alien and they fall in love. It was rather sweet.

[Colin YNWA]

Late Prog this week, but worht the wait, a far from perfect Prog but when it was good it was good.

I really enjoyed that Dredd and defo get comments that it seemed to go in a different direction in the final pge but I really enjoyed that. The main story about innosense was a nice little teaser but I enjoyed the idea that was a carriage to take us to a different story. Really looking forward to seeing how this all ties together next week (I'm assuming two parter as for some reason this has go two parter written all over it... just watch me be wrong.)

Defoe was there again, I saw it... that's about all the impact it had. Brink on the other hand was back to its blinding best. After a couple of weeks of the plot being at the forefront it slipped back to glorious character exchanges... of yeah all why our heroes are forced into an escape of amazing daring do. A perfectly balanced and executed tale.

Grey Area is a fantastic little story BUT I have two main issues. Firstly as I've said before I don't get on with Mark Harrison's storytelling, his style seems superfically great but it also seems to obscure what's going on and again I really struggled at times this week. Secondly the return to far more grounded stories feels really at odds with what had happened with the epic Godhead arch. I liked it at first and still do, just feels a little hollow after what had gone before. Sure I'll settle back into the groove. Strangely (and no comments before you start please) it makes me really miss Sinister Dexter which seems to be a much better vehicle for these different story types.Don't get me wrong I do really like Grey Area just wish we'd see Dabnett putting his current blinding form to S&D.

Hunted feels a little uncoordinated. It may well be just my readin but its flapping around wildly and not in a good way. I suspect if I took the time to go back its coalesce much better... might just try that.

[sheridan]

One thing I really loved about Grey Area this week is that there was a totally unconnected little story happening on the right hand side of the panels with the business-alien. I think there was an alien which did something weird (bloodsucking?) to a drunk alien and then it looks up and sees a lady-alien and they fall in love. It was rather sweet.

Ahhh, takes me back to Travellers...

[Frank]

I HAM BIGNESSMAN, WANNA BI-SUM?

Noo karrter; bid like Jabba Dhutt or Nipponphobic aliens fom  Phannum Mennis, bud verr gud. Verr funn. Lide Brennan Mick Arfy Artoon karrter brod ud ov korna angiven semtral roll, radda dan singa zpeech  bubba hof non-zekwitta, transliteral dyalogg.

I reeda lowd im voyz like kroz bween  kamp Borat and raciss Ting Tong karrter fom  Liddu Bridden. I laff verr much - nod redda lowd like dadd zinse hilarry-uz Play It Again, Sam eppyzodes of Robohunna orda diztinktive zpeech paddens ov da Joizey goylz inna Cobweb story by Melinda Gebbie and Arun Moo.

Funk karrter nod kumlong verr ovven. Shame norra zee Missa Kwukwalf aggen. Wanna buy.

[Smith]

As I keep saying,I cant wait for the next jumping-on-point.

[Frank]

Congratulations to Rory McConville for a confident and assured Dredd debut. The seamless storytelling, in particular, puts many more experienced droids to shame.

INNOSENSE is a clever idea explored in a fun and inventive way. Judge Chinbeard* going Morrissey on a perp with gladiolas, the inane grins on the faces of the mourners, the ginger girl's emotitcons, and plush toy Dredd quickly won me over.

I'm not sure why the unnamed protagonist can't just have his implants replaced, rather than paying Doc Marmalade for a texorcism (neat calling card), but details like the party hat maintaining continuity of action between panels and the Chekoving of the kid's other birthday gift mean I'm confident the author will wrap things up with all the eyes dotted and the tees crossed.

Alt-dimension/enemies that aren't real** is my least favourite Dredd story variant, and I'm not sure Parental Guidance passes Mike Carroll's could-this-ONLY-be-a-Dredd-story test. Then again, I don't share Carroll's conviction that's a valid concern - Wagner's procedurals, like Serial Serial, for example, don't meet that criterion.

It seems like next week's episode will feature the vengeful return of all the crazy frogs, flying toasters, and techno Vikings we forgot to remember as we discarded devices and platforms, which - along with this week's INNOSENSE - suggests the story is two Future Shock ideas bolted together. They're good ideas***, though, and two ideas is two more ideas than Sons Of Booth packed into three episodes.


* Last seen in Tom Carney's Question Of Sport (1011)

** Twister (588), Grud's Big Day (Meg 3.49), In The Year 2020, and even City Of The Damned

*** Pity about the name though, Rory. The Technosphere sounds like one of those dial-up terms for the internet that never caught on, like the information superhighway or the worldwide web. The Matrix sounds more au courant

[norton canes]

Cover: Very good, like the composition - the triangle of characters framed by the scaffold-like body of the robot and the blood-covered blades

Dredd: Great idea for a story - I can image something like INNOSENSE being around way before 20139, if perhaps via glasses/artificial lenses rather than implants. Bonus point for the emoji-obscured breasts.

Brink: I love that even a crisis situation where three characters are about to be ejected into space is treated as languidly as the rest of the strip. By the way, does anyone know how many stories there are in this chapter? Not that I'm wishing a swift conclusion - the more the better

Defoe: Hmm... you know, I'm not sure that a strip which is chiefly concerned with reanimated corpses is really the best vehicle for an arc satirising the publishing business. I'm not sure the two aspects really dovetail at all, in fact.

Grey Area: Well. Mr Kwukwalf's phonetic speech. Where do we stand on that? An amusing whimsy, or a bit too much 'where am dat warty melon'? I'm leaning towards the latter.

Hunted: I feel about this the same way I felt about the strips from old British comics that used to pad out the 2000 AD Annuals. The one about the WWII patrol that had the time-travel gadget for instance. It was there, I'd give it a cursory read-through, and wonder why they didn't just write more Strontium Dog stories or something.

[sheridan]

Defoe: Hmm... you know, I'm not sure that a strip which is chiefly concerned with reanimated corpses is really the best vehicle for an arc satirising the publishing business. I'm not sure the two aspects really dovetail at all, in fact.

Dragging things that should have been left back in to the light, to foul up the atmosphere with out-dated thoughts?  Not like publishing at all

Hunted: I feel about this the same way I felt about the strips from old British comics that used to pad out the 2000 AD Annuals. The one about the WWII patrol that had the time-travel gadget for instance.

The Phantom Patrol, originally published in Swift in 1954</geek>.

[Frank]

Grey Area: Well. Mr Kwukwalf's phonetic speech. Where do we stand on that? An amusing whimsy, or a bit too much 'where am dat warty melon'? I'm leaning towards the latter.

It's racist*. Racist against Kwukwalfs.


Kwukwalf's my favourite character creation since Enormo Overdrive, and the mannerisms of his speech are the most hilarious since Ichabod's horse.

His crestfallen reaction when he realised ETC could read the product specifications was priceless, and his irrepressible faith in both the appeal of his rotten murshandeyes and his abilities as a bignessman remind me of Otto Sump.


* For something to be racially offensive, we'd have to agree which specific minority was being offended. Kwukwalf's VAZ, HAM and MURSHANDEYES don't sound like any patois I recognise.

[von Boom]

I agree that this Dredd story is very enjoyable. Grey Area has become one of the ones I most look forward to. What can you say about Brink? This needs to be turned into a film immediately.