Messages

Dylan Teague is awesome sauce.

Where?

The [spoiler]'killed by Fear' [/spoiler] was a bit much, really, though it was nice to see that event referenced.

Poetic license, yes, but it does seem unlikely the judges have time for that sort of thing. Awfully good of them to care, though.

I really hate 'going forward.' I much prefer 'from now on,' which is plainer English.

[Judge Dredd]

Good Prog, carrying no passengers, I thought.

The Judge Dredd story was a lively read and quite clever, although I find the homophobia in Dredd's world very disappointing. However, I read it, like the universal acceptance of same-sex attraction in Doctor Who, as being more about sexual politics and identity now than in 2135 AD. I enjoyed the punchline, although with their harsh sentencing for trivial offences at a time when they need all hands to the pumps the judges risk tanking their economy as surely George Osborne.

Savage was great entertainment. The heavy losses are unsurprising bearing in mind the resistance fighters don't seem to have any proper plan for assaulting the Volgan security bunker.

Query about 'Ampney Crucis Investigates': the Prime Minister bears the likeness of a 1970s/80s TV and film actor, doesn't he? Any ideas who I'm thinking of and what he was in?

Red Seas and Strontium Dog were, as The Enigmatic Dr X says, action all the way.

The repeated mis-print 'mutsie' in SD was a tad distracting.

Actually, I don't think it is a misprint. I found it a bit of an odd word to scan, too, but I think it's supposed to suggest 'muties' who are also gypsies. It's a portmanteau word.

I am frankly amazed to see that kind of mistake being made in 2013 (let alone 2135). I thought this was the sort of thing writers talk to one another about.

You have to remember Public schoolboy isn't just Tory. Many Labour piers are of the same ilk who pretend they have our best interests at heart. Many people seem to forget or don't realise this.
V

That said, they'd more likely be collaborators with the Volgans than resistance fighters. There would be more money in that and less chance of getting shot.

Really good Prog. Apart from the aforementioned panel in Savage making me a little bit sick in my mouth, and an apparently outdated reference to cordite in Judge Dredd, it's really firing on all cylinders. Ampney Crucis Investigates was my top thrill this Prog: a really novel twist on H.G. Wells' Martian landings.

That convergence was pretty damned impressive.

[Seamus Heaney]

I've been reading Seamus Heaney without any real enjoyment, but it's work and all that matters is being able to respond to it. I'm also reading Jane Eyre but without having the time to make much headway more than a chapter a day. That's the slow way to get through it.

I'm re-taking A-level English with 23 years having elapsed since last time.

[The Apocalypse War]

I'd say The Apocalypse War. Magnificent art work, epic scale, high drama, gothic future-tek (Sentenoids, strato-vees, exploding guns and H-wagons shaped like cuttlefish), and a desperate battle against annihilation.

Piccy, taken by our friendly transvestite!

He was indeed friendly, and a very charming fellow-me-lass: a credit to his parents. Looked a bit like Alan Pillay but younger and stick-thin.

I went to see Attila the Stockbroker and Efa Supertramp instead of the film, but I was there for a drink after. I had a very enjoyable evening too. By some miracle I avoided a hangover. It was great to see everyone and meet those I'd not met before. Fun!

By the way, did anyone else notice an appearance by [spoiler]Superhans[/spoiler] from [spoiler]Peep Show[/spoiler] in one panel?

[spoiler]Quatermain's death[/spoiler]- and where else could you find a comic where the [spoiler]Antichrist Harry Potter shoots death-magic from his sex-wand -killing Quatermain- and is beaten by Mary Poppins for being a petulant child leading to the heroine Mina Harker phuqing-off in search of Ayesha's immortal pool with Orlando-ette, Emma Peel and all 007's ex-girlfriends[/spoiler], and it's drawn by Kev O'Neill.

If I may... [spoiler]Linda Thorson was never a Bond Girl, as far as I know. When Emma Peel remarks that 'we all used to be in love with the same man,' I do believe she is referring to John Steed.[/spoiler]

I did enjoy the hint that [spoiler]Cathy Gale[/spoiler] is the same person as [spoiler]Pussy Galore[/spoiler], mind you!

I read the book a couple of days ago, just the comic book part: I've been too busy to read the text story and I'm not sure I might not need to re-read the text back-up from the last two instalments first to jog my memory.

I didn't enjoy it as much as I did 1969, my favourite of the three chapters, mostly because I don't think there were so many references to pick up this time around. I wonder if there wasn't more they could have squeezed in, and if they had whether it would have undermined the internal logic of culture having become irrelevant and died by 2009. I know which characters, likenesses and references I'd have shoe-horned in, and I dare say other readers have their own ideas about what they were expecting to see which was not encompassed by the book.

My favourite reference was the mention of 15Peter20 on the back cover, but I don't know who Michael Glass is (although I suspect it may be a reference to an artist called Mikel Glass I found with a Google search).

'Fur Q' was also fun to see. I wanted to think the chocolates Orlando bought from Tesco were Passionelles from the 1988 film 'Consuming Passions,' but it'd be a rather dated reference. The outlandish contemporary London architecture viewed from the Antichrist's terrace was a nice touch. There didn't seem to be very many terribly obscure nods and allusions in this book: most, as TV cameos, were quite obvious.

[Judge Dredd]

An outstanding Prog.

Judge Dredd was superb. My interest in it hasn't dipped since the return of the Dark Judges.

'1947' could be the most well received Tharg's Three-wheelers story since the strip's inception, and could very possibly give LOEG 2009 a run for its money as a dystopian depiction of our present day.

Everything else was good too, including the WWI western with the unlikely character name. Dom Reardon's style looks different: more formal, more reined-in. I like it.