...PROG 1526, 30 YEARS OF THRILL POWER.... ...LET THE GALAXY CELEBRATE, ITS HERE AT LAST!!!...

[Mike Carroll]

Just had a quick flick through... Looking good so far, but I REALLY don't like the cover.

I mean, I love Mr Bond's work, but this cover just seems so lacklustre. It's cretainly not going to entice any new readers. Couldn't Tharg have asked Brian Bolland to provide a cover? At least then the Bolland purists would pick it up!

A free Abaddon advert disguised as a book. Joy. Not really the most inspired of gifts, is it? But the badge is nice.

Must set aside some time later to actually read the prog!

-- Mike

[DavidXBrunt]

And this seems to be the week that the long threatened withdrawal of Progs over my card details hits in...only I've given the details three times already. If it doesn't turn up I'm going to be annoyed. And probably whine about it. Ad nauseum.

[IndigoPrime]

I agree with the fish. The Prog this week felt somewhat like one of the annuals of old, with all of the pros and cons that came with them. As for the Abaddon sampler, I've so many now that I'm considering using them to build an extension to our house.

[The Amstor Computer]

Seeing as this seems to be the review thread for the 30th Anniversary prog, I think itâ??ll be OK if I blow off steam in here just the onceâ?¦

Iâ??m very disappointed by both the choice of artist and final cover for this very special prog. Bond is a talented artist whose work Iâ??ve enjoyed over the years, but if I had to draw up a list of the artists I thought it appropriate to approach for a milestone prog like this, his name would have been right at the bottom. His association with the prog is limited to two series of a pretty third-rate Garth Ennis tale from the mid-90s and he is hardly the first artist who springs to mind when asked to list great 2000AD artists, or even artists who you associate with the comic. Adding to the disappointment over choice of artist, the final cover looks like an alternate cover for the Christmas prog rather than a celebration of 30 years of the comic. Iâ??d hate the kind of po-faced landmark issue covers you see in American comics, but for an event like this surely something more memorable than a huge Tharg gurning over a group of generic Bond characters (with the characters themselves reduced to tiny, toy details) was called for?

Itâ??s not going to detract from what Iâ??m sure will be an enjoyable issue - Savage, Rennie & Gibson on Dredd, Dante, Mills & Sola on Fleshâ?¦ great stuff! - but it just feels like a huge missed opportunity.

Right, got that out of my system - rant over :-)

[DavidXBrunt]

It's a worthy point. It DOES seem like a Christmassy cover. For my money it'd have to be one of the current crop of artists for the 30th anniversary cover.

[The Monarch]

Just curious...in ask tharg did they dare have mines on it. Heres a hint its about a certain strip from the past which I keep barking about on this board

[Trout]

David, there are no questions about the Canon, I'm afraid, and I didn't notice your name.

Amstor - that's spot-on. I didn't notice before, but just a snow-capped logo and a different cover line would make that a Christmas cover.

Oh dear. Naughty Tharg!

- Trout

[The Monarch]

curses foiled again!

[The Amstor Computer]

Well, finally got chance to read it & it is a bit of a mixed bag.

The Good:

-- Fantastic opening episodes for both Savage and Dante

-- A great continuation of Rennie & Gibson's Dredd tale

-- The "Great Moments in Thrillpower" illustrations. An idea that deserves to go beyond this week's special prog and make a regular appearance in the comic

-- Droid Life :-)

-- A corny but entertaining history lesson from Tharg

The Bad:

-- Flesh. I thought some of the comments upthread were being unduly harsh until I actually read the story. Pat's story is slight, but wildly inventive and entertaining, but Ramon Sola's art is - for me, anyway - a real disappointment. He always had a rough, wild style but here it just strikes me as being loose to the point of carelessness. Many panels look half-finished and some really quite messy sequences make following what should be a fairly straightforward tale difficult. There are flashes of what I loved about his early work here and there, but it strikes me as either a very rushed piece or the work of an artist who is out of practice - in the comics form, at least. I'd love to see more from Sola in the weekly, but this wasn't quite the treat I'd been hoping for :-(

-- That cover. No better in the flesh, and still a real missed opportunity.

[JOE SOAP]

Almost everything is great in the prog except for that damn stupid cover -what a misfire- and...

...It pains me greatly to say this, as I'm a Ramon Sola fan, but the art in Flesh is in no way a throwback to early tooth as it just doesn't look as good as early Flesh art. It looks like a "preliminary" that needs more detail & a good inking.

Other than those sore points the progs great.

[paulvonscott]

Heh, always wanted to see the slushpile!

Savage was great and from what I've read so far it's a very good anniversary prog.

[Bolt-01]

Poor Tharg- he goes to all the effort he obviously has and he gets ripped about the cover.

Thought it was prett nice myself- not exactly what I would have liked to see, but there have been many worse.

Still, can't please eveyone eh?

Thought the prog was pretty good myself, it had peaks and troughs, but I was pretty darn satisfied by what I read.

Bolt-01

[paulvonscott]

I thought the cover looked better in the fleshy pulp.  I quite like the Tharg, but I'd rather have had some robots or classic 2000AD characters on there than some cool people pretending to like 2000AD :)

I also don't think you can judge an anniversary prog by the standards of a regular prog, it may be an okay prog for people, but I reckon it's a very good anniversay prog.  A real effort has been made and if you look at previous anniversay progs, much more than usual.

[Matt Timson]

STILL no prog- I reckon I've probably got the same problem as Mr Brunt...

[Leigh S]

Yeah, as an anniversary prog, I think its  a resounding success - previous efforts have been...

5 years:  Prog 260 - 2 months late as Tharg tries to deny the strikers any impact on his comic by sticking to a 52 progs per year numbering system, the evil Tory that he is!  Tharg anniversary story and readers cards

10 years: prog 520 - nicer paper - nice cover -  anniversary Dredd tale. Tharg still in denial.

15 years: Prog 772 - terrible wrapping paper cover that inspired my newsagent to bin the comic as wrapping rather than put it on the shelf - to be fair to him, he was probably making the wiser decision than myself in trying to buy it at that point...

20 years: Prog 1033 - free prog 1 and free 3000AD the next week - prog itself unchanged

25 years: prog 1280 - Double length Tharg story with various creators

30 years: Bumper prog with features, anniversary Flesh story, anniversary Tharg story, pin ups and features and a badge.

Solas art could have done with a touch of rufus' inks as well as his letraset to be honest, and not all of the pinups work (Crossleys ABC was not my bag at all) - I could nitpick it (I'd have ensured some more recent "great moments in Thrill power" for example, and agree that the cover is not really the sort I'd have thought appropriate), but overall, it does what it says on the cover - celebrates the prog!