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Topics - JayzusB.Christ

#1
General / Angela Kincaid
18 March, 2024, 09:29:27 PM
I was just rereading the first Sláine story, and it struck me that it was a real shame she couldn't have stuck around the prog a bit longer.   I really liked her sole prog entry ever -  I mean, she created Sláine's look, and her version was the one that most artists stuck to.  I know it's easy to say what might have been, but maybe having such an influential female artist  in the prog for a longer period would have attracted more female creators over the years.  (Also, and I know it's not nearly as important as her talent, but I've just looked her up and she was an absolute stunner.  Of course, Uncle Pat cut quite the dash in his younger days too.)
#2
Off Topic / Top o' the morning
17 March, 2024, 10:52:57 AM
Happy Paddy's Day, everyone.  I generally avoid Dublin for it - after the parade finishes, it all gets a bit Block Mania / Lemming Syndrome - but I'll head in today for a bit for a pint with my rocker brother-in-law, who's over for a Judas Priest gig.  I'm not a regular Guinness drinker, but feck it, I'll have one for the day that's in it, so I will, so I will.
#3
Film & TV / Nostalgia TV
11 March, 2024, 02:20:56 PM
Been rewatching This Morning With Richard not Judy on YouTube - an old Stewart Lee and Richard Herring Sunday lunchtime show.

Some of the recorded sketches don't hold up, but a lot of it remains absolutely hilarious.  The Jesus and Apostles sketches are some of my favourite comedy sketches of all time.

I'm still not entirely sure how they got away with the blasphemy, the explicit references to wanking and bestiality, the use of the word 'tw*t' (not twit or twot) and a few very thinly disguised f-bombs on BBC2 on a Sunday afternoon, in 1998. Also a very early joke about Jimmy Saville's alleged necrophilia.

Great to see the two of them are still going strong, if looking a bit shook these days - i prefer Stew as a shabby old curmudgeon than as a vain young fop.  I've met him once, and he's a far nicer and friendlier chap than he pretends to be on stage.
#4
General / Audible Dredds
06 March, 2024, 04:50:33 PM
I've recently added Origins to my collection. Now, I have no idea how a non-2000ad reader would feel about it - I know what everyone in it looks like already- but I have another issue.

Dredd's voice was pretty good for the America and The Pit audiobooks - not quite as menacing as imagine it*, which is pretty much Dirty Harry - but I actually appreciated how understated it was compared to the old Toby Longworth version which I really wasn't into.

For Origins though, it was back to the 1940s gangster movie Dredd of the Judge Cal radio drama, if anyone remembers that.  Not my bag at all.

*Karl Urban remains my favourite Dredd voice, along with an obscure Dredd arcade game from the 80s or early 90s.
#5
General / Cybermatt is great but I miss...
05 March, 2024, 02:46:13 PM
...Tharg!

I think Matt is one of the best editors the prog has ever had, but I miss Tharg the Betelgeusian.

I mean the one that would give Trump a run for his money in the self-praise states, and that shoots down critical Earthlets with witheringly sarcastic remarks.  That eats plastic cups and feeds droids to Mek Quake, and that fights off Thrillsuckers and Zragian Dictators.

 I miss the droids being droids, and following the vastly exaggerated versions of what was really happening in their careers - Psmith, for example, and his near-destruction before a last-minute repurposing as a normal art droid.

The fun aspects of the Command Module seem to have been sidelined somewhat in recent years - I did enjoy the old days when the editorial goings-on were a little story in themselves, even when there wasn't a TMO strip.

Or is it just me and my progstalgia? Maybe we're all a bit too old for it now?  Or maybe it doesn't work as well in an era when we can chat with the writers and artists online?
#6
General / The changing view of an older Squax.
25 February, 2024, 03:12:02 PM
I was just re-reading The Dark Knight returns, and thinking about how the first time round I thought this Batman was cool and edgy, whereas now I see him as entitled rich man with a serious superiority complex who beats up people from lower classes. 

So I turned my thoughts to some prog characters and how I saw them as a kid compared to how I see them as a boring middle-aged man.

Early Sláine then - a fierce barbarian hero even if he's a bit of a bully. Now - a boozy, horny teenage thug whose adventures I enjoy anyway.

Zenith then - kind of cool for all his faults.  Now - it's just the faults.  Even his music was rubbish.

Peter St John - well, of course he's not a hippy any more,  he's old. Now - mate, you're looking a bit rough for only 42, and how the feck does an idealistic peacenik turn into a Thatcher lackey so  quickly?

Danny Franks then - an interesting soldier with some great action scenes.  Now - a terrified kid slowly letting the horror turn him into a hardened killer, as per the previously innocent kids in Vietnam.  It could happen to any of us.

Stan Lee then- the most exciting Dredd character to appear in years. Now - I find normal person Blondel Dupree far more interesting.

Dog Deever then - an edgy punk with cool fighting skills. Now - a nasty little shit whose mother deserved better.

Straying from the prog again, I used to think Lennie from Shade the Changing Man was the coolest and sexiest character ever. Now she looks like she's trying a bit too hard to be kooky. She's still hot though - way too young for me, of course.

More will probably follow.

#7
News / Rogue Film
29 January, 2024, 06:50:37 PM
I think it was confirmed by the Dave Gibbons interview, and someone else has probably linked to this elsewhere on the board, but this is really happening, it seems.

Most of us struggle to get even one blue-skinned, blank-eyed, bare-chested baldy onto the big screen, and Gibbons is now on his second and counting.

https://2000ad.com/news/duncan-jones-wraps-principal-photography-on-rogue-trooper-movie/
#8
General / Post-Horned God Sláine
19 January, 2024, 07:01:41 PM
I've been trawling through Sláine for the grud-knows-how-many-th time.  Personally, while I enjoyed a lot of the stuff after the Horned God, that was kind of the shark jumped for me.

Now, I enjoyed the Robin Goodfellow ones a lot. The Books of Invasions were a something of a return to form but really didn't have the epic feel of the earlier ones, or the down-to-earth banter provided by Ukko. 

But, and this completely went over my head at the time, that black and white one-off drawn by Chris Weston was absolute classic Sláine, in the Belardinelli / McMahon era vein. 

It was all there - a mad new fantasy setting with a quasi-historical basis, a fight with insults exchanged, Sláine being a dick to Ukko, Ukko probably deserving it. 

Perhaps most importantly, no self-righteous new age preaching and morose introspection from Sláine; just that good old fashioned piss-taking he used to do so well before he got all serious and sad. And Ukko giving as good as he gets.

I can't even remember where that story came from - one of the big Christmas progs, I think - but I remember at the time my main thought was 'hang on, that doesn't look like Sláine'. But, on my eye-opening reread, there was another thing it shared with the Belardinelli and McMahon eras - at the risk of a pitchfork-wielding mob descending on me, Sláine's face doesn't look much like Sláine's face, but who cares when it's drawn by one of the prog's finest artists ever.
#9
General / Age-Old Question
17 November, 2023, 07:24:02 AM
...to borrow one of Tharg's best letter headings.  I'm sure I've done this before, but I was having a think about how old characters who aren't Dredd night be, even though they don't operate in real time like the good judge.

Sinister and Dexter were both 28 during that story where Dexter is at the shrink. Now, I know Sinister is kind of dead or something but leaving that aside,a lot of stuff has happened since then.  Early forties maybe?

Johnny Alpha, according to a very old back cover, was 30 when he died, unlikely as it seems. Assuming that to be true, and that he didn't age when he was buried, he wouldn't be more than mid-thirties. Again though, that seems highly unlikely.

Sláine I think was only 19 or so when we first met him, so was probably 23-25 when he became king, even if all those years of homelessness had put years on him. So, 30 or so after his seven years. He couldn't have been over 40 at the end of his saga.

Dante was in his twenties at the start of his saga. 40 at the finish maybe?

14 posts to go before 10,000...
#10
Film & TV / The Reckoning (Jimmy Savile drama)
20 October, 2023, 01:17:08 PM
Just finished this one.  It's an uncomfortable watch, though probably not half as uncomfortable as it could have been.  Still, Steve Coogan does an incredibly good job of playing the charismatic psychopath in question; somehow contorting his face to reflect Savile's permanent leer but without losing the manipulative charm we used to know so well.

Coogan would have been a Spitting Image voice in the days when they had a Savile puppet, and all the awful stuff had yet to go beyond the rumour stage - it would be interesting to know whether he actually voiced that particular character, but I've seen conflicting reports and don't know for sure.   
#11
General / How do you like your Sinister Dexter?
01 September, 2023, 12:23:02 PM
Just following on from another thread; can't remember which one.  But...

I'd been reading some of the very early SinDexes, and remember why, despite the obvious Pulp Fiction influence, I used to like it so much but am a bit jaded with it these days (with the obvious provisio that Dan Abnett is one of the best script droids Tharg has ever chained to a desk).

It was, for me, enjoyable in the way that DR and Quinch was enjoyable.  Fast paced, ultra-violent, amoral, trashy but witty, and irreverent.  It was a tiny bit like Eurotrash, if Antoine de Caunes had been given a big gun and told to shoot his guests. 

When things got serious, though, was when it started losing its lustre.  Unlike Dredd, for me at least, the format doesn't quite lend itself to any genre the writer wants to have a go at, and characters with punny names and knowingly stylised speech patterns don't really match long, meandering psychological dramas.

Or maybe I'm just suffering from the dreaded progstalgia?  I think there are loads more stories to tell in Downlode, just as MC1 is so often the star of Dredd stories (remember the first series of Downlode Tales?) but I'm not quite sure Finny and Ray should be psychologically examined quite as much as they are.
#12
General / Longest-serving art droid?
21 August, 2023, 07:17:51 AM
I think it's fair to say the longest-serving script droid still active is, since the departure of Pat Mills, John Wagner.  And we're incredibly lucky to have him.

I was just musing to myself while reading Dreadnoughts, though - was Ezquerra the last of the prog 1 artists?  Is John Higgins now the droid who's been there longest?  It's mad when I think back to how his Dredds were an intrinsic part of my childhood, and how he's still here, as good as he ever was.  Or am I missing someone?
#13
Film & TV / Black Mirror
19 June, 2023, 10:30:39 PM
The new series is out, and telly doesn't get much better than this.  I've watched episodes 2 and 3 back to back tonight and I won't be sleeping easy tonight. 

And lots of respect to Salma Hayek for successfully doing her own Being John Malkovitch.  Some proper belly laughs there to break up the mind-twisting madness.
#14
Film & TV / And on Ian Hislop's team...
20 May, 2023, 12:06:00 PM
I recently realised I've been watching Have I Got News For You for over 30 years, and it's as good as it ever was.   Is there any other TV comedy series that has lasted as long, let alone remained funny, for so long?
#15
General / The text stories - do you miss them?
08 April, 2023, 04:45:42 PM
Much as I love Conrad and Fox's podcast, I would have to disagree when they grumble about text stories in the old specials.

In the specials I remember, they were  generally by John Smith and were often really good. Ones that stood out for me were the harrowing one about a diseased Mega-Citizen condemned to Cursed Earth quarantine,  a couple of world- and character-building Devlin Waughs, and a Strontium Dogs with two really interesting Stronts we'd never met before.

John even managed to get a really good (Friday) Rogue Trooper story into a special otherwise filled with really bad Michael Fleischer strips.

I remember Pete Milligan doing a good Anderson one, and Mark Millar doing a less good Anderson one (Though the latter did feature a Judge Gordon Rennie).  The last text story I really enjoyed was in one of the end-of-year specials, a SinDex Famous Five pastiche by Dabnett.

I wasn't altogether impressed by the more recent Dredd text stories in the Megazine but wouldn't mind seeing more text stories in the specials. I have a feeling I might be in the minority though...
#16
General / Random Non-Dredd Questions
20 March, 2023, 03:02:07 PM
I was very young when i was introduced to 2000ad but I have hazy memories of a running joke where Tharg slags the bejaysus out of Milton Keynes and the people therefrom.

How did that come about? Was it in reference to the future Milton Keynes in Strontium Dog?

While of course today's Tharg is one of his finest incarnations ever, he's a way more factual and informative Tharg and I kind of miss the snidey, sarky, boastful Tharg of back then. That said, I'm not sure picking on Keynesians would fly in this day and age.
#17
General / Which do you prefer?
22 January, 2023, 04:53:22 PM
Just out of curiosity...

Clint Langley's photoshop work with actual photos, like in the Books of Invasions, or his linework like in Joe Pineapples?

Think I'm going to have to go with his current style - the Invasions stuff was great but could get a bit messy at times, and that style's culmination in Sexy Ostriches just didn't hit the spot for me at all.

However, his Belardinelli tribute in Slaine and his current Meg and Prog work is just lovely - I could look at it all day.  I also preferred his old Sláine-in-Robin-Hood-times stuff before he recoloured it, I have to admit - I preferred the lovely penmanship unblurred by photoshop filters.

I may be adding similar questions about other artists to this thread, if anyone indulges me with an answer.
#18
Books & Comics / The New Adventures of Pat Mills
13 October, 2022, 12:34:18 AM
Quote from: Jim_Campbell on 12 October, 2022, 09:25:43 PM
Quote from: Woolly on 12 October, 2022, 08:05:10 PM
After everything he's said for creator's rights, to then jump on this bandwagon is just baffling.

TBH, Mills has never been about "creators" rights, he's only ever been about his rights.

Presumably, his position has been that it's up to other creators to stand up for themselves and maybe it's his supporters who've cast him as a champion of creator rights in general, but his willingness to replace artists at will on his strips (and the shameful exclusion of Martin Emond from the Accident Man credits) seems to indicate that he regards the artist as very much secondary in the creator hierarchy. In that light, his willingness to embrace AI 'art' is unsurprising.

However, we should probably break this out into another thread rather than completely derail this one...

Done!

I don't claim to understand much about either NFTs or AI art, but the latter makes me uncomfortable as someone who makes his living - well, half his living - out of commissioned artworks.  He's got his own Jimmy Who? by the sound of it. Not cool.  I remember Gordon Rennie making the same point about Pat's crusade for creators' rights actually being a crusade for one creator's rights. 

It doesn't need to be said, of course, that Pat made 2000ad what it is, and created some of the best series Tharg ever gave us.  I'll continue re-reading early Sláine and Nemesis for the rest of my life.  But I don't believe he's done anything particularly special for a very long time, and I've found myself getting increasingly tired of his brand of angry narcissism.  I hate to say it, but I don't miss him much in the prog.
#19
Film & TV / Trainwreck
17 September, 2022, 12:00:48 PM
People were recommending the Woodstock 99 documentary to me left, right and centre, including a bus driver after it turned out I was the only one on board and we started chatting.

Weird - I remember the festival happening, though I was already a bit too old for the Nu Metal stuff that seemed to be the order of the day back then - but I don't remember hearing any controversy about it.  Which is incredible, given that it really did seem to be a clusterfuck, which was the doc's proposed title. 

I'd planned to watch the first episode last night but ended up watching all three, fascinated as the joy and optimism gradually became a 90s, sunburnt version of Kids Rule OK.
#20
Books & Comics / Jerusalem
30 July, 2022, 05:45:14 PM
I've gone from not reading anything for way too long, to tackling this fecking Odyssey of a book.  It's been a few months now, but according to my Kindle app, I'm exactly halfway through.

It's been worth it though.  At first, [spoiler]we go from slices of kitchen sink drama (albeit in many different time periods throughout Northampton's history) to a brief glimpse of the afterlife.  Now, I've discovered that what we saw was only a tiny sliver of a way, way bigger afterlife, peopled by a kind of dead Famous Five that get up to all kind of adventures amongst its dizzyingly huge architecture, outside of time though offering brief glimpses into the chronological world, in which time is a kind of jelly holding every event that every happened.[/spoiler] Christ, my brain.

Like pretty much everything I've read by Alan Moore, I'm looking forward to finishing it then rereading it, forearmed with the knowledge amassed from later chapters that will put the earlier stuff into context.