Prog 1855: Killing Grounds

[radiator]

Thanks. I just started a thread, then right away saw the existing one. 

[Hawkmumbler]

More than a 'minor annoyance' for me - the App literally crashes as soon as it loads - it's completely borked.

Really? Mine just cuts off but is easily fixed by just reentering the app. Nice to know theres a patch on the way, but I wont bother reinstaling the app. I can wait.

[Proudhuff]

Dredd Yay! This is what I like to see! More of this please. Funny that it's taken a relatively new script droid to pen a tale that actually adresses the post-Chaos Day state of things (Ewing and Rennie excepted). It's the little things that make the difference - references to water filtration and flatlining budgets. Although every coin has a flipside, and one thing that really irked was 'Ditto. Serious mancrush.' That's not a Mega-City citizen speaking, that's a present-day US teen on a smarmy Joss Whedon TV programme. You'd never hear a character in a John Wagner script say 'Ditto. Serious mancrush.' The art is fine and dandy, and does a superb job at conveying how empty and desolate the city should be.

I suspect I'd be enjoying Brass Sun a lot more if I hadn't already read Gormenghast. As it is it's coming off like a bit of a pale shadow - all the dialogue about the egg came off as a clumsier and far less subtle dig at that novel's musings on edifices to ego. A good episode on the whole, though - more of these purpose-bred minions, please, that was very cool/creepy.

Flesh picks up a bit with the change of scenery this week, but overall I'm not very engaged. Lots of inconsistencies in terms of character behaviour. Why, for instance, does Karolos hand-wave off Boot's concerns about Sunday. 'He's a serial killer!' 'Don't be silly.' It makes no sense beyond Mills' not being ready to call the Sunday plotline done with (and that in itself is perhaps a mistake. How much longer can he concievably get away with it?). The Carver/Reagan dialogue was pretty ripe, too, and the cliffhanger was beyond camp. The art I still don't rate, although I'm enjoying all his little signs and posters in the background.

Aquila shows everyone else how it's done. Near-faultless. Yes it's arguably ended too early, like every Aquila story to date, but I suppose I'd rather be left desperate for more than wishing it would hurry up and get it all over with. Goddard is just phenomenal on this. Hope he becomes the regular artist, to be honest. The set-up for next series sounds amazing - just hope Carnifex is a nice long run.

Damnation Station still flagging a bit after the excellent early episodes, but I'm hanging in there. Still loving the cosmopolitan multi-lingual stuff, it's a subtle touch but one that adds a lot to the feel of this near-future society.

Dark Jimbo says it all for me, really sorry to see Aquila end so soon.

[A.Cow]

I'm not an Aquila fan, but I'm really glad to see that the Rennie droid has the guts to run the story to a length it needs to be, rather than pad it.

[IndigoPrime]

Dredd: decent setting and opening, but something felt off about the dialogue throughout. It wasn't just the Buffyism, but the way Dredd spoke. Still, good to see Hershey again clamping down. If Dredd wants things his way, he can always be Chief Judge...

Brass Sun: I imagine this will be a beautiful collection, and in the future stand out as something of a 2000 AD classic. As it is, I'm enjoying the world, the slow burn, and the different pace from 2000 AD's usual penchant for 'breakneck'.

Flesh: A bounce in as much that it's not quite as risible as it has been, but it still looks and reads like a combination of 2000 AD c. 1978 and an issue of Nuts or Zoo. Inconsistencies, dodgy plots, every woman having to have boobs the size of bowling balls very much on display... It's just tiresome. I know I bang on about this, but it's because Flesh really should be the highlight of the prog. The basic idea behind it is fantastic, but the execution is at the other end of the scale.

Aquila: I'm not sure what happened here, but Aquila never clicked with me before. I really enjoyed this latest run though, to the point I'm going to dig out previous runs and re-read them. I'm not sure what put me off before (it might have been the art, oddly), but I'm now looking forward to the next slice.

Damnation Station: Bar that one-off interlude recently, this is coming across as solid but unremarkable. Lots of potential, though, even if I'm not entirely taken by the combination of art styles. Still, at least Harrison's trying something different and isn't photographing models into every frame, like certain other CGI-oriented artists...

[Verence]

Dredd - story looks promising. My money's on the charidee leader being a/the baddie.

Either him or the female charidee volunteer


Speaking of the Dredd story where could the "migrant populations" that Hershey talks about be coming from??

A) Other sectors within MC1
B) Other megacities
C) Cursed Earth

[Proudhuff]

Dredd - story looks promising. My money's on the charidee leader being a/the baddie.

Either him or the female charidee volunteer


Speaking of the Dredd story where could the "migrant populations" that Hershey talks about be coming from??

A) Other sectors within MC1
B) Other megacities
C) Cursed Earth

I'd assumed they were 'displaced persons'.

Also as a monthly gifter to Medicine SANS Frontiers, I'm hoping their good name isn't going to be drubbed here, have to wait til next week to find out...

[Dark Jimbo]

Speaking of the Dredd story where could the "migrant populations" that Hershey talks about be coming from??

A) Other sectors within MC1
B) Other megacities
C) Cursed Earth

It doesn't make sense for anyone to be coming into the Big Meg at this stage - what's the appeal? It'd be like emigrating to Nagasaki in 1946. So it's presumably the surviving population drawing together after the Chaos. Pre-Chaos there were approx. 1,311,475 citizens per Sector - post-Chaos there's suddenly something closer to 164,000. 50 million people spread out across a city meant for 400 million would mean vast, desolate areas devoid of life and empty blocks aplenty. It makes perfect sense that the survivors would seek out others and gradually congregate in new localised areas of higher population - it's probably no stretch of the imagination to suppose that the Judges would actively encourage, if not enforce this, if only to make their own lives easier.

But at this stage it's still only guesswork because there's yet to be a story that addresses any of this - can't we get an equivalent of Bob's Law...?

[Proudhuff]

as disussed on the Population thread,    other meg pops might want to come in: room, opportunities, loot etc

and then there the returnees, from abroad or the undercity

[Frank]

Day of Chaos ended with Rico arriving with a posse of muties and other Cursed Earthers, to help with the aftermath.

[A.Cow]

Also as a monthly gifter to Medicine SANS Frontiers, I'm hoping their good name isn't going to be drubbed here...

Stuart Hall has already ruined the reputation of that particular movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Hall_%28presenter%29

Oh, hang on ... I'm thinking of Jeux San Frontieres ...

[House of Usher]

Dark Jimbo already said most of what needs to be said for me, too. But I will add...

Judge Dredd: I can't really see why desolate areas are drawing migrants to them when there are plenty of underpopulated built-up areas going begging. Also, the diseases among the displaced persons aren't very futuristic. We don't normally hear a lot about cholera in the Dredd universe. Dysentery, on the other hand, is classified by symptoms and can be caused by various pathogenic organisms. If anything, there'd likely be more and various causes of dysentery in Dredd's world than exist at present. But I still don't buy the premise of ruins attracting migrants more than rebuilt sectors where there's food, work and medicine.

Brass Sun: As per Dark Jimbo, I'm getting Gormenghast vibes, which started coming through stronger first with climbing out a window and up or down a wall on creepers to escape, and now the enormous library devoted to ritualized dynastic hagiography and maintained by a rigid caste system.

Flesh: I'm not heavily invested in this strip. I enjoy it for its spontaneity, mayhem, carnage and slapstick, and I've learned not to care about plot or character. I didn't find much to enjoy about this week's; the daftness and archness of last week's appealed to me a lot more.

Aquila: Intelligent comics, taken seriously and done right, and beautifully illustrated.

Damnation Station: Not a barrel of laughs. I don't feel I know any of the characters, so I can't identify them or worry about anything bad happening to them. After what happened to that guy this week, I just want whatever does happen to them to be quick. I get the message that war is hell, but it seems as though so is the whole universe this story inhabits. Where do you go to get away from it, and what would be the point? I miss the soap opera dimension the story had when the characters at least had a precarious base to return to between suicide missions.

[Proudhuff]

HoU is quite right and has reminded me of one of my Fav Dredd's 'Have you seen the Mushroom men?'

[TordelBack]

Corker of a Prog, really.

I'll probably come back waffle about the rest later, but Aquila is on my mind right now.  That was 25 pages simply packed with every conceivable element of plot and character and setting, all conveyed through some neat and economical storytelling tricks.  Imagine that this Aquila story would fit in one conventional US comic.  Incredible work by Rennie, Goddard and Caldwell.

Aside from the sheer level of skill on show, what fascinates me about this strip is that this is essentially time-travelling Slaine done right.  There's very little about Aquila that couldn't run as a Slaine story, simply by swapping Aquila for Slaine, Felix for Ukko and The Devourer for one of Danu's darker aspects.  And while I am a massive Slaine fan, I can't help but prefer what Rennie is doing here to what pat did with the same material. 

[Frank]

this strip is essentially time-travelling Slaine done right.  There's very little about Aquila that couldn't run as a Slaine story, simply by swapping Aquila for Slaine, Felix for Ukko and The Devourer for one of Danu's darker aspects.  And while I am a massive Slaine fan, I can't help but prefer what Rennie is doing here to what pat did with the same material.

The Rennie droid can add passive-aggressive to his bio.