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Prog 2094 - The Order Meet The Edge - Walker

Started by Tjm86, 11 August, 2018, 03:13:27 PM

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Tjm86

I'm not a massive fan of Armoured Gideon but the cover does do the character justice.  I think though that some of the comments about the prog being a bit of a mixed bag might be applicable again.  Dredd finishes off nicely and McConville has produced a serviceable script for Manco's artwork.

I'm in the 'not really feeling the current series of the Order' camp.  Burns' artwork is as sumptuous as ever but I'm not really sure what the hell is going on here.  Perhaps I need to go back and give it a re-read.  The 3rillers is another tale that has left me cold.  A cliched turn hasn't helped matters.  Maybe the final denouement will help change my mind.

Mechastopheles is another strip I'm hoping will shape up into something more than it is at the moment.  Richardson's artwork continues to serve well and there are some interesting ideas.  It's a bit exposition heavy but not OTT.

Grey Area shows Harrison's strengths and there's an interesting colour pallet in play.  The episode is a bit jarring as the story takes a dramatic turn to develop the plot.  Other than commenting that there are one or two elements that could be construed as cliched, it is probably best to say very, very little about events until the prog hits the shops.  All I will say is that for me, this is the other highlight of the prog.


Richard

My favourite thing this week was the last panel of Dredd, which is fantastic.

I also liked Droidlife, which was just silly!

Geoff

Yes, that last panel of Dredd's great! The story rounds off nicely and I hope Manco becomes a regular on Dredd.

The Order based cover image also has real punch, the strip itself is the usual wyrmy piffle.

We'll have to see how the 3riller ends but it does appear to have taken a cliched turn. Mutti's art is nice though, rather Yeowell esque.

Richardson's art would be better used elsewhere than with the big robots I think.

Developments in Grey Area aren't entirely unexpected, although the detail of it is, but it will be interesting to see where he Dabnett takes us with this..         

Proudhuff

The prog's a no show at Huff mansions sur-le -mer. :'(
DDT did a job on me

The Enigmatic Dr X

Lock up your spoons!

Proudhuff

Huzzah! the prog arrives and my eye is constantly drawn to that gap above the L and A in the speech balloon...
At least there are no crossbars!

Dredd nicely wrapped up an a sneak appearance of [spoiler] Terry Gilliam[/spoiler]  :crazy:
Dredd suffering from a lack of gravitas, but apart from that  cracking artwork.

I must admit nothing else in the prog catching my eye, vaguely following stories but nothing with a hook for me.
Glad to see the [spoiler]Bitch is back[/spoiler] but that's all a bit MCU for me.
DDT did a job on me

IndigoPrime

One thing I have noticed with Rory McConville scripts – in 2000 AD and the Meg – is there's a lot of exposition in caption blocks. It feels a bit prose-like at times, and very much tell rather than show. I suspect it's just a style thing, but it's making his Dredds sometimes feel a bit off for me, even though the underlying ideas are solid.

Tjm86

That was the only thing that did the episode in for me.  Visually the final panel was stunning but the text jarred a little.  Hard to put my finger on why ...

Magnetica

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 14 August, 2018, 11:03:15 AM
One thing I have noticed with Rory McConville scripts – in 2000 AD and the Meg – is there's a lot of exposition in caption blocks. It feels a bit prose-like at times, and very much tell rather than show. I suspect it's just a style thing, but it's making his Dredds sometimes feel a bit off for me, even though the underlying ideas are solid.

There is a feature in this month's Megazine about creating Future Shocks. In that Rory McConville says " A lot of my stories use captions to move the story along, because you must keep a story accelerating as much as possible so you use whatever narrative tools you have."

Now I haven't read this week's Prog yet so can't specifically comment on that, but one of his Dredd's a few weeks ago did exactly that, and I thought it just didn't work at all. I don't recall John Wagner, for example, using that technique.

broodblik

Quote from: Magnetica on 14 August, 2018, 09:19:32 PM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 14 August, 2018, 11:03:15 AM
One thing I have noticed with Rory McConville scripts – in 2000 AD and the Meg – is there's a lot of exposition in caption blocks. It feels a bit prose-like at times, and very much tell rather than show. I suspect it's just a style thing, but it's making his Dredds sometimes feel a bit off for me, even though the underlying ideas are solid.

Now I haven't read this week's Prog yet so can't specifically comment on that, but one of his Dredd's a few weeks ago did exactly that, and I thought it just didn't work at all. I don't recall John Wagner, for example, using that technique.

Yes, I also do not like this technique (he also did it in this months Meg #399 for Dredd)

Anyway, the prog was as the previous weeks still very solid.

Grey Area was the surprise for me this week since it felt a little bit off-boil for me. The art of Harrison was the best I seen him done since he started on Grey Area (much better than the messy art especially the aliens). The story takes an interesting twist[spoiler] and the return of certain characters where not a surprise but the way its done was exciting[/spoiler].   

The Order keeps its pace with twists and turns at every corner. This is one ride that waits for nobody (so remember to keep holding on).

Dredd was a good story, good art and the last panel was really fantastic.
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Magnetica on 14 August, 2018, 09:19:32 PMRory McConville says " A lot of my stories use captions to move the story along, because you must keep a story accelerating as much as possible so you use whatever narrative tools you have."
Fair enough. The problem for me is that these big blocks of text do the opposite for pacing, and slow things down. Perhaps it's their sheer volume in some of his Dredd strips. Like I said, it at times feels like you're reading illustrated prose rather than a comic. (Or perhaps it's in part because with Dredd I'm used to terse Wagner caption use.)

Frank

Quote from: broodblik on 15 August, 2018, 05:07:58 AM
Quote from: Magnetica on 14 August, 2018, 09:19:32 PM
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 14 August, 2018, 11:03:15 AM
... there's a lot of exposition in caption blocks. It feels a bit prose-like at times

... I thought it just didn't work at all. I don't recall John Wagner, for example, using that technique.

Yes, I also do not like this technique (he also did it in this months Meg #399 for Dredd)


Wagner-era stories like Revolution, Bloodline, and The Big Sleep made liberal use of captions. I didn't mind the sudden arrival of a third-person omniscient narrator; any problems might result from the way the device was used, rather than the device itself.*



* It's probably the volume of text that struck the wrong note; I agree the captions are overwritten. The sequence of panels on p.2 could have read 1: AS LONG AS HE COULD REMEMBER, HE'D ALWAYS WANTED TO JOIN THE SYNDICATE, 2: HIS TRYOUT ENDED WITH HIM HANGING FROM A FLYOVER BY HIS ANKLES, 3: HE'D NEVER FORGOTTEN THEIR LAUGHTER.

It'd probably help if the presentation was a little cuter. The Big Sleep example above makes a feature of narration by turning the strip into a parody of detective fiction. The PJ Maybe stories either used the diary format to drop in narration or, in the case of Confeshuns, opened with Maybe under interrogation and presented the narration as his testimony.

Although The Big Sleep and Bloodline use third-person omniscient narration, it's presented as indirect access to the thoughts and emotions of the focal character. Only Revolution uses the narration to impart information; even then, it's explicating the action seen in each panel, rather than filling in character backstory.

IndigoPrime

Some brevity/editing would be helpful, although perhaps that's just not the rhythm this writer is going for. I dunno. It just feels a bit off. (And I realise this is turning into a Rory McConville downer on my part, so I should probably state for the record that I mostly like his concepts, and his strips in general. Also, as I've said elsewhere, I'm gobsmacked by how prolific he's become in such a short space of time. That doesn't happen by accident.)

sheridan

In other news... so Frank Weitz now has an ancestor?