No one else get their copy yet?
First up, the art on the back up strips deserves a shout out - some great work going on there, fitting in with Coleby's style whilst not copying it in any shape or form - well chosen synergy going on there!
As for the story, I'm variably familiar with the characters this riffs on - not sure this adds anything to any of those characters and doesnt feel like anything we havent seen before(the Death Wish one was fun though!). I'm kind of with Alan Moore on the idea of comics designed to keep the 12 year olds of 50 years ago occupied perhaps not having the greatest weight for supporting an industry
Got my copy on Thursday, but the Prog and Meg distracted me from reading it, as well as Iron Maiden at the 02, but looking forward to diving in later! :thumbsup:
(https://images.rebellion.co.uk/productVersion/95/65/00.large.jpg)
I expect I'll be picking it up on Tuesday.
Quote from: sheridan on 11 August, 2018, 11:17:31 PM
I expect I'll be picking it up on Tuesday.
Sure I've seen this somewhere on the forum, but just in case - Forbidden Planet (Shaftesbury Avenue) signing next Saturday (https://forbiddenplanet.com/events/2018/08/18/furman-coleby-signing-vigilant/).
Have to say, I found the story a little impenetrable, have to give it a re-read-maybe it's old age creeping up! :lol:
Great art though! :thumbsup:
There is some back-stories and origin stories on some of the characters appearing in the Vigilant on the 200A AD site: https://2000ad.com/news (https://2000ad.com/news)
Oh cool, I'll pick this up. Big fan of Simon Coleby.
Is it 2000AD/Meg size or American size?
Simon Coleby art is great as usual and well complemented with coloring by Len O'Grady. The main story felt little bit rushed and maybe should have been done in 3 part mini series like the upcoming Resistance story. Hopefully their will be more because this looks very promising.
Another character that is returning which is never mentioned anywhere is [spoiler]Max the Computer and the Thirteenth Floor[/spoiler]
here's my review:
http://cool-stuff-you-will-like.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-vigilant-issue-1.html
Quote from: Bad City Blue on 16 August, 2018, 11:08:55 AM
here's my review:
http://cool-stuff-you-will-like.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-vigilant-issue-1.html
This review is exactly how I felt about the strip
What I have read of it I've loved.
More importantly I have to say that this is the best work by Coleby in years. I've not been a great fan of his new style, I liked it but much preferred his original style as it had more clarity to it with it's open spaces and
clear line. His shadows and heavy blacks sometimes confused me. This works so well, it's more accommodating for O'Grady's colours and easier to read even at the smaller page size.
I also love the way that He's managed to pay tribute to Vanyo and Mike Western without aping their style
Quote from: metcalfecarr on 16 August, 2018, 01:22:28 PM
More importantly I have to say that this is the best work by Coleby in years. I've not been a great fan of his new style, I liked it but much preferred his original style as it had more clarity to it with it's open spaces and
clear line. His shadows and heavy blacks sometimes confused me. This works so well, it's more accommodating for O'Grady's colours and easier to read even at the smaller page size.
I am the opposite where his earlier work did not work for me. He has become one of my favourite artist. His work on this and the recent Jaegir was great. You must check out his work he has done for Vertigo on The
Royals: Masters of War (2014), this is some of his best work ever.
Quote from: broodblik on 16 August, 2018, 02:55:18 PM
I am the opposite where his earlier work did not work for me.
Define "earlier"!
Early Coleby may as well be an entirely different artist. Contrast his work in the Rogueverse on
Jaegir with these:
Exhibit A:
(https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2F3.bp.blogspot.com%2F-7CmkSIQ4s5s%2FVz8cgUb4QXI%2FAAAAAAAAE5s%2FoYMSCySaag07MLbmL_e1vn7BQ2CIyVsOACK4B%2Fs1600%2Fbullets%252Bflying.JPG&f=1)
Exhibit B:
(https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fd1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net%2Fn_iv%2F600%2F725563.jpg&f=1)
And let's not even talk about his Dredd:
(http://2000ad.org/covers/2000ad/hires/758.jpg)
One artist whose development has been simply phenomenal. From
Low Life on he can do no wrong.
Quote from: TordelBack on 16 August, 2018, 03:39:00 PM
Quote from: broodblik on 16 August, 2018, 02:55:18 PM
I am the opposite where his earlier work did not work for me.
Define "earlier"! Early Coleby may as well be an entirely different artist. Contrast his work in the Rogueverse on Jaegir with these:
One artist whose development has been simply phenomenal. From Low Life on he can do no wrong.
I am talking about when he started working on Friday and some Dredd stroies but you are correct his development was phenomenal
Quote from: TordelBack on 16 August, 2018, 03:39:00 PM
From Low Life on he can do no wrong.
From a developmental point of view, there's an interesting half-way house between the 'old' and 'new' styles from Simon's work on
Warhammer Monthly...
(http://i.imgur.com/pz4VW.png)
Unfortunately I found The Vigilant incomprehensible for the most part and the bits I understood seemed to have little or no plot.
The artwork was lovely throughout but if Rebellion are going to put this much money and effort into a project they need a decent story as a foundation. Very disappointing.
On the artwork front I'd have to push a strong recommendation for Dreaming Eagles that he did with Garth Ennis. A cracking piece of work and one that works a lot better as a collected whole.
The Vigilant very much read as a teaser for the potential of the different characters but I know what JamesC meant about plotting. I don't know if I'd go with incomprehensible but certainly it did require close reading and a bit of backtracking to follow what was happening. Then there was the realisation that the main story had finished and it was now a series of character vignettes to try and fill in the gaps in the back story. Overall a reasonable bit of work. Let's face it, the main American companies churn out a hell of a lot worse on a regular basis and keep on going.
I've realised who two of the reinforcements called up by Dr Mesmer were
http://internationalhero.co.uk/e/ezra.htm
http://internationalhero.co.uk/k/krait.htm
But I can't for the life of me work out who the old woman with the hammer is..
Do love it when artists significantly change their style! Apart from McMahon, Coleby is the obvious example of this and it's one reason I like his stuff so much. The Royals looks stunning.
Having read it now, I'm a bit in two minds. I can see what they were trying to do, but it is almost absurdly dense. That said, when you step back a bit, what you're essentially getting is a US comic (in terms of length) written like a six-page 2000 AD strip. So it rockets along, shoving all and sundry into the mix, and barraging you with details.
I certainly felt I got more out of it than a typical Marvel comic, but I do also largely agree with whoever said it felt a bit like the comic equivalent of watching Infinity War without having seen any of the previous Marvel movies.
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 17 August, 2018, 09:50:17 AMI do also largely agree with whoever said it felt a bit like the comic equivalent of watching Infinity War without having seen any of the previous Marvel movies.
Pretty much sums it up for me.
Looked great but didn't enjoy it.
Freaking loved The Vigilant and eagerly awaiting issue 2, great work reviving these old fan favourites guys!
Haven't been near a comic shop this week, but I must say I'm hankering after this. When folk say 'dense' and 'had to read it a few times', I think: 'ace, value for money!'. See also: the current "Better Class of Criminal" McConville Dredd story, lovely long read, nicely situated in a futuristic, crazy and suitably jam-packed MC-1.
Nothing annoys me more than shelling out for a comic and having it read while I'm queuing at the till.
Hope there's still some in Big Bang (I know there will be, those boys haven't let me down yet).
Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 17 August, 2018, 01:10:11 PMFreaking loved The Vigilant and eagerly awaiting issue 2
Oddly enough, despite not being
entirely taken with it, I'd happily subscribe for a year if this was a monthly – at least if Colby was doing the art. I did also chuckle at Furman getting one of his Furmanisms into the mix (albeit not "it never ends"). I also think I'll have a re-read after delving back into last year's Misty special first.
Anyone that's not close to a comic shop WHSmiths have this in stock
... which is exactly where I picked up my copy from. It needs that high street support. Personally I'd rather see more comics on the high street than we are seeing at present. Then again I remember fondly trolling round newsagents in search of the different titles they stocked back in my early collecting days. Comic shops tended to be insane comic overload. Today, tat overload.
Great artwork, the story was hard to follow at points but very enjoyable and would pick this up if it went monthly
Read it on the way home from the signing - agree that it could have been expanded to give it a chance to breathe. It was a bit like being dropped into the climax of Zenith without too much build-up.
Still enjoyed it though.
I'm not sure it was necessary to cram quite so many characters in there, felt like it could have been a 3 issue series.
Liked the Steel Commando and Deathwish standalones, not read the Yao one yet.
Is the Iron Major from something, the only one I could find online wasn't British.
Liked the Nazi/Judge Fear combo headgear, thought that was pretty striking.
Quote from: Steve Green on 19 August, 2018, 12:26:28 PMIs the Iron Major from something, the only one I could find online wasn't British.
The character's from Jet.
Cheers,
found him!
http://britishcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Major (http://britishcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Iron_Major)
Read this today. Art's good, script is... well, I can see what Furman was aiming for, but I don't think it quite works. When Marvel and DC do this sort of infinite crisis crossover, they're reliant on pre-existing knowledge of a shared universe - depending on their vintage, the readers might not know all the featured characters, but they know enough of them to be invested in the story. Most of the characters in The Vigilant (or The Forgotten, as Dr Sin seems to think the comic is called) haven't seen print in at least thirty years. They needed to be much fewer in number and much more strongly established within the story itself, rather than just their introductory bio. I could have seen either Blake Edmonds or the Leopard From Lime Street (probably more so the latter) as good focal point characters to give readers an in-roads into events - I feel the story needs more of an anchor.
This is break-neck gibberish with beautiful art. I feel like I'm reading part 11 of a 12 part series. I don't have time to engage with anyone. It's absurdly dense. Zenith Phase iii (which this kind of resembles) works because we know and care about a couple of the characters. Go read 'The Magic Order' by Mark Millar and see how each character gets 3 pages to settle with the audience before the fireworks begin. I guess this might work better for people who know all the characters - are there any readers like that? I was delighted to see a certain SCREAM character. Let's have more with a slower pace. Great art & good to see Dani on the back-up strip.
I did find some of the choices odd, Steel Commando though a popular character lacks the iconic nature of Robot Archie, arguably one of the few truly well known British comic characters of the era.
Funny looking back on all the crossovers these strips had, The Spider vs. Robot Archie, Archie against Steel Commando, Steel Commando meets Cpt. Hurricane, I have to wonder how long it will be before we see the more well known figures of IPCs catalogue.
Suffers from the same faults as so many contemporary comics - disembodied first person narratives and incongruous time/location shifts that take so much concentration and deduction to work out that the joy of reading is removed by exhaustion ... Emma Beeby's otherwise excellent writing is also marred by this tendency. The art is spellbinding, though, muscularly bursting every page.
I enjoyed this in a baffled way. No real idea whats going on to be honest, but it still flowed pretty well.
It felt a bit like an episode of Frankie Boyle's Rex Royd.
I wasn't sure if I enjoyed this or not. No doubt Coleby is great. I have a lot of time for Furman as an avid reader and re-reader of his UK Transformers stuff. I have no memory of any of these chacacters, so there's no nostalgia factor for me at all. As such the story itself was what I imagine a lot of Marvel and DC stuff to be like, which is why I don't read a lot of Marvel and DC superhero stuff. There were some character moments, but not enough to get your teeth into. The action gave no time to rest or take anything in. I dunno. The use of the 13th floor was absolutely nuts though, the kind of bonkers nonsensical idea I might have come up with as a kid playing one story mixing action figures from Star Wars, He-Man, Thundercats and M.A.S.K. all at the same time. Which I liked! But surely it would have been utterly confusing for any new readers why Max was sending illusory giant rats at them while they were having a team meeting! The comic was a headscratcher for me. Not sure if I'd buy an ongoing series.
Think I agree with the general feeling. It's too dense for me, but I'd really like to see more if it were a bit more spread out. I would definitely pick up the next release, particularly if it was over several issues.
It's a bit like an advert for future material, as in one of the previous summer or autumn specials. That said, I think it's brilliant that we are getting this kind of material and I really hope this continues in years to come.
Ps. Lots of gorgeous art!
Thinking about this more, it was like a trailer. Dense, a bit bewildering, but providing an insight into what the full thing might be. I suspect a full series would be a bit more relaxed (if not, I think it'd break a bunch of readers).
Finally got my sweaty mitts on this today. Forewarned by this thread, I started reading the shorts at the back first, re-familiarising myself with as many of the cast as possible before tackling the main story: and it worked brilliantly.
Particularly enjoyed the Steel Commando one, a very sharply told origin that seemed to cover more ground than the whole of the original run, lovely Staz Johnson art and colours by my current hero of that art, John Charles.
You get a lot of value for your €5: I'll get more of this as soon as it's available. In the meantime, heading back for a re-read.
I will get this if it continues as an ongoing series. I just think that for the first volume they tried to much with a very complex story line. Also too many characters from the word go and would have preferred a systematically introduction of characters into the main story.
Honestly,this felt like issue #8 of a big crisis crossover.Its confusing.