2000 AD - The Ultimate Collection

[Bolt-01]

What does Dante 3 cover?

[DrRocka]

It's got The Courtship Of Jenna Markarov, Love and War (prog 2000), The Rudinstein Regulars, another Love and War (1200 - 1207), Battleship Potemkin, One Last Night in the House Of Sin. Haven't read it yet though so I could have missed some

[Lobo Baggins]

Got my Dante v3 yesterday. I get mine from my local comic shop, who orders me a copy alongside my prog. Strangely enough I seem to be ahead of subscribers at present. Is this some glitch?

They send them in pairs, so subscribers won't get the Dante one until the Strontium Dog one comes out.

[IndigoPrime]

Got my Dante v3 yesterday. I get mine from my local comic shop, who orders me a copy alongside my prog. Strangely enough I seem to be ahead of subscribers at present. Is this some glitch?

Subscriptions are all messed up for everyone. The last set of books before this one are only just arriving, meaning it's likely subscribers won't get the new Dante book for another four weeks. Hachette have told some people they'll be moving payments gradually backwards to realign subscriptions, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that.

[sintec]

Had they stuck to the original schedule subscribers would have been getting Nikolai and Stront right about now.  However there's been some catastrophic balls ups over the last couple of months (mostly related to the extra covers volumes they announced at short notice) which has left subscribers about a month behind the shops.  This has also lead to their FB page being mostly filled with whinging as they've been very bad at communicating about what's going on.

Most subscribers just got 17 & 18, although some got 15 & 16 having been sent 17 & 18 last month instead of 15 & 16.  Several people who opted out of the covers vol have been sent it, many who opted in haven't been sent it.  It's chaos.

[Dark Jimbo]

has anyone spotted Dante V.3 in the shops yet? Must zip down to FP as soon as it's in

Yup, grabbed from my newsie this morning!

[Super Mario]

so book 9 of nemesis is completely mental then?

weird alternate history 80s with a weird goth love triangle. not what i was expecting

[Jade Falcon]

Read Dante book 3 last night.  I'm not going to give anything away as there's bound to be others like me reading for the first time.

While the first two books were enjoyable they were a bit, whimsical and silly at times for lack of a better word, but this really did get a whole lot better.

[sintec]

Just finished vol 1 of Slaine - wow, that's superb stuff.  Can't wait for the next 2 volumes and then an in context re-read of The Horned God.  Also seeing some of Belardinelli's art has caused me to revise my expectations for Ace Trucking Co, whilst the theme may not appeal a book stacked full of Belardinelli's art sure does.

Jealous of those now picking up Vol 3 of Dante.  The last one was a good read and it sounds like it's going to just keep getting better. 

[TordelBack]

As I have all of Dante somewhere, spread across about four different formats (but thus difficult to assemble for a re-read), and money is tight yet again, I've been questioning my decision to pick up all the relevant UC volumes: not so after starting into Volume 3.  The pivot in the story that takes place either side of the wonderful Prog 2000 (v1.0) story is breathtaking, Fraser and Burns' art seem to simultaneously scale new heights and stay there, all the fun silly stuff suddenly feels like a necessary counterbalance to all the brutality, and everything, everything, just clicks into place. 

Why this strip isn't on every 10 Comics You Must Read lists, snuggling up between Palomar and Tintin, instead of struggling to find a reprint audience, is beyond comprehension. 

[Frank]

It's the flying bikes shaped like horses. That sounds like a flippant response, but it isn't.

[TordelBack]

Nah, I see where you're coming from: I hated all the cod-Tolstoy sorta-steampunky trappings when Dante started in the prog, and if you'd asked me at the time I'd have said it was exactly the kind of visually muddled crap 2000AD didn't need any more of.  Obviously I was completely wrong, and not for the first or last time, but you'd think that from todays's perspective, when it's obvious that the vision is sustained over a huge stretch, and with ever-more confident and coherent art, it'd be easier to take a punt on.

[IndigoPrime]

Also seeing some of Belardinelli's art has caused me to revise my expectations for Ace Trucking Co, whilst the theme may not appeal a book stacked full of Belardinelli's art sure does.

Ace Trucking's art is, to my mind, the pinnacle of Belardinelli's 2000 AD output. Frankly, he never was much cop with people and human anatomy, with characters that always looked a bit stuff and wooden. But with whacky aliens and crazy space stuff, he was superb. His Dare strips had a lot of the latter, but almost all of Ace Trucking is along those lines. The stories might not be top-tier 2000 AD, but I'm glad it's getting an outing in this collection.

Why this strip isn't on every 10 Comics You Must Read lists, snuggling up between Palomar and Tintin, instead of struggling to find a reprint audience, is beyond comprehension.

My guess: he's Russian, and most of these lists are written by Americans. That said, it's a pity Dante doesn't seem to be more read in Europe.

[TordelBack]

The stories might not be top-tier 2000 AD, but I'm glad it's getting an outing in this collection.

It's deliberately light fare, but there's some great fun to be had in the early-middle period of the strip, rather less so once Evil Blood appears.  And yeah, that art  .

[Magnetica]

Ace Trucking's art is, to my mind, the pinnacle of Belardinelli's 2000 AD output.

The stories might not be top-tier 2000 AD, but I'm glad it's getting an outing in this collection.

For my money the early Ace Trucking stories were really good. Ok the later stuff not so much. But on the strength of those Ace Trucking would probably be in my top 20 all time 2000AD strips.